

Edgar and the Dragon 2

By Joseph Davis

Cover Illustration by Therése Larsson

Scripture verses taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

# I.

"Edgar, wake up! You are needed in the Dragon Kingdom."

Edgar recognized his scaly friend's hissing whisper, but her voice sounded oddly distant. He opened his eyes and blinked in the darkness. His bed felt unusually hard. Oh yes, he was sleeping in a tent. With the rest of his scout patrol.

"I don't want to get up," his friend Jamie groaned, shifting in his sleeping bag beside Edgar.

Edgar turned toward Jamie's voice and saw the pale yellow glow of the dragon's eyes widening in alarm. She had woken the wrong boy!

"Anyway, who are you?" Jamie continued, a note of panic creeping into his voice. Edgar heard him shifting more frantically. Then Jamie's flashlight came on, and once Edgar had blinked the momentary blindness out of his eyes, he saw the white beam of light shining directly on the silvery scales of the dragon's face. The pupils of her catlike yellow eyes narrowed as she squinted. Jamie drew a deep breath, preparing to let out a scream that was sure to wake not only everyone in the tent, but probably every single scout in the whole camp.

Edgar leaped into action. He threw himself over Jamie, clamping a hand over the boy's mouth and using his other hand to grab the flashlight and turn it off. "Jamie," he said, calmly and quietly, "you know there's no such thing as dragons, don't you? A nod will do."

Edgar felt his friend's slight nod.

"Good," he continued. "So, since you know that dragons don't exist, you know that this must be a nightmare. Right?" Another nod. "And you don't like nightmares, do you? No, why would you? So, I suggest that you curl back up in your sleeping bag, gently and quietly, and just let all of this go away so you can start dreaming something else. Doesn't that sound like a good plan?"

After waiting for a final nod from his friend, Edgar helped him back down onto his bedroll and pulled the sleeping bag up over his face. He pocketed Jamie's flashlight – better not to take any risks. A sliver of moonlight appeared at the far side of the tent as the dragon slithered backwards out into the night. Edgar grabbed his backpack and followed her, trying not to step on any of his friends on the way out. He found his boots by the entrance of the tent and managed to get his feet into them without stumbling.

"So, do we all look alike to you or something?" he asked, stepping out into the moonlight.

"Smell alike," the dragon replied. "You all smell like wood smoke, grass, sweat and little boy."

"Little boy?" said Edgar. "Really, I'm surprised that you can smell anything at all over that breath of yours."

"Ha ha," said the dragon. "Be careful with your words. We wouldn't want any more Shadow Edgars running around, now would we?"

"No, I suppose not." Edgar shuddered. "Anyway, speaking of trouble, why did you come to get me this time? What danger am I supposed to rescue the Dragon Kingdom from?"

"No danger this time," said the dragon. "I've come to invite you to the great feast."

"Feast?" Edgar said suspiciously. "What kind of feast? The kind where the fireberry trees are all dead, and the feast can't begin until the Dragon King has sent me to World's End Peak to fetch new ones?"

The dragon heaved a great sigh. "Just climb up on my back," she said. "We don't want to be late. I can explain along the way."

Edgar adjusted his backpack and climbed up onto the dragon's back. Well, at least I'm not in my pajamas this time, he thought. He buttoned up the front of his scout shirt as his scaly friend beat her great, silvery wings and took off.

# II.

As they flew away over the forest, the dragon told Edgar all about the feast. "Her royal highness, the princess of the Dragon Kingdom, is turning thirteen," she explained.

"Wasn't she only ten or so just a few months ago?" Edgar asked.

"Well, as you know, time works a bit differently in our world," the dragon replied. "And anyway, she skipped a year."

"Skipped a year?"

"Yes. On her eleventh birthday, the king promised to give her anything within his power."

Edgar gaped. "That sounds like a dangerous promise to make to one of the royal dragonlets!"

"Well, the king has always been a bit of an indulgent father. Anyway, the princess wished to be one year older."

Edgar thought about it. "Well, that's easily granted, I suppose," he said after a moment. "If you wished the same thing right now, I could just tell you to wait a year."

"Yes, the queen thought of that," said the dragon. "But the princess, as you know, has many endearing qualities besides patience. And the king had made his promise in front of some visiting ambassadors from the Fairy Kingdom."

"Ambassadors?" said Edgar. "From the Fairy Kingdom? But aren't they..."

"Yes," said the dragon. "And no. I can try to explain. But first, the feast. So the king decreed right then and there that his daughter was, henceforth, to be counted as twelve years old. And as you know, the King's word is the dragons' law. So this year we are celebrating the princess' thirteenth birthday, and all the most illustrious guests from every kingdom are to attend. It is a matter of pride for the king that visitors come from far and wide to celebrate the day that his daughter grows from a Stage Two Dragonlet to a Stage Three Dragonlet."

"Stage Three Dragonlet?" Edgar shook his head. "Anyway, do you mean to say that you've come all the way to my world just to bring me to the palace so that the Dragon King can boast about how far I traveled to get there?"

"It is a great honor to be invited to the princess' birthday party," the dragon pointed out. "And there will be free food."

"Will there be fireberry ice cream?" Edgar asked. "Oh, never mind – tell me about the fairies. What are the dangerous, sworn enemies of the Dragon Kingdom doing sending ambassadors to the king? What kind of mischief are they trying to make?"

"I suppose you could ask them that yourself," the dragon answered, gesturing behind her left shoulder with a flick of her snout.

Edgar turned to look. At first he saw nothing but clouds in the moonlight. Then he noticed what looked like a swarm of bats flapping through the night behind them. The bats seemed to be approaching them rather quickly, and after a moment, Edgar realized that they were not bats at all. Rather, they were fairy warriors, each armed with a small magic spear.

# III.

"Ummm, I don't suppose we could speed things up a bit?" Edgar asked nervously as the fairy warriors drew closer. The tips of their spears gleamed in the moonlight. Edgar tried not to think about the fairy spear that had once turned his friend Lucretia into a stone statue.

"A dragon, run from fairies?" the dragon snorted.

"Well, I suppose you're probably immune to their magic spears or something," Edgar said, trying to count the flying warriors. They shifted formation too quickly for him to get an exact count, but there seemed to be at least twenty of them. "But you see, I really don't want to get turned into stone before showing up to the feast. Imagine how mortified the Dragon King would be if his guest of honor had to be carried in by two dragons and didn't say anything or even touch his food all evening."

"Technically, the guest of honor is Moriana," said the dragon.

"Moriana?" said Edgar. "The Queen of the fairies? But why would the Dragon King invite her? She's his sworn enemy! Mark my words, she's up to no good. She's..."

"Delighted to finally make your acquaintance, Edgar," a sweet, feminine voice called from the midst of the fairy warriors as they pulled up alongside the dragon.

Edgar stared. The figure who had addressed him was a pale, beautiful woman no larger than a small child. Her gossamer gown rippled in the moonlight as her butterfly wings fluttered and her long, black hair streamed in the wind. On her head gleamed a small silver crown. Edgar had seen this fairy before, from a distance, and had hoped never to see her again.

"Moriana," he growled.

"Edgar," she replied sweetly. "Master spy and thief, in the employ of the Dragon Kingdom. I know you by reputation, of course – sorry that I did not get to meet you last time you came to visit my palace. I would have loved to have shown you some proper fairy hospitality."

Edgar thought about the things he had seen while sneaking around in the dungeons of the Fairy Queen's palace, and he shuddered. "My friend Lucretia experienced enough of your proper fairy hospitality," he said. "You'll be happy to hear that she's alive and well. She's not a statue anymore."

"Art often loses its value with time," the Fairy Queen said with a dismissive wave of her tiny hand. "Anyway, I have plenty of new sculptures that are far more diverting. So, what business brings you to our world this time, Edgar? Have the dragons taken a liking to anything else in my palace?"

As Edgar debated whether or not he should tell Moriana his business, he suddenly realized that the swarm of fairy warriors had quietly surrounded them. His mind raced as he considered the weapons he had to fight with. Jamie's flashlight could temporarily blind a fairy, and he could throw it – once. In his backpack he had his scout knife. His dragon could probably take down five or six of the warriors herself. And of course he had his memory verses – but unlike the shadow dragons, the fairies were not created by sin, so they would probably be immune. As he thought of the Bible verses, one of them flashed through his mind: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."

"No, I'm afraid I won't be paying you a visit this time," he said. "I'm here to see some old friends and eat some good food. What brings you and your warriors out on a night like this?"

"Good food?" the Fairy Queen said with a laugh. "It seems that you and I are out on the same errand, Edgar. No doubt your dragon friend has summoned you to the thirteenth birthday party of the Dragon Princess."

"I heard that you are the guest of honor," said Edgar.

Moriana giggled delightedly. "Well, it wouldn't be proper of me to say that myself – 'pride goes before a fall' – isn't that right? But, if one were to compare the size, power and wealth of my kingdom with all the other royal guests who have been invited – well, perhaps calling them 'royal' at all is being a bit generous. Anyway, shall we be traveling companions on the way to the feast? It would be amusing to hear about how you enjoyed your last visit to my palace."

Edgar scanned the formation of fairy guards, searching in vain for some break through which he and the dragon could escape. It seemed that he had no choice. "The dungeons were a bit cold," he commented.

"Oh, I can see that they warm them up in time for your next visit," the Fairy Queen said cheerfully.

"I'm sure the dragons won't be sending me to you again, now that you seem to be such close allies. How did that happen, anyway?"

The Fairy Queen was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, the pretended cheerfulness had disappeared from her voice. "Well, I suppose you were going to find out sooner or later," she said. "In the last year or so, we fairies have been forced to give up our quarrel with the dragons in the face of a new, common enemy. The Shadow King has returned."

# IV.

"The Shadow King?" said Edgar. "But he's gone! The magician Homer undid his curse, and then we defeated that awful living shadow with a verse from the Bible. He disappeared without a trace – the Dragon King had all his best hunters out looking for him in case he might have escaped, but they never found any sign of him."

"Not at first," the Fairy Queen said grimly. "But we fairies started seeing signs of him last year." And she told Edgar her tale.

It had all started with a broken lamp. At least, the fairies had thought that it was broken, at first. The magical stone that made it glow seemed weak – too weak to light up the corner of the Fairy Queen's library where the lamp was kept. She had sent for another lamp, newly created by her enchanters with a fresh stone. The new lamp worked wonderfully until she installed it in the same corner – then it suddenly became dim. Suspecting some kind of magical mischief, Moriana had summoned her enchanters, who came and tried to use their magic to light up the corner directly. However, the more they tried, the dimmer the corner became, as if the darkness was just drinking up their magic. Finally, that whole section of the library became an inky black spot of midnight. And then, one day, the darkness suddenly vanished, and the troublesome corner was as bright as normal again.

Over the course of the following weeks, the darkness began showing up in various places around the Fairy Queen's palace, never staying for longer than a minute or two. Meanwhile, various fairies began complaining that small magical items they owned were going missing. The Fairy Queen's guards were unable to find the thief. Her enchanters suspected that there was some connection to the mysterious darkness.

When a visiting pea merchant came to do business with the fairies, Moriana mentioned the problem to him. The man told her about the plague of shadow dragons that had come over the Dragon Kingdom, and about the vanished Shadow King. He said that the dragons had a method for dealing with these living shadows, and so she had sent ambassadors to ask the Dragon King for help. He sent a wizard and a hunter who were trained to deal with the shadows, but when the two arrived at her palace, the shadow had already disappeared, and they were unable to find a trace of it. Since then, the Fairy Queen had heard rumors of strange darkness in various corners of her kingdom, along with new complaints about missing magical items. These rumors and complaints had lasted up until last month, when the shadow seemed to have disappeared for good.

"Did you ever actually see the Shadow King in dragon form?" Edgar asked. "Or did anyone else see him?"

"No," said the Fairy Queen. "He showed himself only as a formless shadow."

"And has this shadow hurt anyone?"

"Not yet."

"Strange. But then you don't know for sure that it's the Shadow King. And it doesn't sound like your people are really in such a state of emergency."

"For the moment, no," said the Fairy Queen. "And I'd like to keep it that way. I've heard about all the terrible things that happened with the shadow dragons, and I would like to avoid that kind of mess in my kingdom."

"We're nearing Draconia," the dragon announced.

Edgar squinted. After a moment, he managed to make out a roughly triangular shape in the darkness – the great mountain where the dragons had built their capital city.

"Something's wrong!" he said. "Shouldn't we be seeing some lights? After all, isn't tonight the night of the great feast? And even if it weren't, surely there would be some kind of light in the city – fire, torches, candles – but it's pitch black!"

"Perhaps the Shadow King has gotten here before us," the Fairy Queen suggested grimly.

"No, no," the dragon said with a chuckle. "This is just tradition. The feast begins at midnight, and then all the lights will be lit. Until then, the whole city is to be kept in perfect darkness."

A black shape rose from the mountain and came soaring toward them on great, dark wings. Edgar could not make out what it was, but one thing was for sure – it was much, much larger than his dragon. "Is that some kind of tradition, too?" he asked nervously.

"No," said the dragon. "I'm afraid not."

# V.

The fairy warriors gripped their spears and formed a tight circle around their queen as the colossal shape flew closer. Edgar dug through his backpack in search of his knife as his mind raced, searching for a Bible verse. Wasn't it pride that had created the Shadow King? Would something like "pride goes before a fall" help?

But just as he prepared to shout the verse into the night, he realized that the enormous creature that flew toward them was not the Shadow King turned colossal, but some kind of giant, black bird.

"Alarusthrastoganuthromianaga!" the creature squawked thunderously, wheeling around to come up beside the dragon.

"Is that you, Ted?" she replied. "Wow, you've grown!"

The giant bird laughed. "Just because I used the long form of your name doesn't mean that you have to use the long form of mine," he replied. "Remember, for my people, short forms are considered friendly."

What could be shorter than Ted? Edgar wondered, packing his knife away again.

"Do you want me to eat those fairies for you, old friend?" the bird asked casually.

Edgar shot a glance at Moriana, who did not seem to find the comment amusing in the slightest.

"Thank you, but no," the dragon replied. "They're sort of our allies now – and one of them is the guest of honor at the great feast. But what brings you all the way to the Dragon Kingdom?"

"Another honored guest," the giant bird said, making a motion with his beak to indicate the black-cloaked girl nestled among the feathers between his wings. Edgar had not noticed her until that moment. Now, as he looked, he caught a glimpse of red hair in the moonlight.

"Lucretia!" he cried.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to greet me," his friend called. "Ted here offered me a ride to the feast, and when I heard that you were coming, he was kind enough to bring me out to meet you. I wanted to talk to you before the feast started – there's something important that you need to know."

"Is it about the Shadow King?" Edgar asked.

Lucretia hesitated. "I can't say at the moment," she said. "This is the sort of thing that we should talk about alone."

"Shall I cover my ears?" the Fairy Queen asked dryly.

"Would you?" Lucretia asked.

"No."

As Moriana spoke, they arrived at the guard perimeter around Draconia, and a troop of dragon guards flew up to meet them. The guards were very happy to see Edgar and Lucretia, and they almost did a good job pretending to be happy to see the Fairy Queen and her soldiers. They led all the guests to a great landing field around the back side of Draconia, where numerous other flying guests were being sorted out in the dark.

Once they had landed, the enormous bird tried to bid them farewell.

"But Ted, you really must stay for the feast," the dragon insisted.

"I couldn't impose on the Dragon King's hospitality," the bird replied. "I have shown up uninvited, and anything that eats as much as a growing roc like me really has to make dinner plans in advance. Why, I would probably eat as much as all the other guests put together!"

"Nonsense!" the dragon said. "Of course you are welcome – an honored guest like Lucretia has the right to bring a bodyguard with her, especially given the present circumstances." Here she gave the Fairy Queen a quick, unhappy look, which Moriana pretended to ignore. "Anyway, on an occasion like this there is sure to be plenty of food – enough to feed an army."

"Would you like a bodyguard?" Ted asked Lucretia hopefully.

"I would be honored to have you as my bodyguard," Lucretia said.

"Oh, thank you!" the bird cried happily. "I was so hoping I would get to taste some of this feast, or at least see it – this is not an occasion to miss."

A pair of dragon functionaries, realizing the reason for the roc's joy, scurried off in a panic – presumably to arrange accommodations and food for their new guest, who was about as large as six or seven full-grown elephants. Meanwhile, another team of functionaries escorted the guests to a vast, dark field where a multitude of foreign visitors stood waiting silently by the longest table Edgar had ever seen. He and his companions were escorted to a place near the far end of the table, where they joined the crowd in their expectant silence.

As Edgar waited silently for the festivities to begin, he tried to ignore the delicious smells wafting from the table before him and the rumbling that they woke in his stomach. Even though it was the middle of the night, he suddenly found himself ravenously hungry.

Then, all at once, the lights came on, and the crowd let out a great cry.

# VI.

At first, Edgar thought that the crowd's excitement was due to the astonishing array of rare and exotic dishes that covered the impossibly long table. As magical lanterns and lampposts sprung to life and cast their warm glow over the feast, Edgar saw that the Dragon King's chefs had prepared dishes that he had only ever heard of. Gold-dipped elven fireberry tarts, braised silverbeast a la draco, purple star cheese... The chefs had also prepared a great many things that Edgar had never heard of. Fountains of pink liquid bubbled up from what appeared to be pale blue ice sculptures. An enormous, black frosted cake glittered with gemstones in every color Edgar could imagine. A variety of sweet and savory smelling pies fluttered low over the table on doughy wings. All of this would have been enough to provoke cries of shock and wonder from anyone. However, after a few moments of taking in the incredible sights and smells, Edgar realized that the guests were not looking at the food at all – rather, they were all looking at him.

Esteemed visitors of all shapes and sizes – dragons, fairies, humans, frogmen, unicorns, goblins, Ted the roc bird, bluebears, elves and creatures Edgar could not identify – all had their gazes fixed on him with expressions of wonder and amazement. Unsure of how to react, he began scouring his mind for some kind of a speech to make. But then his gaze fell on some of the visitors closer to his seat and he realized that they were looking slightly to the left of him.

Edgar stood almost at the head of the table. To his left, at the actual head, stood the Dragon Princess, a slender, silvery dragonlet only slightly larger than him. She stood on her hind legs, a pose that dragons considered extremely elegant but which Edgar thought looked ridiculous. On her head she wore a fine golden crown studded with three dazzling green emeralds. To her left stood the Fairy Queen, resting her pale hands on the back of the jewel-studded chair reserved for the guest of honor. Behind the Fairy Queen hovered two fairy soldiers, holding between them a crown that looked like the one on the princess' head, but made of silver and decorated with purple gemstones instead of green.

"Why is everyone so amazed?" Edgar whispered to his friend the dragon, whom the functionaries had placed to his right.

"Why, don't you see?" the dragon whispered back to him. "Her new crown – the gift from the Fairy Queen. Those three purple stones are—"

At that moment, the dragon was cut off as a hush fell over the crowd and the Fairy Queen began to speak.

"Your Highness, Princess Balidorithrugianoberella," she said, loudly enough for the whole crowd to hear, "may I congratulate you on your thirteenth birthday and your transition to Stage Three Dragonlet by presenting you with this new crown. Perhaps you recognize the magical amethysts of Norinarialaforinagor the Wise?" Edgar detected a note of smugness in Moriana's voice as she posed the question. She seemed to be speaking to the Dragon King, who stood at the far end of the table, and not to the princess at all. It was hard to read the King's reaction, since the table was so long that he looked like a small silver lizard in the distance. "With your permission, Your Highness?"

The Dragon Princess removed her crown. The Fairy Queen took the silver diadem from her servants' hands, took to the air with a flutter of her wings, and placed the new crown on the princess' head. "You look so much nicer in purple," she said in a sweet, quiet voice. "In the Fairy Kingdom, green is a color for peasants and children – princesses and grown-ups wear purple."

"Thank you so much," the princess said. Then, remembering that this was a public feast, she raised her voice and addressed the crowd. "The Princess of the Dragon Kingdom thanks the Queen of the Fairies for her rare and generous gift. The Dragon Kingdom accepts this token of friendship from the noble Kingdom of the Fairies."

The crowd applauded wildly for about a whole minute. As the applause died down, Edgar noticed that the gazes of all the guests had shifted slightly to the right.

"Are they all looking at me now?" he whispered to the dragon through gritted teeth.

"Yes," she whispered back.

"And why is that?" he asked nervously.

"To watch you give your gift to the princess."

Edgar turned toward the Dragon Princess, meeting her expectant gaze with a nervous smile as he searched his pockets.

# VII.

"Your Highness," Edgar began, "Princess..." he suddenly remembered that he had never learned to pronounce her name properly, and continued, "...of the dragons. I have come from far away, very far away, and as you know, I come from a world of rare and wonderful things..." As he spoke, his fingers searched desperately among the items in his pockets. Pocket knife? No. Playing cards? No? Lint? No. But what was that cold metal cylinder? Oh yes, that!

". . . And so," he concluded, "I would like to celebrate this momentous occasion by presenting you with Jamie the Great's magical talisman of light!" With this, he pulled his friend Jamie's flashlight from his pocket and presented it to the Dragon Princess.

The royal dragonlet took the small flashlight in her silver paw and peered at it curiously.

"Jamie the Great?" she said.

"A very mighty wizard in my world," Edgar explained. "His powers are so great that he can..." He thought about the day before, when Jamie had gotten a talking to from their scout leader for playing with a burning stick while standing under a tree with low-hanging branches. "Yes, his powers are so great that he can create huge, consuming fires – whole forests can go up in smoke from the terrible flames. He is a very dangerous wizard, greatly feared."

"And how did you get this from him?" the princess asked skeptically.

Edgar thought about how he had clamped his hand over Jamie's mouth to keep him from screaming and taken the flashlight from him. "I took him by surprise," he said. "Anyway, I would rather not brag about it. Happy Birthday, and congratulations on becoming a Stage Three Dragonlet."

The princess handed the flashlight to a servant and delivered a brief thank-you speech that she seemed to have learned by heart.

And then, finally, the princess took her seat, allowing the guests to be seated as well. Edgar heaved a great sigh of relief as the eyes of the crowd turned to the food, and away from him. He took the opportunity to help himself to a generous portion of braised silverbeast a la draco, which he focused on enjoying thoroughly. Or at least, he tried to. It was hard to enjoy his food while overhearing the conversation between the Dragon Princess and the Queen of the Fairies.

"Is your thirteenth birthday party everything you hoped that it would be, my dear?" the Fairy Queen asked sweetly as two dragon servants served her pink pea soup and some kind of fizzy purple drink.

"Well, I suppose it's all very grand," the princess said, "but really, having to speak in front of all these guests – I hardly even know any of them. It's all a bit..."

"They're really your father's guests, aren't they?" the Fairy Queen asked. "No, I don't mean to say that he planned this whole party for himself and not for you – not at all. I'm sure he means well. But in the Fairy Kingdom, a thirteen-year-old princess is considered grown up enough to plan her own party, with the guests that she wants."

"I'm plenty grown up!" the princess huffed.

"Oh yes," the Queen said, "a Stage Three Dragonlet." She leaned in closer to the princess, and Edgar had to strain to hear what she said next. "You know, my dear, I agree with you – thirteen is quite old enough to make your own decisions. It's a shame that your father just can't understand that you're not a hatchling anymore. In the Fairy Kingdom – well, as I said, things are different."

Overhearing this conversation made Edgar uncomfortable. He felt like the Fairy Queen was up to something, but he did not know what it was, or what he could do about it. He cast a quick glance at Lucretia, who had been placed beside Ted, too far away to help.

Edgar finished his silverbeast and reached for some purple star cheese. He wished he could sit with Lucretia instead. He was one of the guests whom the Dragon Princess did not really know, and she seemed too engrossed in her conversation with the Fairy Queen to get to know him. Edgar longed to speak to Lucretia privately, to hear what she had wanted to say to him but could not in front of the Fairy Queen. Is it about her past? he wondered. Has she finally managed to find out who she is and where she came from before the fairies brainwashed her?

Edgar tried to make conversation with his friend the dragon as he ate, but she was not especially good at small talk. Dragons seldom were. Thankfully, as Edgar got to work on his dessert – a slice of a flying pie, with fireberry ice cream – the Dragon King stood up to give a speech. This meant that Edgar was spared listening to more of the Fairy Queen's conversation with the Dragon Princess.

Or so he thought. Sadly, as the king spoke at length about how proud he was of his daughter, the Fairy Queen kept making small comments that Edgar could not help overhearing. "It really is hard for some fathers to remember that their daughters aren't hatchlings anymore," she commented as the Dragon King spoke about the joy of seeing the princess hatch from an egg. "A fairy father would never treat his daughter like an object to be shown off to his friends," she said as the king went on about how proud he was of the princess. And then, as he spoke about his bright hopes for her future, "in the fairy kingdom, a thirteen-year-old princess can decide her own future."

By the end of the speech, Edgar found himself fantasizing about spraying the Fairy Queen with a giant bottle of bug spray. Would that work on a fairy? he wondered.

After thanking his guests one last time, the Dragon King rose, followed by the princess and all the guests. "Finally," Edgar whispered to his friend the dragon, stifling a yawn. "I could really use some sleep now, especially after listening to the Fairy Queen chatter on and on all evening."

"Sleep?" the dragon whispered with a hissing laugh. "Sorry, Edgar, but this party is just beginning – the festivities end at dawn."

"So what happens now?" Edgar asked, following the sudden flow of the crowd away from the table. "Can I at least find a quiet corner to doze in during this next part?"

"But you are one of the guests of honor," the dragon protested. "You are expected to compete!"

"Compete?" Edgar said, failing to stifle the next yawn.

"Yes, in the Games!" the dragon said. Edgar could practically hear the capital G in the word Games. He did not like the sound of it. Nor did he like the sight of the enormous wooden contraption that came rolling out onto the field, pushed by ten of the Dragon King's servants.

# VIII.

"What is that?" Edgar asked, watching as the six dragons wheeled the giant wooden contraption into place and began locking the wheels. The thing was like a strange forest on a wheeled platform – wooden poles branching off in every direction, with wooden hoops in various sizes and colors.

"Oh, that's the Wingball goal," said the dragon.

"Wingball?" said Edgar. The name rang a bell – he thought that he must have overheard some guards in the Dragon King's palace talking about it once, but he had never actually seen a match.

"Yes, Wingball," the dragon said proudly. "The first of the Games – and, if you ask me, the most fun. Ah, this takes me back..."

Fun sounded a little bit promising, but Edgar studied the goal doubtfully. "How does it work?" he asked.

"Oh, very simple," said the dragon. "This is ceremonial Wingball, not tournament Wingball, so you have three teams of five – for four-fifths of a standard round, but on the fifth plud of the round, instead you switch to five teams of three. Fifth-plud points are counted in a separate pot, and at the end of each quarter, the fifth-plud totals are compared with the totals from pluds one through four to see if a sixth plud will be introduced in the next quarter. If this is the case, then for the sixth plud – which only comes once during the quarter – the players arrange themselves in four teams of four, and –"

"How could fifteen become four teams of four?" asked Edgar.

"It's quite simple," said the dragon. "First, they –"

"On second thought, never mind," Edgar interrupted, remembering how "simple" her first explanation had been. "Could you just tell me how to get a point?" he asked.

The dragon gave him a strange look. "You can't. You can only get three points, five points, five and a half points or twelve points, depending on which hoop you throw the ball through, which direction you are coming from and how many points were scored in the previous fifth and sixth pluds. But for the point to count, you have to throw the ball through the hoop just right, using only your wings."

"My wings?" said Edgar.

"Yes," said the dragon. "If the ball touches any part of your body other than your wings, you lose two points for your team. That's why it's called Wingball."

"I see," Edgar said, glancing over his shoulder to confirm that no wings had suddenly sprouted from his back. "And if one does not have wings?"

"Not have wings?" the dragon said, flabbergasted. "What kind of dragon wouldn't – oh, I see what you mean." She laughed, a throaty, hissing chuckle. "Oh, don't worry about that. See – the King has sent a servant with your wings."

Edgar turned and saw a young dragon approaching with what looked like a dead giant bat in his mouth. As the servant drew closer, he saw that the floppy object was not a bat, but rather a pair of bat-like wings made of cloth, leather and wooden poles. The young dragon helped Edgar to take off his backpack and strap on these new wings.

"You know, you look much more handsome with wings," the dragon commented as Edgar practiced flapping the strange contraptions. It felt a bit awkward, but by pulling on small wooden handles, he was able to move them in almost the direction he wanted.

"Thanks," he said dryly. "But how am I supposed to hold the ball with these things?"

"It's really more bounce than hold," the dragon said. "It's hard to explain – something you learn through practice, like flying. But look – your teammates are forming up over there. You'd better join them."

Edgar followed the dragon's pointing wing and saw three groups of silver dragons chasing each other's tails in slow circles near the goal. One of the groups only had four dragons. Guessing that this was his team, Edgar made his way toward them.

He hardly had time to hear his teammates' names before the Dragon King flew overhead, blowing a whistle and dropping a leather ball about the size of a large grapefruit. All three teams made a mad rush for the ball as it fell. Since Edgar's artificial wings did not really work for flying, he was at a slight disadvantage here, and a rather largish dragon from one of the other teams got the ball first.

The first plud was a total disaster. One of Edgar's teammates managed to steal the ball and pass it to him, and he actually succeeded in bouncing it off one of his artificial wings up toward one of the wooden rings – but a dragon from another team came flying through the air and blocked it. The ball bounced from dragon to dragon in a circular formation that spiraled higher and higher, up over the top of the goal. "I'll just wait right here," Edgar said to himself, watching his teammates disappear up into the night sky. Suddenly, one of the dragons fumbled the ball, and Edgar ran to catch it. Again he managed to bounce it off his wing. He even managed a second bounce, aiming the leather ball straight at a low-hanging yellow hoop. He watched it sail through the air as if in slow motion, approaching the hoop as a dragon dove to intercept it. The dragon missed. The ball went in.

The Dragon King blew his whistle, and only then did Edgar notice that the dragon who had tried to intercept the ball was one of his teammates, who was now looking quite miffed. The team gathered in a circled, and all four of the dragons gave Edgar the kind of look that one does not want to get from a dragon.

"Let me guess," he said, "I wasn't supposed to put the ball through that hoop, was I?"

"Not yet," hissed one of the dragons. "You just gave three points to team C and two points to team A, and now the plud is over."

"Are we team A or C?" Edgar asked hopefully.

"B," one of his teammates answered unhappily.

At that moment, Lucretia came running over. "Edgar!" she cried. "You have to – wow, you look good in wings."

"Do you think so?" he asked shyly, turning around so she could get a better look at the false wings.

"You know, I wouldn't have guessed it, but – never mind. You have to follow the princess!"

"The princess?" said Edgar.

"Yes!" Lucretia said frantically. "Moriana wriggled her way out of the game by claiming that her butterfly wings were too delicate for this kind of thing – and then she went off with the princess, apparently to take a tour of the castle. I think she's up to no good. We have to follow her."

"But wouldn't it bring dishonor on the Dragon King if one of his guests of honor dropped out of the game?" asked Edgar.

"To be honest," said one of his teammates, "I think it would be a greater dishonor if you were to keep playing."

"The Dragon King asked me personally to send you after his daughter," said Lucretia. "Of course he couldn't say it in front of all his guests, but he doesn't want Moriana spending too much time alone with his daughter."

"But my team needs me," Edgar protested, thinking about how awkward it had been to sit next to the princess and the Fairy Queen at dinner. He turned toward his teammates, trying to get them to confirm this, but they had all suddenly become very busy clearing their throats and looking around at everything else but him.

"Oh, Ted will be happy to take your place," said Lucretia. "We have to keep the Dragon Princess safe. Come on!" She grabbed his hand and led him, at a run, toward the palace.

"So," Edgar said as they ran, "what was it you wanted to tell me before we arrived?"

"Something terrible," said Lucretia. "I just hope it's not too late."

# IX.

While searching for her lost memories and her true identity, Lucretia had visited the merchant who had bought her (as a statue) from the Fairy Queen. The man could offer her a discount on Elven Woodspice, but he could not tell her anything more than she already knew: she had been a stone statue in front of the Fairy Queen's palace, and he had bought the statue from the Fairy Queen for two kilos of rare pink peas. He was very sorry to disappoint her, but, while they were on the subject of the fairies, he happened to mention that a lot of counterfeit magical objects had been coming out of the Fairy Kingdom in recent weeks.

The counterfeits looked just like normal magical objects – enchanted lamps, cleaning crystals, one-chop axes and the like – but, soon after the unfortunate buyer took them home, they started leaking some kind of black, shadowy substance until they suddenly stopped working.

Lucretia thought that this sounded very suspicious, and she got a lift with her friend Ted to the Fairy Kingdom to investigate. But while they were on their way, they were met by a dragon messenger who invited them to drop what they were doing and attend the princess' birthday party.

Lucretia did not want to abandon her plans to snoop around in the Fairy Queen's palace. After all, she had two great mysteries to solve there – whatever was going on with the counterfeit magical items, and the mystery of who she had been before waking up without her memories in Moriana's dungeon. But when she heard that the Fairy Queen herself would be attending the celebration as the guest of honor, she had to follow along and keep an eye on things. Something told her that Moriana was up to some serious mischief.

As Lucretia finished her story, she and Edgar turned a corner and saw the Fairy Queen and the princess entering the palace, with two fairy warriors fluttering behind them. Edgar and Lucretia hurried after them.

"What an incredibly lifelike statue," Moriana commented as they caught up. She was examining a stone statue of a unicorn that stood in the entryway. "Of course, I have seen more lifelike," she went on, indicating Lucretia with a nod. "Are you looking for something to steal?" she asked Edgar.

"No," Edgar said with the best smile he could manage. "I'm just looking for some pleasant company. Mind if we walk with you and the princess?"

"Oh, our royal business wouldn't be of any interest to you," the Queen said. "We have important, grown-up things to talk about."

"Really?" said Lucretia. "Would you really ask the princess to deny one of the guests of honor on such a momentous occasion?"

The Dragon Princess looked back and forth from the Fairy Queen to Lucretia. She seemed decidedly uncomfortable. "Oh, it's all right if they come along," she said to Moriana. "I wouldn't want to embarrass Father by turning away his guests."

"Well, at least you understand him," said the Fairy Queen. She turned to Edgar and Lucretia. "Oh, very well. The Princess was just giving me a tour of the palace. Please, join us."

Edgar had seen the palace of the Dragon King many times before, and he found the ensuing tour almost as tedious as the conversation between the princess and the Fairy Queen. "Do everything without complaining or arguing," he reminded himself. This was one of his Bible verses from Sunday School – and not a particularly easy one to follow at the moment. At least it did not say "do everything without yawning". As they walked, he found himself getting more and more tired.

After what seemed like hours of strolling through stone corridors, trying to pretend to converse pleasantly, they arrived at a spot Edgar had never seen before – the bedroom of the Dragon Princess. As soon as she opened the door, two things became very clear: her favorite color was green, and she was ashamed of the fact that the Fairy Queen could see all of her green pillows and tapestries and jewels and things.

"It really is a shame that your father has decorated your room with such a childish color," the Fairy Queen commented as she entered. "He really doesn't understand you at all, does he?"

"No," the princess agreed quickly, "he doesn't. I've been trying and trying to tell him to have everything changed to a sensible color like purple, but he just won't listen!"

"That's not true!" a young dragon squeaked from behind a pile of green pillows.

"Garth!" the Dragon Princess roared, using the short form of her younger brother's name in her fury. "How many times have I told you not to come into my room!"

"But it's not true!" the little dragonlet squealed, leaping out from his hiding place and racing past them. "You begged Father for all these green jewels!" He scampered out into the hall, shouting, "And I'm going to tell Mother what you called me!"

The Dragon Princess slammed the door after him. "No one listens to me!" she fumed.

"No," the Fairy Queen agreed sadly. "No one seems to give you the respect a princess your age deserves. But here, Your Highness, perhaps a gift would cheer you up." She snapped her fingers, and one of her fairy warriors unrolled a small purple tapestry with a beautifully woven picture of a young male fairy playing the lute. "This is Borinello," she said, "one of the greatest – and most handsome – musicians of our time. All the fairy princesses love him and his songs. They all have pictures of him just like this one on their bedroom mirrors. Well, all the ones who are old enough to understand that sort of thing. May I hang the picture on your mirror?"

"Why, of course!" the dragon princess said, rushing over to the mirror and tearing down a piece of green paper with some writing on it. The fairy guard came and hung the small tapestry where the paper had sat.

Edgar recognized the green piece of paper from the Sunday School that he had taught in Draconia during his last visit. It was a Bible verse: "Lord, you have searched me and you know me."

"Borinello writes such lovely songs," the Fairy Queen was saying. "He is a deep musician – the kind who can really express the deep longings of the heart, one's hopes and dreams – the sorts of things that some parents never seem to get. But anyway, I see that my friend Edgar here is quite tired. Perhaps we should conclude this tour here. If I bid you good night and return to the Games, perhaps poor Edgar would not feel so obligated to spy on me, and then he could get some sleep."

For the first and perhaps only time, Edgar felt that the Fairy Queen had said something that he could agree with one hundred percent.

# X.

When Edgar woke up the next morning in his luxurious bedroom in the Dragon King's palace, he immediately realized that something was not right. Specifically, an old man in a blue robe was standing over him, jabbing him in the ribs with a long stick.

"Virgil," Edgar groaned. "Don't magicians knock?"

"Not when matters are this urgent," said the old man. "And I'm Homer. Virgil is off in the land of the gnomes looking for a magic crystal."

"Ah, yes," said Edgar. "Sorry – I don't know how I keep confusing you with your identical twin brother. Maybe if you stopped wearing the exact same cloak..."

"We have no time for your humor, Edgar," said the magician. "The princess is missing."

"What?" Edgar cried, sitting bolt upright. "No," he said after a moment, settling down again. "She can't really be missing missing. All night party, guests from all over, huge castle, ashamed of her green bedroom and resenting her father's guests – she probably spent the night with a friend. She'll turn up soon enough."

"I tell you, she's missing," said Homer. "Look, there's no trace of her anywhere in Draconia." He drew something that looked like a silver kaleidoscope from his pocket and pressed it to Edgar's eye, muttering, "Seek, and you will find."

"You've been keeping up with your Bible verses," Edgar commented.

"Oh yes," said Homer, "the Sunday School you started is still going strong. These days, I have been using my Bible verses as I've been making small magical trinkets like this one. I think it adds a certain –"

"Hey, this is really good!" Edgar interrupted as a glowing map of Draconia appeared in the peephole of the kaleidoscope. "Such detail – I see the palace, the community fountains, the library, Dovetail Street – all in neat little glowing red lines."

"Do you see the princess?" Homer asked hopefully.

"Well, no, but..."

"Then she's not in Draconia. This regascope has been calibrated to find her."

"Well, if it can't find what it's supposed to, then perhaps 'seek and you will find' wasn't really a good verse to choose for this one."

"The Word of God is flawless," Homer said. "But magic has its limits. The regascope can only search a limited area at a time. Since we are in Draconia now, we can only see Draconia. And I tell you, the princess is not here!"

"But where would she have gone?" Edgar said, sitting up and throwing off his covers. As he did, he was momentarily amazed at the sight of his own silver and gold silk pajamas. The Dragon King really had spared no expense for his daughter's thirteenth birthday party.

"Well," said the magician, "you were with her last. His Majesty the king asked you to guard her."

"He asked Lucretia to ask me to guard her," Edgar muttered, trying to ignore a sudden pang of conscience. Was this his fault? Had he failed in his duty to protect the Dragon Princess? "Anyway, the last I saw her, we were in her room – me, Lucretia, the Fairy Queen and two fairy guards. But then the Fairy Queen said she was going to go watch the Games, and she left with her guards. So Lucretia and I figured the danger was over, and we also left to go and get some sleep. I suppose the Fairy Queen might have come back later..."

"The king has already thought about that," said Homer. "He does not want to make a public accusation, but privately, he suspects the Fairy Queen of kidnapping his daughter. But there is no proof. Witnesses saw Moriana watching the Games and then leaving with her guards late last night. They would have noticed if she had a dragonlet with her. But anyway, no one has seen the princess since you were with her. If her bedroom was the last place you saw her..."

"Then there could be some clues there," Edgar suggested, thrusting his feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers and jumping up out of bed. He hurried out into the corridor with the magician close behind.

After a few minutes of navigating the palace's complicated network of passages, they arrived at the bedroom of the Dragon Princess. Everything was just as Edgar remembered it. "She didn't sleep here," he said, examining the pile of green cushions. They were freshly fluffed, with no indentation from a young dragon body. "Maybe she slept at a friend's place after all."

He picked up the piece of green paper that the princess had torn from her mirror the night before, turned it over in his hands and examined it. "Lord, you have searched me and you know me." The princess had painted the words herself, in beautiful dragon calligraphy, during a Sunday school lesson the last time Edgar had been in this world. She had been so proud of this hand-painted Bible verse before – she had even hung it on her bedroom mirror, perhaps to be able to look at it every day. But now she had just torn it down without a thought and let the Fairy Queen replace it with—

Edgar looked up at the tapestry of Borinello, and froze. The tapestry was leaking a small plume of black smoke – inky, pitch-black smoke that writhed and curled in front of the mirror like a living shadow.

# XI.

It did not take long for Homer to figure out that the tapestry of Borinello had been enchanted with some kind of teleportation spell. But now it was used up, and he could not figure out where it led.

"But we know that, anyway," said Edgar. "It must lead to the Fairy Kingdom. It was the Fairy Queen who gave the princess this tapestry, and we know that she's the sworn enemy of the Dragon Kingdom..."

"A sworn enemy who has made peace with the Dragon King and has been seeking help against an even greater enemy," Homer reminded him.

"An enemy that she could be lying about," Edgar shot back. "I wouldn't be surprised if she just made up that whole story about the black shadow and the missing items so she could get close to the Dragon King and kidnap the princess."

"Well, I would certainly be surprised," Homer said, frowning at a small glass vial of the shadowy smoke that he had collected from the tapestry.

"And why is that?" asked Edgar.

"Because," said the magician, "I recognize the magic that was used in this teleportation spell. It's him."

Edgar felt a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, quite sure," Homer said grimly. "The Shadow King has returned."

* * *

The Dragon King was furious when he heard the news. He had been weeping in his throne room over his lost daughter, and when he heard that the Shadow King was behind her disappearance, he leaped out of his throne in a rage and ordered his soldiers to search the four corners of the world for the Shadow King and bring him to justice.

"But your Majesty," Edgar protested, "we've already tried that before and found nothing. We don't need to send everyone everywhere – we know where he is."

"Where?" the King demanded. "Tell me, and I will go myself and wrap my claws around his miserable shadowy throat."

"Your Majesty," said Edgar, "you know that it is only words from the Bible that can defeat him! Anger and violence might even make him stronger. But anyway, the enchanted tapestry came from the Fairy Queen. Many objects with this kind of magic have been coming out of her kingdom recently. That must be where the Shadow King is – he and the Fairy Queen might even be working together."

"Then I shall send all of my warriors to dismantle Moriana's palace brick by brick!" the Dragon King roared. "We will not leave one stone on top of another. Every fortress and every garden shed will be destroyed until my daughter is found and Moriana and her shadowy friend are brought to justice!"

Edgar sensed that the situation was getting more and more disastrous. A Bible verse came to his mind. "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God." He prayed a quick, silent prayer. And then he got an idea.

"Your Majesty," he said. "Open war with the Fairy Kingdom could lead to great tragedy for both sides. Please, allow me to go and find your daughter. I know my way around the Fairy Queen's palace, and I know a Bible verse that can destroy the Shadow King once and for all."

"And Moriana?" said the Dragon King.

At that moment, Homer, who had been standing silently by the door to the throne room, spoke up. "I believe I have just the thing for her, Your Majesty. I have been developing some magical items that should be able to help Edgar on his quest – and if I do say so myself, I don't think that she or her enchanters will be able to match their power."

The Dragon King fixed Edgar with a burning yellow gaze. "Do you really think that you can do this, boy? Because if my daughter is not returned to me within seven days, I'll—"

"I can do it, Your Majesty," Edgar said, bowing deeply. "But I may need some help..."

# XII.

And so Edgar left, later that day, with Lucretia, his friend the dragon, and Ted the roc bird. The dragon and the roc bird said that they could carry Edgar and Lucretia to the edge of the Dragon Kingdom and over the Hills of the Bluebears, but when they reached the Unicorn Forest they would have to walk or find other transportation. Just as dragons could smell the fairies' scent of magic and pea soup from a long way off, fairies were sensitive to the odor of dragons – they claimed that they reeked of gold, scales and arrogance. And anyone could see a roc bird from a long way off – Ted was, after all, as large as six elephants. Or perhaps seven now, after the feast.

"How much did you eat last night, Ted?" Edgar called as they flew, eyeing the roc bird's swollen belly.

"Oh, please don't talk to me about food," the roc bird groaned. "And anyway, why so formal? You don't have to use the long form of my name."

"Is there really a form of your name that's shorter than Ted?" Edgar asked skeptically.

"Why, of course there is!" Lucretia called from the roc bird's back. Then she made a noise like a loud swallowing ending with the letter "d".

Edgar tried repeating it. "'d?" he said.

"Good try, Gar," the bird said. "With a little bit of practice, you just might be able to say that almost kind of correctly."

"Don't give him false hopes," Lucretia chided.

Edgar sighed. He glanced down at the rolling green hills that stretched out below them, straining his eyes to try to spot a bluebear. There were none to be found. So he turned his attention to the magical pouch at his belt. It was made of black velvet, and it was slightly smaller than the palm of his hand. If he had not seen all the things that Homer had put into it, he would have guessed that it contained about five or six marbles. But somehow, the tiny pouch managed to hold a startling array of magical trinkets, all ready to be activated with the right Bible verse. It was larger on the inside than on the outside, Homer had told him while handing him a little black instruction manual with all the Bible verses he would need. After skimming through the book, Edgar had put it into the bag. On a whim, he had folded up the princess's green paper with the Bible verse and put it in as well.

Now the bag was shut tight, with the book, the paper and all the wonderful magical artifacts nestled safely inside. With a single Bible verse, Edgar could open the bag and have a powerful magical arsenal at his fingertips. Yes, a single Bible verse... Now what was that verse again?

"Ummm, Lucretia," Edgar called to his friend, "I don't suppose you remember the Bible verse that opens the bag, do you?"

"Sorry," said Lucretia, "Homer never told me. But if you tell me, I'm sure I can learn it quickly. What is it?"

"Well, ummm..."

"You don't remember, do you?" said the dragon.

"Well, it depends what you mean by remember," said Edgar.

The dragon sighed. "Well, maybe it's just as well. Magic can have strange ways of playing tricks on those who use it. Just look what happened to Norinarialaforinagor the Wise."

"Sorry, who?" said Edgar.

"The Great Dragon Wizard?" said the dragon. "The keeper of the three amethysts?"

"Oh yes, you mean those purple stones on the crown that the Fairy Queen gave the princess? Were those magical?"

"Oh, extremely," said the dragon. "And more than magical, they're historical. That the Fairy Queen had them was a great shock to everyone at the party last night. That she would freely give them to the princess was an even greater shock. Though I suppose she's taken them back now. But perhaps I had better start from the beginning..."

# XIII.

Norinarialaforinagor, or the Great Dragon Wizard, had been the court wizard of a long-forgotten Dragon King a few thousand years ago. This king longed for peace, but he was constantly at war with the Sea Monster Empire. The Emperor of the Sea Monsters refused to make peace on any terms, and he had a nasty habit of devouring all the diplomats that the Dragon King sent to negotiate with him.

The Great Dragon Wizard devoted his career to solving this problem. He tried creating magical defenses for the Dragon Kingdom, but as long as the defenses were up, no one could get in or out of the kingdom, which was bad for trade. So he tried creating magical weapons for the Dragon King's soldiers, but the Emperor of the Sea Monsters refused to back off – he just sent more and more sea monsters until the new weapons were not enough to fight them all off. And the Dragon King refused to launch any kind of counterattack. He wanted peace, not war.

Nevertheless, the war raged on for years as the Great Dragon Wizard delved deeper and deeper into the ancient secrets of magic, trying to find a solution. Finally, he created the four amethysts.

"Four?" Edgar interrupted. "But didn't you say he was the keeper of the three amethysts? There were only three on the princess's crown!"

"Just let me tell the story," the dragon said. And she continued.

The Great Dragon Wizard created four magical amethysts with more power than the world had ever seen before – three small ones, about the size of chicken eggs, and one large one, the size of a melon or a dragon egg. The three small amethysts were items of great power, but the large one was even more powerful by far. With these four crystals, the Great Dragon Wizard probably could have done almost anything. He chose to control minds.

It started with the Emperor of the Sea Monsters. The Great Dragon Wizard used the amethysts to cast a spell to make him desire peace. It worked. He stopped sending his soldiers, became content with the lands he already had, and made peace. Years of terrible conflict came to a sudden end.

With this, the result of all his years of work, the Great Dragon Wizard was content. For about a day. It is hard to say what happened to him after that. Maybe he was angry with the sea monsters for all the years of war, or maybe he was afraid that they would attack again someday. Maybe the power of the amethysts had already started to drive him mad. Anyway, he used his magic to control the Dragon King's mind and launch a counterattack on the sea monsters. It was a devastating attack, especially as he controlled the emperor's mind and made him refuse to fight back. The power of the Empire was crippled.

After this, the Great Dragon Wizard made himself king, and he began controlling the minds of all the other kings and queens in the world, making them come and promise to serve him. He became the most powerful ruler in the history of the world – but then he went completely and utterly stark raving mad. It could have been the madness that made him hide the largest of the amethysts somewhere far away, where no one could ever find it – or it might have been a rare moment of sanity. Anyway, though he decided to get rid of the largest and most powerful of the amethysts, he kept the three smaller stones. And so he came to be called "the keeper of the three amethysts."

However, while he was away hiding the largest of the amethysts, the three smaller ones were stolen. The Great Dragon Wizard lost his ability to control minds, and one night, as he was sleeping, someone got him with a Brussels sprout and turned him into a statue. For many years, this statue stood by the public fountains in Draconia as a warning about the dangers of magic, ambition, and messing with people's minds. Then the statue disappeared, perhaps also stolen.

"Now I understand why everyone was so shocked about the Fairy Queen's gift," said Edgar. "The fact that she could have such powerful magic crystals is ... disturbing."

"Not as disturbing as the fact that she was willing to give them away," the dragon said grimly.

"Yes," Edgar agreed after a moment's thought. "Because why would she do that unless—"

"Unless she had something even more powerful," the dragon concluded. "I fear that the fourth amethyst has been found."

# XIV.

"So," Edgar said, "the fourth amethyst is the most powerful magical talisman this world has ever seen – it can control the minds of all the kings and queens in the world, and it was so powerful that the wizard who created it went mad and tried to get rid of it – and it seems very likely that the Fairy Queen has it."

"And we are headed straight for her palace," Lucretia added as Ted swooped closer. "But at least we have all the magical items that Homer prepared for us. Those must be good for something, right?"

"Oh yes," Edgar said, tugging at the drawstring of the little black bag again. It felt as if the mouth of the bag had been superglued shut.

"You haven't really forgotten the Bible verse that opens the bag," said Lucretia. "Have you?"

"Well. . . I remember it was something about having everything you need," Edgar said. "So I'm almost halfway there. Do you know any verses about having everything you need? Maybe something you learned in the Sunday School?"

Lucretia furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "Be content with what you have," she said, "for God has said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you."

Edgar tried opening the bag again. Once again he failed. "Well, that one was good against the shadow dragons, at least," he said, "since so many of them were created by greed. Do you know any others?"

Lucretia thought about it. "None that I can think of off the top of my head," she said. "But didn't Homer give you a little magic gizmo you could use to talk to him from far away? Why not use that to ask him what the Bible verse was?"

"Brilliant!" Edgar exclaimed. He reached into the enchanted bag to get the little magic gizmo – or at least, he tried to. "Oh," he said as the mouth of the bag still refused to open. "Um, I may have put the little magic gizmo in the pouch with the rest of the stuff," he admitted. "Any more guesses about the Bible verse?"

"How about Philippians 4:13?" Ted suggested. "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength? The chapter around the verse is all about being content with a lot or a little. Maybe strength from Christ is everything that you need."

"Maybe, but that's not the verse," Edgar said, tugging sadly at the drawstring of the pouch. "But how do you know so much about the Bible? Have you been to the Sunday School in Draconia?"

"Oh no," the roc bird said with a laugh. "I was taught by a big, friendly fellow named Ploddy. He said that he was a Bible Adventurer. The last I saw him, he was on his way to the Kingdom of the Gnomes with a girl named Emma and some foresty fellow who rode on his back. I followed along with them for a while since they were so friendly."

"You've met Emma and Ploddy?" Edgar said. "But they were the ones who gave Cornelius his Bible..."

"Oh yes, Cornelius," said the roc bird. "That was the foresty fellow's name! He told me that they were going to start a Sunday School in the Kingdom of the Gnomes."

"Did they teach you any other verses that might open the bag?" Edgar asked hopefully.

"Possibly," said Ted. "It's hard to say, when I don't know which verse is supposed to open the bag. But really, I think we have more important things to worry about right now."

"Really?" said Edgar. "What could possibly be more important than remembering the Bible verse that opens our bag full of magical tools?"

"Oh, I don't know," the roc bird said, "maybe something like figuring out what we're going to do about that army of shadow dragons over there?"

# XV.

"What army of shadow dragons?" Edgar asked nervously, peering at the fluffy white clouds in the blue sky ahead of them. He did not see a single shadow dragon – not even a shadow bird.

"Well, army is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration," Ted answered. "Okay, if you want me to be more exact, what are we going to do about those three or four hundred shadow dragons that are making their way toward us?"

Edgar scanned their surroundings in every direction. He thought he caught a glimpse of a single bluebear peeking its head out of a hole in one of the hills below, and he saw a great dark line of forest on the horizon ahead of them which must be the edge of the Unicorn Forest – but still no shadow dragons. "Where do you think you see them?" he asked.

"Are you sure you know what a shadow dragon looks like?" said Lucretia. "You're not thinking of bluebears, are you?"

"You know, I think I just saw one of those," Edgar said proudly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot," said Ted. "Your human eyesight is not as sharp as mine. In the Unicorn forest over there, under the trees – flying patches of shadow, shaped like dragons. Isn't that what a shadow dragon is?"

"Well, yes," said Edgar. "But if you see them in the forest, why are we still flying toward them?"

The roc bird shrugged in mid-air in a way that made Lucretia hang on for dear life between his wings. "Isn't defeating shadow dragons what you do?" he said.

"Technically, yes – sort of," said Edgar, "but –"

"Then I feel safe," said the roc bird. "I know I'm in capable hands. For one little roc bird like me, four hundred shadow dragons would be a big problem, but as long as I am with a couple of experts, and as long as I know that you have a plan..."

"Oh yes," Edgar said weakly. "A plan. Lucretia, do you have any ideas? I think fleeing for our lives sounds good right about now."

"It would," said Lucretia, "but the Unicorn forest is the best way for us to get into the Fairy Kingdom. And I'm afraid I may have just realized that we're in even more of a hurry to get there than we thought."

"It really doesn't look like the best way for us now," Edgar said nervously, eyeing the dark forest in the distance ahead of them. Now he could see them, like a swarm of black gnats leaving the forest and flying toward them. "But what do you mean? How could we be in more of a hurry than we were before? If we don't bring the princess back before the Dragon King loses his patience..."

"Well," said Lucretia. "We've already guessed that Moriana may have the fourth amethyst, but now that I think about it, it seems equally likely that she hasn't completely figured out how to use it yet. If she had, she would have just controlled the mind of the Dragon King and all his guests at the party. And if I'm right about that, she probably has all her best fairy enchanters examining the amethyst right now, trying to unlock its secrets. The moment they succeed – well then anything we do at that point would be too late. So we're not just racing against the Dragon King's temper – we're probably racing against every enchanter in the Fairy Kingdom. We have to stop Moriana before she can use the fourth amethyst. The fate of the world may depend on it!"

"Maybe the Shadow King will do that for us," Edgar suggested. "After all, this army of shadow dragons would seem to be proof that that part of her story was true."

"So do you want him to get the fourth amethyst, then?" said Lucretia.

"Ummm, no, not really, but – don't you think four hundred shadow dragons are a bit much for us to handle?"

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," Lucretia stated confidently.

"Well, yes," said Edgar, "but wouldn't it be wise to retreat until we've managed to find the Bible verse that opens the bag so that we can get out all our magical tools?"

"I think it would be more useful to find a verse that could stop those shadow dragons," the dragon suggested. The creatures had grown as large as small bats and were drawing closer by the second. Now Edgar could make out their silhouettes. They were, indeed, shaped like dragons, but something about them seemed a bit odd.

"Well, what sin do you think created them?" asked Edgar.

"Probably whatever sin the dragon princess is currently suffering from," Ted suggested.

"Why do you say that?" asked Lucretia.

"Because they're all her," said the roc bird. "Every single one of them."

Edgar suddenly realized what was so strange about the shadow dragons. They were shorter and stouter than adult dragons, with the stubby limbs and broad snouts of dragonlets. Which meant, since they were smaller than he had expected, they were also much closer than he had thought. His dragon banked sharply as the first few shadow dragonlets suddenly closed the gap between them, diving in with claws and teeth ready to strike.

Edgar shouted the first Bible verse he could think of.

# XVI.

"Lord, You have searched me and you know me!" Edgar shouted.

The first wave of shadow dragonlets disappeared in screeching puffs of smoke. The second wave surged forward, but Edgar shouted the same verse again: "Lord, you have searched me and you know me!"

As dozens more shadow dragonlets vanished, the others seemed to get the hint. The whole inky black army turned tail and fled. "After them!" shouted Lucretia. "Don't let them get away!"

The dragon and the roc bird soared after the shadow dragonlets as Edgar and Lucretia shouted the same verse again and again: "Lord, you have searched me and you know me!" They chased the dark monsters all the way to the edge of the Unicorn Forest, picking off all the stragglers they could catch. Unfortunately, there were too many – for every one that they defeated, five or six more disappeared into the cover of the forest. Soon the skies were clear again, but Edgar shuddered at the thought of walking under those trees with all those shadow dragonlets lurking in the darkness. "I don't suppose you could fly us over the forest and drop us off at the edge of the Fairy Kingdom?" Edgar asked.

"Sorry, no," the dragon said, banking sharply over the edge of the forest and spiraling down to land. The roc bird followed. "Ted and I would endanger your mission," she continued. "The fairies' border guards would smell me and see Ted from a long way off."

"Yes," Lucretia said as Ted landed. "And if she were caught entering the Fairy Kingdom – well, that would be very embarrassing for the Dragon King. Especially if it turns out that the Fairy Queen is not behind the kidnapping."

"Not behind the kidnapping?" Edgar said, hopping down off the dragon's back into the long grass. "How could she not be? She gave the princess that tapestry with the teleportation spell!"

"Which Homer said was the Shadow King's magic," Lucretia reminded him.

"So she's in league with the Shadow King," Edgar said with a shudder.

"Or being used by him," said Lucretia. "She came herself and said that she was seeing shadows in her country and wanted our help. Why would she do that if they were on the same side?"

"But Lucretia," said Edgar, "you of all people should know that the Fairy Queen cannot be trusted."

"I know," said Lucretia. "The Fairy Queen is evil, and we need to stop her before she can use the fourth amethyst – but we don't have any real proof that she kidnapped the princess. These shadow dragonlets are proof that the Shadow King is active again, and we know that he is cunning – he could have spied on the Fairy Queen, seen the tapestry she was going to give the princess, and cursed it with the teleportation spell."

"Well, I suppose it's possible," Edgar admitted.

"Anyway," said Lucretia, "how did you know which verse would stop those shadow dragonlets?"

"I didn't," Edgar admitted. "That one just sort of popped into my mind. The Dragon Princess had it on a poster on her mirror. Until she took it down so that the Fairy Queen could hang up that cursed tapestry."

"But what sin created those dragonlets, if that verse would stop them?" Lucretia mused.

"Listening to the Fairy Queen?" Edgar suggested.

"No," said Lucretia, "I don't think that's it... But anyway, we need to keep moving. Moriana's enchanters are clever, whatever else one may say about them. We may have only hours left before they learn how to use the fourth amethyst – or only minutes."

"But what about the princess?" said Edgar. "If you're right, and it really was the Shadow King who kidnapped her, then the Fairy Queen's palace may be the wrong place to look."

Lucretia frowned thoughtfully. "Well," she said, "either the Fairy Queen has her or the Shadow King does. We've just run into an army of shadow dragonlets while on our way to the Fairy Kingdom. So either way, we're probably moving in the right direction."

"All right," Edgar said with a heavy sigh. "I suppose we have to walk through the dark Unicorn Forest, which we know is full of shadow dragonlets, all by ourselves. But you two," he said with a nod toward the dragon and the roc bird, "I guess you could at least fly back to Draconia and tell the King and Homer about the shadow dragonlets. They need to be ready in case the Dragon Kingdom gets invaded again."

After a few words of parting, the dragon and Ted took off and flew back toward Draconia, and Edgar and Lucretia stepped into the shadows of the Unicorn Forest.

"Do you think we'll see a unicorn?" Edgar asked as they strode deeper into the gloomy woods.

"They are very rare," Lucretia reminded him, "but maybe..."

She was interrupted as a group of winged shapes leaped out from behind the trees, forming a circle around them.

"Lord, you have searched me and you know me!" Edgar shouted.

To his shock and amazement, the shadow dragonlets did not disappear. Then he realized that they were not shadow dragonlets at all. Rather, they were fairy warriors, and there were at least a dozen of them. Each one gripped a small, enchanted spear, ready to throw.

# XVII.

Edgar's mind raced as he considered his options. If they tried to run, the fairies would catch them and turn them to stone with their magical spears. If they tried to fight, the fairies would win and turn them to stone with their magical spears.

A Bible verse flashed through his mind: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry."

He cleared his throat. "You have our undivided attention," he said to the fairy warriors. "If you would like to tell us what you want, we are listening."

"Well, what we don't want is intruders," one of the fairies said, taking a step forward. He was short, even for a fairy – hardly taller than Edgar's waist. But from the bright purple stripes on the shoulders of his black uniform, Edgar saw that he was a captain of the Fairy Queen's border patrol. "What are your intentions? Why are you traveling toward the Fairy Kingdom?"

"This forest belongs to the unicorns," Lucretia pointed out. "It is they who decide if travelers may pass this way or not. What is a border patrol doing this far outside of the Fairy Queen's borders?"

"That's our business," the fairy captain said. "But I'm afraid we're going to have to take you in to the palace for questioning."

"Questioning?" said Edgar. "What crime are we suspected of?"

"Trespassing on fairy lands," said the captain.

"Which we clearly are not doing," Lucretia pointed out, "since we are in the middle of the Unicorn Forest."

"Yes, but you mean to," the fairy argued. "You cannot deny that you are travelling in the direction of the Fairy Kingdom."

"And so," said Edgar, "in order to defend the borders of the Fairy Kingdom and keep us from entering, you're going to bring us all the way in to the palace?"

"Yes," said the fairy captain. "For questioning. A process," he added with a wicked smile, "which will be quite thorough – and, depending on how cooperative you are, quite unpleasant."

Edgar considered pointing out that he was on a mission for the Dragon King – who the Fairy Queen had asked for help against the Shadow King – to see if the politics of the situation would make the border guards release them. But he kept silent, for four reasons. Firstly, revealing this might make the guards even more curious about the nature of their mission. Secondly, if the Fairy Queen found out that the Dragon King had sent them, it could damage the relationship between the two kingdoms. Thirdly, it seemed that the border guards wanted to bring them exactly where they wanted to go. And fourthly and finally, the Bible verse kept echoing in his head: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."

"All right," he said. "We'll follow along for questioning. We won't put up a fight."

"You had best not put up a fight," the fairy captain said, "because then we would be forced to turn you to stone."

At a signal from the captain, four more fairy soldiers approached Edgar and Lucretia, taking their bags to be searched and tying their hands. Thankfully, they did not take the little black pouch with the magical tools. It probably looked too small and insignificant for them to care about.

"So," the fairy captain said cheerfully as they walked along, surrounded by fairy soldiers. "Tell me, boy – why do you smell of dragon? Because there's no denying that you do. Gold, silver, jewels, scales, arrogance – I'd recognize that scent anywhere."

"I have a friend who's a dragon," Edgar answered truthfully. "I went for a ride on her back recently."

The fairy captain continued to ask questions as they walked on, and Edgar tried to answer as truthfully as he could without saying anything about the missing princess, the amethyst, the Dragon King, their destination or the Shadow King. It was quite challenging at times, but eventually, the fairy seemed to tire of asking questions, and they plodded on in silence.

The dark forest made strange noises. Branches creaked, leaves rustled in the undergrowth, unseen creatures called shrilly to each other in the distance. Edgar tried not to think about the hundreds of shadow dragonlets hiding somewhere among the trees. Do the fairies know about them? he wondered. Are they on the same side? Or have these warriors come all the way out here to protect the Fairy Kingdom from them? He dare not ask, for fear of revealing too much information about his own mission. So he tried asking indirectly.

"Aren't you and your men at all afraid, patrolling out in the middle of this dark forest?" he asked. "I have heard that there are terrible things in these woods."

"Well," said the fairy captain, "can you think of anything more terrible than fifteen fairy warriors armed with magic petrification spears?"

Edgar thought about it. "At the moment, no, not really."

"Well," said the fairy, "there you go."

"How about thirty unicorns?" a gruff voice from among the trees suggested. "Thirty unicorns that your little toy spears won't work on, who have you surrounded and are wondering what you are all doing trespassing in our forest?"

"Well, I suppose that might be slightly more terrible," the fairy captain said nervously as the speaker stepped out from the trees ahead of them.

The speaker was a unicorn, a great, silvery stallion with a golden horn. As soon as he had shown himself, the other unicorns appeared around them with a silent swiftness that Edgar found quite unnerving. Their silvery bodies almost seemed to light up the gloom of the forest. The magical animals did not look at all pleased.

# XVIII.

Depending on one's perspective, Edgar either got to, or was forced to, watch as the unicorns questioned the fairy captain. He could not quite make up his mind if the sight was hilarious or disturbing.

The unicorns started by taking away all the fairies' spears and making them sit down in a circle, surrounded by unicorn guards with their horns at the ready. Then the large stallion, who seemed to be the leader, made the fairy captain leave the circle, escorted by two unicorn guards. They did not bring him far – and so Edgar and Lucretia, who were still tied up and trapped with the fairies in the middle of the circle, saw the whole interrogation.

Fairies, as everyone knows, are extremely ticklish. Extremely. One of the unicorn guards approached the fairy captain with a long blade of grass in his mouth, ready to tickle him – but actually, he did not even need to touch him with it. Every time he refused to answer one of the stallion's questions, the unicorn guard brought the blade of grass a little bit closer, so that its tip almost touched the fairy captain's throat. Even when it was just a few centimeters away, the poor fairy began laughing and struggling and begging, and the two unicorns that held him with their teeth on his uniform had to struggle to keep him from flying away. In the end, he answered all the questions.

In this way, Edgar and Lucretia learned what the fairies were up to. They were, indeed, hunting shadow dragons – or rather, keeping track of shadow dragons. Earlier that day, hundreds of shadow dragons had been spotted near the border of the Fairy Kingdom, flying into the Unicorn Forest. The border guards had not known where the dark creatures had come from, but they were determined to do their duty and defend their homeland, and so half of them had flown off to keep an eye on the shadow dragons while the other half had flown to the palace to inform the queen of the new threat.

Edgar kept hoping that the unicorns would ask the fairy captain something that would make him talk about the missing dragon princess, but the topic never came up. At a few points in the interrogation, he felt like leaping up, grabbing the blade of grass out of the mouth of the unicorn guard and asking some questions of his own. However, he did not dare to try anything with twenty-six needle-sharp golden unicorn horns pointed at him. The unicorns were powerful creatures, and if half of what he had heard about them was true, then even if he could get at all of his magical tools, they would not be any help against these four-legged warriors.

After a long interrogation, with many laughs and a lot of whimpering, the stallion finally seemed to be satisfied with the fairy captain's answers. "You may go," he announced. "All of you. But your weapons stay here. And make sure that you do not return without the permission of our chieftain."

The fairies stood up with sighs of relief and began organizing themselves to fly off toward the fairy kingdom. Four of them took hold of the ropes that held Edgar and Lucretia and began leading them away. Edgar also breathed a sigh of relief. He would take fifteen unarmed fairies over thirty suspicious unicorns any day.

"Wait!" the unicorn stallion commanded. "The two humans stay with us."

"But you said we could go," Edgar protested.

"I meant the fairies," said the stallion. "I said nothing about humans."

"You did say 'all of you,'" Lucretia pointed out.

"Meaning all of you fairies," grumbled the unicorn. "I think that was quite clear from the context. Moriana the fairy queen has been a quiet and peaceful neighbor and never done us any harm, and so we can overlook this one offense. But humans," he said, "who knows where you come from or what kind of mischief you're up to? You," he snorted, sniffing Edgar loudly, "you smell like another world, and that is very suspicious. And you," he said, sniffing Lucretia. "You – oh my!" The unicorn's eyes widened, and he suddenly turned a much paler shade of silver. "Y-you," he stammered. Then he turned to some fairies who had stayed behind to see what would happen to their prisoners. "What are you still doing here?" he roared with a sudden fury. "Get out of my sight before I change my mind!"

The fairies fluttered off into the woods, and the stallion turned back toward Lucretia. "Never in my life did I think that this day would come," he breathed, his eyes widening again. "This is far beyond me – I'm afraid we're going to have to take you to our chieftain."

# XIX.

Thankfully, the journey to the unicorn chieftain did not take long. Edgar and Lucretia got to ride on the backs of two strong unicorns who ran among the trees as swiftly as the wind and as silently as moonlight. Lucretia tried asking the unicorns what was so strange about her and why they had to go to the chieftain, but they all refused to answer, claiming that they were not qualified to say anything about it.

The chieftain of the unicorns was an old mare whose silvery coat was especially pale. They found her drinking from a gurgling stream in a part of the forest where the trees were particularly thick. The dense canopy of leaves made this patch of woods almost as dark as night, but the unicorn chieftain was fully visible in the darkness. The other unicorns almost seemed to glow, Edgar thought, but she definitely did.

The two unicorns who carried Edgar and Lucretia approached the old mare, and, with a sudden folding of their front legs, tossed the two humans off their backs, onto the carpet of fallen leaves below.

"Oof," said Edgar, whose hands were still tied, as he landed face-first in the leaves.

"Camilla!" the unicorn chieftain cried, overjoyed. She trotted over to Lucretia and nuzzled her red hair with her silvery muzzle. "Oh, Camilla, you've returned!"

As Edgar scrambled to his feet, he saw shining tears like diamonds drop from the old mare's golden eyes. "Camilla," she kept saying, "oh, Camilla!"

"I'm sorry," Lucretia said, standing up, "I think you may have me confused with someone else."

The old unicorn snorted. "Confused?" she said. "No, I may be old, but not that old. Should I not recognize the daughter of the chief of the forest people, for whom I have cared all these years? How can you joke with me at a time like this, when we are finally reunited? Oh, Camilla, my dear!" The unicorn chieftain nuzzled Lucretia's face, then took a sudden step back with a perplexed expression. "You're not joking, are you?" she said.

"No," Lucretia said sadly. "My name is Lucretia, and I have never met the forest people or their chief."

"But Lucretia!" said Edgar. "If you really don't remember your past, how do you know that you're not Camilla?"

"But my name is Lucretia!" the girl protested. "The fairies never called me anything different! They... oh."

"They gave you a new name," Edgar concluded.

"Fairies?" said the unicorn chieftain. "What is this talk of fairies and not remembering? Unless... Oh, my poor girl, you didn't fall into the Blackwater, did you?"

"Blackwater?" said Lucretia. "No, I don't remember falling into any Blackwater. What is that, anyway?"

"The enchanted stream of forgetfulness," the unicorn said sadly. "Your father, Chief Harold, left you with me for a year. We were to watch over you and teach you the ways of the unicorns. But one night, you were gone. We searched and searched for you, but never found you. That was two years ago."

"My earliest memory is from about two years ago," Lucretia said. "I remember waking up in a cell in Moriana's dungeon... Do you mean that I have a family?" she asked with sudden excitement. "May I meet them?"

"Cell?" the unicorn chieftain said, her eyes narrowing. She shook her head. "The forest people wander freely through all the great woods of the world," she said. "I will send out my twelve fastest runners at once to search for Chief Harold and tell him the wonderful news of your return – but first you must tell me about this cell."

And so, after Edgar and Lucretia had been freed of their bonds and some young unicorns had come with wooden plates of salad for them to eat, Lucretia told the unicorn chieftain everything that she could remember.

"Moriana has gone too far," the old mare said grimly when Lucretia had finished her story. "The daughter of Chief Harold is not a prisoner to be kept or a tool to be used against the dragons. That crafty old fairy and I will exchange words about this. But that is not your concern now, dear girl – you are free. And you are welcome to stay with us here in the Unicorn Forest until we find your family and they come to get you. I am sure that you have many questions about your past, my dear Camilla."

"Camilla," Lucretia said distantly. "Camilla... My family – could I really meet them? But our mission..."

"I can carry on without you," said Edgar. "I know this is important for you, Lucretia. You've always wanted to find out about your past."

"Lucretia?" said the girl. She shook her head. "Oh I don't even know who I am!" As she spoke, Edgar thought he saw tears glistening on her cheeks in the darkness.

Do I really know who Lucretia is? Edgar suddenly wondered. Or Camilla? I know nothing about her life as Camilla – what if she meets her family and turns out to be a whole different person than my friend Lucretia? But then again, her family members know nothing about her life as Lucretia the last two years – does anyone really know her? A Bible verse suddenly flashed through his mind: "Lord, you have searched me and you know me." He whispered it to himself.

"Anyway," Lucretia said, "we have a mission. We need to get to Moriana's palace and stop her from using the amethyst! Yes, I have a mission... I suppose that's the only thing I know about myself for now. Maybe if we succeed, I can come back here and meet my family."

"Yes," said Edgar, "we'll just have to make sure to succeed."

"We can help you get to Moriana's palace," said the unicorn chieftain. "It is high time that I pay her a visit."

# XX.

Once again, Edgar and Lucretia got to ride on the backs of two swift unicorns. However, this time they rode surrounded by an army of about one hundred unicorns. The journey to the Fairy Kingdom did not take long. Even the old chieftain charged on and on as if propelled by pure rage.

They saw a few fairy warriors guarding the border as they crossed over at about sundown – but not for long. The black-clad fairies turned tail and fled as the hundred unicorns charged on toward the palace. After an area of open grasslands, they crossed through a region of green and yellow pea fields, trampling the crops as they ran. Some angry fairy farmers came out to see what the commotion was, but they quickly turned into frightened fairy farmers and fled back into their little cottages.

It was evening when they arrived at Moriana's palace, an enormous structure built into the face of a mountain. This palace, on its own, was almost as large as the city of Draconia, and the front gate was protected by a moat with enchanted pink water and a drawbridge, which was currently raised.

The unicorns drew to a halt in front of the bubbling pink moat, and the old chieftain reared up on her hind legs and whinnied. "Moriana!" she thundered. "Come out and speak!"

Edgar and Lucretia did not wait to see what would happen. While the main force of unicorns approached the front gate of the palace, they guided their steeds off to another slope of the mountain, where they dismounted and made their way up by a secret path.

This part of the palace grounds was seldom guarded, and tonight, they were in luck. They climbed out onto a ledge, leaped across a yawning precipice and landed on the roof of one of the old, forgotten towers that the Fairy Queen never used. That's one the disadvantages of having such a huge palace, Edgar thought. It's impossible to guard – or even use – all of it.

He and Lucretia crept silently across the roof tiles. Lucretia, who had spent many months living in the palace of the Fairy Queen and was familiar with many of its less-frequented areas, led the way. She found the old drainpipe and climbed down it, onto the top of a long wall. This, she ran across, with Edgar close behind. Their route eventually brought them to a balcony from which they could see the front of the palace.

Now the drawbridge had been lowered, and the Fairy Queen stood on it surrounded by her dark-robed enchanters. Edgar and Lucretia paused, watching in silence. They managed to catch some strains of the conversation.

"Yes," the unicorn chieftain was saying. "You should take this complaint seriously – very seriously. The daughter of Chief Harold of the forest people has been mistreated, and a price must be paid. How do you intend to make up for the damage you have done?"

Edgar heard the Fairy Queen's laugh in reply. "Oh, dear, dear Eufrala," she said. "Do you really expect me to feel threatened by you, when you are surrounded by my warriors?"

Edgar looked closer and saw movement in the grass behind the unicorns. At first, it looked like a breeze was rustling through the whole field of grass – but then he realized that it was an army of hundreds of black-clad fairy soldiers, slowly approaching the unicorns.

The unicorn chieftain snorted. "Moriana, you know unicorns better than that," she said. "We do not fear your spears. Tell us how you plan to make amends for what you have done, and if I am satisfied, we will depart in peace. But we will not be frightened off. We are immune to your spears, and to all your magic."

"Of course, of course," said the Fairy Queen. "Everyone knows that fairy magic is useless against unicorns. Most magic is. But what about this?" As she said these words, she made a sweeping gesture toward a pair of her enchanters, who stepped forward holding a melon-sized object under a black cloth. They let the cloth drop, and Edgar and Lucretia gasped as they saw the purple flash of the fourth amethyst.

# XXI.

"Moriana," said the unicorn chieftain, "do not be a fool! You know as well as I that that stone is not to be..."

The old mare never got the chance to finish her sentence. The Fairy Queen laid a hand on the amethyst, and, with a sound like a thunderclap, something like a bolt of purple lightning lanced out from the stone into the midst of the unicorns.

Lucretia cried out, and Edgar clapped a hand over her mouth, looking around anxiously to see if the noise had attracted any attention. No guards in sight. He turned back to the scene below. All that remained of the lightning was a faint purple glow around the unicorns, which quickly faded. Edgar felt like laughing. They were immune to the stone's magic after all.

But then he heard the Fairy Queen's laugh, and he realized with a sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. The unicorns stood completely motionless, like statues. The fairy warriors came flying toward them, throwing their enchanted spears. Edgar watched, horrified, as the unicorns were turned to stone. The amethyst had taken away their magical protection.

"Oh, I can't bear to watch," Lucretia moaned. "It's horrible!"

"Don't worry," said Edgar. "Getting turned to stone doesn't have to be permanent – you know that first-hand. We'll think of something."

"Yes, I suppose," Lucretia sniffed. "But what will we think of? Moriana has the fourth amethyst, and it looks like she knows how to use it. We came too late!"

"Well..." Edgar said, his mind racing. "Well..." His thoughts, which he had hoped were racing toward some kind of plan, suddenly tripped and fell into a pit of hopelessness where his friend's words echoed again and again: we came too late!

What can we actually do? Edgar thought, despairing. Two children against the greatest power the world has ever seen?

Then the echo of Lucretia's words in his mind suddenly changed, and he remembered the Bible verse she had quoted earlier as they had prepared to face down four hundred shadow dragons: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Strengthened by these words, Edgar's thoughts clawed their way out of the pit of despair and suddenly latched onto the beginnings of a plan. "I suppose first, we need to sneak into the palace," he said. "We're making progress on that, so that's a good start. Then we're going to need to do some spying, and get some information."

"Information?" said Lucretia.

"Yes," said Edgar. "The Fairy Queen can't be awake and watching the crystal all the time. We need to figure out where she keeps it, how it's guarded. Then we think of a way to trick the guards..."

"... and steal the amethyst," Lucretia concluded.

"Yes," said Edgar.

"But what about the dragon princess?" said Lucretia.

"Well..." Edgar thought about it. "Either she's in the palace, or she's not. If she's here, hopefully we'll discover where she is while we're finding out about the amethyst, and then we can rescue her."

"And if she's not?" said Lucretia.

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it," said Edgar. "First we need to get into the palace proper. But at least we have a bit of a plan."

"Yes, that makes things feel a little bit better," Lucretia agreed.

"I think I see one flaw in your plan," a voice behind them said.

"Oh, what's that?" Edgar asked, turning. "Oh."

As they had been talking, five fairy warriors armed with spears had fluttered up and landed on the roof behind them. They did not look at all pleased to find the two uninvited visitors talking about sneaking into their palace to steal the amethyst. Their leader, a black-clad border guard with purple stripes on his shoulders, looked especially unhappy. Edgar recognized the fairy captain who had captured them earlier.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to take you in for questioning," he said for the second time that day.

# XXII.

"Well, this brings back memories," Lucretia said, pacing the floor of their cell in the Fairy Queen's dungeon.

"I don't suppose you know a secret way out of here?" Edgar asked hopefully.

"Hey!" yelled the fairy captain, who had been assigned to guard their cell door. "No discussing escape plans! You are to remain in your cell until Her Highness is ready to question you!"

"But I don't want to!" Edgar complained.

"Sorry," said the guard, "but sometimes we all have to do things we don't want to do. Just look at me."

As the fairy said the words, Edgar thought of his old memory verse: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry." That verse had helped him so many times in the past – by listening, he had even managed to turn the evil magician Homer from greed and anger to forgiveness and peace. What if he tried listening to the fairy captain?

"What do you have to do that you don't want to?" asked Edgar.

"Well," the fairy said with a sigh, "this job, for example – guarding your cell like a lowly prison guard."

"Yeah, why are you doing that, anyway?" asked Lucretia. "Aren't you captain of the border guard?"

"Yes," said the fairy. "Or, well, I hope that I still am. Her Majesty hasn't taken away my uniform yet. But assigning me to this kind of job... I fear that I am to be demoted again."

"Again?" said Edgar. "Do you mean that you were something else before you were captain of the border guard?"

"I was Her Majesty's royal advisor!" the fairy proclaimed, straightening up with sudden importance. But then his shoulders slouched. "Unfortunately," he continued, "she would not listen to me. She did not like the advice that I was giving her, so she demoted me to captain of the border guard. And after this fiasco with the shadow dragons and the unicorns... Oh, I knew something like this would happen!"

Another Bible verse flashed through Edgar's mind: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him pray to God." He prayed a quick, silent prayer for wisdom, and then he suddenly sensed an opportunity.

"Even the best of rulers do not always listen to wisdom," he pointed out. "Sometimes they can make some... small mistakes, despite the best efforts of their advisors."

"Small mistakes?" said the fairy captain. "Small mistakes! Would you call starting an open war with the dragons and relying on the two most powerful, untrustworthy magical forces in this world a small mistake? But I suppose you're right... No leader is perfect. I suppose the best I can do is just do my job as well as I can. Who knows, maybe things won't turn out as badly as I think."

Edgar exchanged glances with Lucretia. Open war with the Dragon Kingdom? he thought. That must mean that Moriana really did kidnap the princess! So at least we're in the right place to rescue her. But what does he mean by "the two most powerful, untrustworthy magical forces?" Maybe the fourth amethyst is one force, and the other three are the other. Unless...

"Oh no," Edgar said aloud. He turned to the fairy captain. "You don't mean to say –" he began, but was interrupted by the sound of a heavy door opening in the corridor outside the cell.

"Ah, yes," said the fairy captain, "Her Highness is here to question you." He stepped aside, and a troop of black-clad royal guards approached the cell door. They fanned out, allowing their royal charge to come forward.

Edgar's jaw dropped. "But y-you..." he said.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, human," the princess of the Dragon Kingdom sneered back at him. She wore a purple silk cape – something very unusual for a dragon, but it matched the three amethysts that flashed purple on her crown.

# XXIII.

"But we're here to rescue you!" Lucretia protested.

The princess laughed. "Rescue me?" she said. "Well, you're too late for that – Her Majesty Moriana has already done it."

"What do you mean, rescued you?" said Edgar. "Moriana kidnapped you! Or, the Shadow King, did, or – do you mean that the Shadow King kidnapped you, and Moriana rescued you and now you're here to release us so we can take you home?"

"Home?" the princess sneered. "If by home, you mean my so-called father's palace, where no one understands me and everyone treats me like a dragonlet, I am never setting foot in that place again. This is my home now. And yes, it was Her Majesty who brought me here. Last night I sat looking at the tapestry of Borinello, the great fairy musician. I was feeling so, so sad about how my party had turned out and how no one understands that I'm not a dragonlet anymore. And then the most wonderful thing happened – the picture in the tapestry came to life and began to sing to me. I had never heard such a song before. It was as if someone finally understood exactly how I felt, who I really am inside – and then Her Majesty Moriana used her magic to bring me here."

"Homer said it was the Shadow King's magic that brought you here," said Edgar. "But they're working together, aren't they? The Shadow King helped the Fairy Queen to kidnap you, and she's using the amethysts to control your mind. But what does he get in return... The shadow dragons! He gets to make an army of shadow dragons out of you!"

The princess laughed. "Working together?" she said. "Oh, silly human... That stupid shadow is only a tool in Her Majesty's hands. He can't even take on his true form. She keeps him in a bottle and uses him for her spells. Anyway, no one could make shadow dragons out of me – shadow dragons can only come from dragons."

"Sorry," said Edgar. "I meant to say shadow dragonlets."

"I'm not a dragonlet!" the princess screamed, stamping her front feet in sudden fury.

Edgar found himself a bit confused. "Your Highness," he said. "If you are not a dragonlet, and not a dragon, either, what are you?"

"Why, a fairy, of course," the princess said with a toss of her purple cape and a flutter of her bat-like silver wings.

Edgar's jaw dropped.

"Her mind is being controlled," Lucretia whispered. "We need to get that crown off of her."

"I am, in fact, one of the high princesses of the fairies," the Dragon Princess continued. "Here, I am treated with the respect I deserve, and I am free to be the fairy that I was born to be – the fairy I have always been, in my heart."

Edgar looked at the dragonlet's silver scales. He suppressed the urge to remark that the proper word was "hatched", not "born", and that she was clearly hatched to be a dragon. Now that she was under the Fairy Queen's mind control spell, such a remark would probably only make her angry.

"Anyway," the princess continued, "enough about me. You have some very important questions to answer. Guards!" she barked. "Open the cell door."

The five black-clad fairy guards hurried to obey, unlocking the cell door and surrounding Edgar and Lucretia with spears ready to strike.

"Take the girl," ordered the Dragon Princess. "They are to be questioned separately!"

The guards took hold of Lucretia and pulled her toward the door. She struggled mightily and threw herself toward Edgar as if to give him one last embrace. As she did, she whispered something in his ear. Then the fairy guards dragged her away, slamming the door after her.

Edgar smiled. Yes, he thought excitedly, Lucretia's right – that's it!

# XXIV.

Edgar sat down in a corner of his cell, pretending to be completely hopeless and depressed as the guards dragged Lucretia away.

"Now, don't take it so hard, boy," the Fairy Captain said cheerfully. "We all have to die someday, and you've already gotten what, nine years? Ten?"

"Twenty-three," Edgar replied with mock sadness. "Verse one."

The guard looked completely confused, but Edgar leaned over toward the little black pouch on his belt and whispered the words that Lucretia had whispered to him: "The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything that I need."

The drawstring loosened, and the mouth of the little black pouch opened, revealing a wealth of magical tools within. Edgar reached in and pulled out a little glass star, no larger than a marble. "Could you please back away from the door?" he asked the fairy captain.

"Well, I suppose I could, if it would cheer you up," the captain said, taking a step back. "After all, you're not going anywhere."

"Thanks," Edgar said, standing up. He cleared his throat, sighted the door, took aim, and closed his eyes. "The Lord is my light and my salvation!" he shouted, tossing the glass star.

The only sound he heard was the surprised cry of the fairy guard, but the flash of light was almost blinding even through his closed eyelids. "Sorry about this," he said, rushing through what was left of the cell door and past the fairy guard, who was reeling and holding his face in his hands. "The blindness should wear off in an hour or so," he added. "I think."

He hurried down the corridor the way that Lucretia and the Dragon Princess had gone. The corridor ended at a locked door, but he pulled a small brass knocker out of the bag, stuck it to the door, and said, "knock, and the door will be opened for you."

The knocker vanished, and the door swung open. Edgar hurried on through the torchlit hallways. He rounded a corner and found himself almost getting a facefull of enchanted fairy spears. He ducked, throwing himself at the legs of the two fairy guards and knocking them to the ground as he reached into the pouch and drew out the first object he found – a lead weight. Now what was the verse for this one again, he wondered as he struggled with the fallen fairy guards. Oh yes.

"Sand is heavy," he said, "and stone is heavy – but the provocation of a fool is heavier than both."

The two fairy guards collapsed flat on the ground as if a great weight were pushing them down. They struggled and grunted, but could not move. "Sorry," Edgar called as he hurried onward, "the weight should wear off in an hour or so."

Suddenly, he came to a four-way intersection in the corridor. Which way had the Dragon Princess taken? He dug through the pouch and pulled out the regascope. "Seek, and you will find," he said, putting his eye to the lens. Inside the regascope, he saw a glowing map of the Fairy Queen's palace – and a dragonlet, glowing silver and purple, following a corridor to the left. He stuffed the silver tube back into the pouch and hurried down the left-hand passage.

Along the way, he ran into several fairy guards, but he was able to defeat them all with a little help from Homer's magical items and his Bible verses. Now and then he checked the regascope. The Dragon Princess continued through the maze of corridors before finally stopping in a small, circular room.

Once she had stopped, it did not take long for Edgar to catch up. He arrived, panting, outside the closed door to the circular room, just in time to duck under a thrown spear.

"I will lie down and sleep in peace," he said, pulling a tiny pillow out of the pouch and throwing it at the two fairy guards as he ducked under the second spear. "For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

The two guards collapsed, fast asleep. They snored quite loudly for fairies, Edgar thought. With one hand in his magical pouch, he placed his other hand on the door handle and opened the door. As he stepped into the room, he realized that he only had one item left in the pouch, aside from the regascope.

# XXV.

"Hmmm," Edgar said as he found himself staring into the faces of five surprised fairy guards and one enraged Dragon Princess. "Now how am I going to get out of this mess?"

Lucretia sat tied to a chair in the center of the round room. Her eyes lit up with hope as Edgar opened the door – a hope that he wished that he could fulfill somehow. He considered his options. The regascope was made of metal and it was a little bit heavy. Maybe he could throw it at the guards and... give them a papercut with the green paper with the Bible verse and then... "Ummm, wrong room?" he said sheepishly, backing away from the door.

The Dragon Princess snapped her claws, and the fairy guards raised their spears and advanced. "Don't try to run," she said, "or they'll turn you to stone! Tie him up!" she ordered. The guards quickly surrounded Edgar, herding him into the room and closing the door after him. One of them pulled a length of rope out of a bag.

"Wait!" Edgar said desperately. "Before you tie me up, Your Highness, let me give you a present as a token of my deep respect for you."

The Dragon Princess laughed. "Respect for me? As if anyone but the fairies would show me any respect."

"No, Your Highness," Edgar said, kneeling. "I do respect you. And whatever happens to me, I just want to give you this gift first to show it."

"Hmmm," said the dragonlet. "All right, human. If you are sincere, I will make sure that your questioning is more... tolerable. But don't try anything funny!"

The guards held their spears trained on Edgar's throat as he dug in the small black pouch. "This is a gift from someone who knows you well, Your Highness," he said, pulling out the green paper.

"Someone who knows me?" said the Dragon Princess. "No one knows me but the fairies. All my life my family and everyone treated me like a dragonlet. But no more! Now—" She paused, catching sight of the green piece of paper. "My poster," she said softly. "I made that in..."

The amethysts in her crown flashed purple, and she closed her eyes and shook her head. Edgar saw an opportunity and seized it. "You made it in Sunday School, Your Highness!" he said. "And you were so happy that day! We talked about how God has created us just the way we are, how he knows us perfectly. You were so pleased you brought the paper home and hung it on your mirror. Remember!"

"Yes," the Dragon Princess said. The crystals flashed brighter. "No." She shook her head. "That wasn't me... That was another life. I..."

"Your mind is under a spell, Your Highness!" Edgar said desperately. "I know you can feel it! You are not yourself! You must take off the crown!"

The Dragon Princess stared at him, wide-eyed. She reached for the crown with one scaly hand – but stopped, half-way, as the amethysts flashed even brighter. "No," she said. "You're trying to trick me. You don't know me. You don't know who I am! None of you understand me! Not my father, not my mother, not my brother, not you..."

"No," said Edgar. "I don't know you. But God does. Lord, you have searched me and you know me," he quoted. "Fight the mind control, Your Highness! Please! Take the crown off!"

"And what, pray tell, do you think you're trying to accomplish?" The sickly sweet voice belonged to the Fairy Queen. Edgar turned his head as much as he dared with the guard's spears pointed at his throat. The door was open again, and Moriana stood in the doorway. In her hand she held a sealed glass bottle of what looked like swirling black smoke. Beside her stood two black-robed enchanters carrying a melon-sized object wrapped in a black cloth.

# XXVI.

"So," said the Fairy Queen, stepping into the room, "you managed to escape my dungeon, fight your way through my palace and get all the way here. And what were you trying to accomplish, hmmm, Edgar? Did you think you could rescue your friend before the princess here could wipe her memory again?"

"So it was you who wiped my memory!" Lucretia cried from her chair. "I didn't fall in the Blackwater – you did it to me!"

"Oh, you poor girl," the Fairy Queen said with mock sympathy, striding forward to Lucretia's chair. Standing on the floor, she was exactly eye-to-eye with the sitting girl. "Would you like me to tell you all about what happened?" She asked. "How we found you, why we took you, what we planned to do with you once you had poisoned all the dragons' fireberry trees?"

"Yes," said Lucretia.

The Fairy Queen laughed. "As if I would tell you all of that," she said. "You've always been so easily manipulated. I didn't even need an amethyst to control your mind – not once your memory had been wiped. Speaking of which, perhaps I had better do this myself and get it over with." She reached out a hand, and one of the fairy guards stepped away from Edgar and gave her a small vial of black liquid.

"No!" cried Edgar. He tried to stand, but one of the guards menaced him with the point of his spear, forcing him back down.

"Oh, don't worry," the Fairy Queen said, handing her bottle of black, swirling shadows to the guard and uncorking the small vial. "There's enough Blackwater in here for both of you – once her memory is wiped, you'll be joining her."

"You're making a big mistake," said Edgar.

Moriana laughed. "Oh Edgar," she said, "you are so, so funny. And you are going to be so, so useful. Almost as useful as her," she said with a nod toward the Dragon Princess. "But not nearly as useful as him," she added with a nod toward the bottle of swirling black smoke.

"Do you really think that you can use the Shadow King?" Edgar said. "Moriana, you don't know what you're dealing with! Don't you understand what he did to the Dragon Kingdom? He is too powerful! Too dangerous."

"Oh, my dear Edgar," said the Fairy Queen. "I already have used him. He showed up in my kingdom weak, dying – but with the most wonderful knowledge. My enchanters put him in this bottle, keeping him alive and under my power. And all that wonderful knowledge – well, now it's mine. See for yourself," she said with a gesture toward the melon-sized object that the enchanters held under the black cloth. "Who do you think found me my new favorite toys?"

"Toys?" said Lucretia from her chair. "Moriana, even Norinarialaforinagor, the Great Dragon Wizard, did not think these amethysts were toys to play with."

"No," said Moriana. "He thought they were tools, to rule with. And that is what I'm going to do, once my little Shadow King in a bottle has helped me to unlock the last secrets of the amethysts."

"But you must understand that both of these things are too dangerous to use," Edgar pleaded. "The amethyst, the Shadow King... Do you realize that he has already created an army of shadow dragons, here, in your kingdom? Your border guards must have told you."

"Oh yes," said Moriana, "my little joke for the Dragon King. I thought I would amuse him with some shadow fairies before I take over his mind. Because those were shadow fairies, Edgar – don't you dare call them dragonlets. Isn't that right, my dear princess?" She turned toward the Dragon Princess, and her jaw dropped.

The dragonlet had taken off her crown. "The Lord has searched me," she said, "and he knows me."

With a flick of her tail, the dragonlet knocked the vial of Blackwater out of the Fairy Queen's hand. With one slash of her claws, the ropes holding Lucretia were severed. The fairy guards rushed to defend their queen, and Lucretia leaped out of her chair, grabbing it and swinging it at one of the guards. Edgar took advantage of the situation to knock the two fairy enchanters to the ground and grab the amethyst. The black cloth fell away, and the fourth amethyst flashed purple. We're actually going to manage this! Edgar thought excitedly, kicking at one of the enchanters who tried to grab his leg.

Then he heard the crash of shattering glass. "Oh no," he said aloud.

The fairy guard holding the bottle of black smoke had dropped it as a blow from the Dragon Princess' tail had sent him sprawling. Thick, black smoke rushed out of the broken bottle – and into the fourth amethyst.

"Oh no," Edgar said again, staring at the melon-sized gem in his hands. The purple glow had been smothered, and the stone was now completely and utterly black. It vibrated in his hands – and then it began to grow and change shape.

# XXVII.

The fourth amethyst slipped out of Edgar's hands, stretching and twisting and growing until it became a looming, inky black dragon.

"The Shadow King," Edgar whispered.

The monster laughed. "In the flesh," he said. "Or should I say, in the stone? Or should I say, the stone is in me?"

"Kill it!" the Fairy Queen screamed, pointing a trembling finger at the Shadow King. Her guards and enchanters leaped into action, throwing their spears and hurling orbs of green light.

The spears bounced off the Shadow King's inky black flanks and rattled to the floor, and the green lights flickered and died as soon as they touched him. "Oh, Moriana," the Shadow King laughed. "Do you really think I am so weak?" He raised a claw, and something hideous happened to all the fairy guards and enchanters. They all fell to the ground at once, their faces glowing – or doing the opposite of glowing – with rays of jet-black darkness. "I may have been weak when I came to you," he went on, "but you were weak-minded. So easily manipulated, in your lust for power. You gave me exactly what I needed. You sent your enchanters to get the stones I had found, you brought them right to me – and now, they are mine. With all their wonderful power. And you even brought me the princess, and now she is mine as well. Oh, how I've missed you, my girl," he said.

"I am not your girl," the Dragon Princess hissed.

"Easily fixed," said the Shadow King. He pointed a claw at her, and she collapsed with a scream, beams of darkness radiating from her scaly face.

"O Shadow King," Moriana said, kneeling. "I am your humble servant. Please spare my life – I can be useful for your cause."

"Useful?" said the Shadow King. "Oh, Moriana, you have ever been a poor judge of what is useful. The amethysts, me, you... No, Moriana, some things are not as useful as you think. But do not fear," he added as the Fairy Queen turned a whiter shade of pale. "I intend to keep you. You know how dragons, like fairies, love beautiful things – gold, jewels, treasure, statues..."

The Fairy Queen's face twisted in a grimace of horror as the Shadow King waved a claw and she was transformed into a jet-black statue.

"So that leaves the two of you," the Shadow King said, fixing his inky black gaze on Edgar and Lucretia. "My two great enemies, who foiled my plan to take over the Dragon Kingdom. Once. No, don't worry – I'm going to let you live. I want you to see the kings and queens of this world kneel before me before I take your minds and make you kneel as well. But, since I can't have you running around freely, causing mischief..." He waved a claw, and the guards, the enchanters and the Dragon Princess suddenly rose to their feet.

Edgar saw that their eyes were completely jet-black, and he shuddered.

"Seize them," said the Shadow King. The dragonlet and the fairies advanced on the two humans.

"You know," Edgar said as two of the guards seized his arms, "there is one flaw in your plan."

"Oh really," said the Shadow King. "Now let's see... I have defeated the Fairy Queen, the Dragon King's daughter is mine, I've captured the two of you, I possess the most powerful magic in the world, soon all the kings and queens of the world will be bowing down to me... Am I forgetting something?"

"Yes," said Edgar. He cleared his throat. "Pride goes before destruction," he said, "a haughty spirit before a fall."

The Shadow King laughed. "Really?" he said. "Did you really think that your pathetic little Scripture verse would stop me, now that I have the power of the – oh my."

As he spoke, the Shadow King began to shrink and twist. After a few seconds, he was a formless mass of shadow the size of a melon. Then the shadow took on the shape of the amethyst, which shifted from black to grey to pastel purple – until it was glowing as normal again.

The dragon princess and the fairies blinked the blackness out of their eyes, and the statue of Moriana grew paler and came back to life.

"Drat," Lucretia said to Edgar. "She really did make a lovely statue."

"Don't try to be funny," the Fairy Queen said with a grimace. "After all, you are still in my palace, my guards have you, and I haven't decided what to do with you."

"Let them go," the Dragon Princess suggested.

"Why?" said the Fairy Queen.

"Because," said the Dragon Princess, scooping up the fourth amethyst and smashing it against the stone wall. It flashed one last time and shattered into a thousand purple shards.

"No!" cried Moriana, throwing herself over the shards and trying to scoop them together.

"You need to let us all go," the Dragon Princess continued, "because one hundred angry unicorns are coming to life at your front gate, and you can't afford to have awkwardness with them and with my father at the same time."

"Why, you are growing up after all, my dear fairy princess," the Fairy Queen said bitterly, looking up from the shards of the fourth amethyst.

"Dragon Princess," the dragonlet corrected her. "I was made to be a dragon, and that is what I am."

# XXVIII.

The Fairy Queen released Edgar, Lucretia and the Dragon Princess. The unicorns were thrilled to see Lucretia again. Once Moriana had satisfied their chieftain by lavishing the girl with royal gifts to make up for all the harm she had suffered, two unicorns offered Edgar and Lucretia a ride out of the Kingdom of the Fairies. Seven other unicorns carried all the treasures that Moriana had given Lucretia, and as the Dragon Princess flew above them, they rode off toward the Unicorn Forest.

"We did it," Lucretia said happily as they rode off side-by-side. "We rescued the princess, we stopped the Fairy Queen from using the amethyst, we defeated the Dragon King – and soon, I can meet my family. If the unicorns can find them."

"They will," Edgar assured her. "It's only a matter of time." He hesitated. "You know, Lucretia, you don't have to come back to Draconia with me. I can bring the crown back myself." He patted the black velvet pouch on his belt, where he had placed the crown with the three amethysts. They had agreed that they needed to hand the magical stones over to Homer. The Fairy Queen had protested forcefully against letting the crown leave her kingdom, but the Dragon princess had reminded her sweetly that she had given the crown away as a birthday present, publicly, in front of a large number of guests representing many powerful kingdoms.

"No, Edgar," said Lucretia. "I will ride with you to Draconia. Our journey isn't over yet, and I would never pass on an adventure with you, my friend."

"But I'm sure that you want to be with the unicorns," Edgar protested. "To hear what they can tell you about your past. To wait for your parents. To find out who you really are, as Camilla."

"Who I really am?" said Lucretia.

Edgar hesitated again. "Well, Lucretia liked dragons, and adventures, and that sort of thing," he said, "but now that you know that you're really Camilla, the daughter of the chief of the Forest People... Well, maybe once you get to know who Camilla is..."

Lucretia laughed. "Oh, Edgar," she said, "you're not worried that I'm going to change, are you? That I'm going to stop going on adventures with you?"

"Well..." he said.

"Don't worry," said Lucretia. "I may not know about my past, but I know this: you are my friend. And you can always call me Lucretia. It can be your nickname for me. I will always be your friend, Edgar. No name, and no past could change that."

"But you don't know who you are," he protested. "Just think if –"

"No, I don't know," Lucretia said. "But God knows. She learned that," she said, pointing up at the Dragon princess who flew overhead. "Maybe it's time that I learn it, too. A name, a past, a family – maybe they'll be wonderful things to have. But who I am is more than those things. God has always known who I am. I suppose the real Lucretia, or Camilla, or well, me – I suppose the real me is with him, if you understand what I'm trying to say."

"I think so," Edgar said doubtfully.

"Good," said Lucretia, "because you're the one who taught me – you and the Dragon Princess."

They arrived in Draconia the next day to find that the city had managed well against the shadow dragonlets. The last of them had, of course, disappeared when the Shadow King had been destroyed, but even before that, all the dragons who had been trained in Edgar's Sunday School had managed to fend them off with Bible verses. Edgar felt proud to know that his students had learned so well.

The Dragon King and Queen were overjoyed to see the princess again, as was her little brother, the Prince. They all wept with joy to be reunited – but the Dragon King wept the most. "I am so sorry," he said. "I heard that you were upset and ran away, and that I ruined your bedroom by decorating it in green instead of purple, and I ruined your birthday party by making it all about me and my guests and politics – oh, my precious daughter, I am so sorry. I never want to hurt you again. I want to listen to you. I want to understand you."

"My dear father," the dragon princess said, embracing him. "I wanted my room to be green. And I really am proud that so many important people came to celebrate my birthday party – even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I would have liked to celebrate with my friends. Oh, sometimes I don't even know what I want – sometimes I don't even understand myself. Maybe no one does except God. But I know you love me, and I love you, and that's enough."

Edgar stayed in Draconia for a few more days for the next feast – the feast to celebrate the return of the Dragon princess. It was a relatively modest party, with only the family and friends of the princess, but he and Lucretia were invited anyway.

When the celebration was over, Edgar's friend the dragon offered him a ride back to his world, which he accepted with mixed feelings. It was wonderful being with his friends in the Dragon's world – but Homer had work to do, finding a safe way to get rid of the three amethysts, and Lucretia had to get back to the Unicorn Forest, and he had a scout camp to get back to...

The dragon dropped him off in the moonlit field outside his scout patrol's tent. He hugged her good-bye with a yawn, then climbed back into the tent to get some sleep.

"Is that you, Edgar?" his friend Jamie whispered as he took off his boots and picked his way between the sleeping bags.

"It's me," Edgar whispered back.

"It didn't really happen?" Jamie asked frantically. "The creature with the yellow eyes? It wasn't really here?"

"Jamie," Edgar said, settling down into his sleeping bag, "it sounds like you've had a very strange dream."

"Yes," Jamie said, relieved. "A dream. Of course. I must have dreamed about the creature – nothing like that could really exist."

"No," said Edgar. "And when we get up in the morning, if your flashlight doesn't turn up, I'd like to give you mine," he added with a sudden pang of conscience, remembering that he had given Jamie's flashlight to the Dragon Princess.

"Why would my flashlight not turn up?" said Jamie. "Unless..."

"Never mind," said Edgar. "Let's just get some sleep." And then he rolled over and did just that.

THE END
