The dream dissolved, plunging me into darkness again. A faint light in the distance sped toward me, accompanied by a horde of shouting voices.

"Kill the dragon!"

"Death to the beast!"

Silvery light spread over me, revealing a full moon overhead and ruined buildings all around. Piles of wood and stone rubble dotted the street, making it hard to tell where I was. A broken neon sign on the nearest pile read Sorciereville Inn.

This was what Kyton had been talking about, that Sorciereville had been destroyed. Destroyed by me. The way they'd been talking, it had to have been about me. Who else had they trusted who could do this kind of damage?

I spun around, nimble despite my large draconic body and bulky wings. Fires smoldered in the corpses of old shops and restaurants. Skeletons with jagged teeth marks on their bones piled up at the sewer grates.

Had I done all of this? No, this was just a dream. I would never do anything like this.

Pain sliced through my back leg, and I spun back around to see a harpoon sticking out of my thigh. A mob of humans and fairies charged down the street toward me, unleashing harpoons and self-propelling spears, shotguns and even automatic machine guns.

I stumbled away from them. Another harpoon speared my haunch, and my back legs went numb. I tried to use glamour to hide, but it didn't work. They could still see me. Bullets still tore through my wings and tail.

I dragged myself into a nearby building that was mostly standing. It would block the projectiles for now, but I didn't have much time. There had to be a back way out, maybe through the kitchen. Everything was a smoldering wreck, just like the Otherworlder cafe that was attacked. The doors to the kitchen were wide open. I dragged myself through them, into a smoky room.

A shadowy figure stepped out of the corner by the back door. Carrying a curving scythe, his shoulders drooped as he spotted me. He dropped into a crouch. The smoke cleared just enough that I could make out his features. Kyton's features.

"We trusted you." Every word was so soft that I could hardly make it out. "I loved you." He raised the scythe to my neck. "Why couldn't you change? Why couldn't you just- be normal?"

I pulled away from the scythe. "I tried, I swear. Please, don't do this. I didn't hurt anyone. I just want to live."

"You just want to live?" Derision fell from every syllable. "You just wanted to live when you tore this town to the ground? When you killed my parents? When you killed me?"

"I didn't-"

He pulled back the neck of his shirt to reveal a pulsing mass of blackened flesh. "Your poison will kill me soon enough. So try to kill me quicker if you want, but we're both going to die here today." He pressed the scythe against my scales, and it sliced through them like they were weaker than paper.

I winced as blood trickled down my neck. "Please, you don't have to do this."

"I wish I didn't." He raised the scythe over his head. "But I do."

Screaming, I jolted upright in my sleeping bag. Eva tumbled off my chest with an annoyed squeak. Piper snored in the sleeping bag next to me. Sleeping. She was sleeping. I'd been sleeping. It was just a dream. Just a stupid, terrible dream.

Shaking, I brushed tears from my eyes. Glowing white moths fluttered away from my face. When I tried to swat them, my hand went right through them, like they were ghosts. Piper whimpered. She had the same moths dotted all over her face. I tried to brush them off. They didn't even flinch as my hand went through them.

Even Eva had the moths all over her, and she cried out in her sleep. Snippets of her dreams flew to me over our mental link.

No eat, please no eat me. I sorry, so sorry. Not mean to make you mad, please no-

A snippet was all I needed. She was dreaming about me trying to eat her. I shook her, but she didn't wake up.

"Don't bother," Nissa said from just outside the tent. "You can't wake them up until the nightmare moths are full of their fear."

I unzipped the tent flap. She was sitting on the ground, reading one of Piper's zoology books. Not wanting to go back to sleep, I grabbed my backpack and joined her.

"Will they be okay?"

She nodded without looking up. "Physically, they're harmless. Mentally, they can drive people insane from long-term exposure. As long as we get out of this arena in the next four days, we'll never have to worry about that. If we don't, we'll have a lot more than insanity to worry about."

"Great." I tugged my knees up to my chin and crossed my arms over them. "Do you really never sleep?"

"Nope. I have to lay down sometimes and rest my eyes, but I never go into deep sleep. I can always sense what's going on around me, and I don't dream."

"I wish I didn't dream." I shivered as I remembered my nightmare again. Every time I took a breath, I remembered it. I had to do something to distract myself. Sticking my hand in my backpack, I wished for the revealer crown to appear. It brushed my fingers, and I pulled it out. I hadn't had a chance to try it out all day, what with the running from monsters and trying to find an island that obviously wasn't in the middle of a swamp.

I held up the crown to Nissa. "What do you think this does? It was tagged with a green label that said 'revealer.'"

She glanced up and shrugged. "Never seen it before. The you-know-what in my head hasn't seen it either. If it had a green label, it won't hurt the person wearing it. Actually, it probably won't hurt anyone. It might let you see through glamour or something."

"I can already do that."

She put down her book. "It could do something else. Try it on."

A little apprehensive, I placed the crown on my head. It tingled, but nothing felt really different. Nissa gave me a curious look.

I shrugged. "I don't feel or see any-" Magic burned through me, lighting my arms and legs on fire. Gasping, I fell to my hands and knees.

"What's happening?" Nissa grabbed my shoulder. "Lilly, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure."

The ground spun beneath me, fading to blackness before spinning into view again. When it stopped spinning, I was laying on my stomach, and Nissa was staring at me from ten feet away.

"Lilly, how do you feel?"

That was an interesting question. I felt more or less normal, just a little bloated, a little dizzy. The way she asked me "how do you feel," made me think that I looked distinctly not normal. I was afraid to look at myself.

"How bad is it?" When I tried to speak, the words came out all garmbled and growl-y.

She took a step back. "I think you're going to have to speak with your mind, like the other ones do it."

"The other whats?" More gobbldygoop. I tried mindspeaking with her, even though I'd only ever been able to mindspeak with Eva. Can you hear me?

"Just focus your thoughts at me, like you're talking, but with your mind."

I rolled my eyes. "I have a familiar. I know how to mindspeak."

She shook her head. "I can't understand you. You have to mindspeak."

"I can't mindspeak with you." I searched out Eva's mind, hoping to wake her up somehow so she could act as a translator. There was a blank where Eva's mind should've been. I jumped to my feet, and the ground flew away from me.

It was like I was ten feet tall, at least. My legs wobbled and threatened to give out. They looked like bigger versions of my changeling legs, only naked and with enormous catlike feet. Oh prip.

I fell to all fours with a soft thump. Twisting a ridiculously long neck to look at my body, I groaned. The crown had turned me into a dragon. A fairy dragon, of course, with gold-rimmed silver scales and a long tail. Stupid crown. Why couldn't I have found it before we came here? Then we never would've had to risk our lives to win this competition and earn some fairy dragon blood.

"Stay calm," Nissa said in a low voice.

"I'm plenty calm. Why didn't I try this on last night? I'm such an idiot." I shook out my wings. "The least I can do is have you draw some of my blood now, just in case my idiocy gets me killed before this is over."

Since she obviously had no idea what I was saying, I stuck out my left foreleg and clawed it. Silver-red blood beaded on my scales.

"Why'd you do that?" Shaking her head, she marched over to look at my leg. After sniffing it, she added, "It's not pure enough. If it was that easy to get dragon blood, we would've hired a shapeshifter a long time ago. You haven't really fledged, and you don't have the powers or blood of a real dragon."

I hissed. This day couldn't get any worse.

A huge block of ice crashed into the side of my head.