Glory deftly glided towards Mastermind's pavilion, Jambu and Toxin following close behind her, weaving in and out of the trees. Mastermind's house was on the outskirts of the RainWing village — far enough away that Glory rarely had to deal with him, and not so close to the NightWing village that they visited him often. While she'd originally placed a RainWing to guard him after moving him away from the quicksand, she'd eventually decided that he wasn't dangerous enough to bother. He preferred to keep to himself and the scrolls that Starflight occasionally brought him.

Still, Glory did have the occasional worry that he'd be used by NightWings who wanted to overthrow her. She wasn't quite sure how he'd be used, but he was smart, and probably would be a useful asset to NightWings unhappy with a RainWing queen. Fortunately, plots to usurp Glory had been rare for the past year. Ever since the Silverhorn incident, most of the NightWings had been complacent with Glory's rule. It was much better than it was on the volcanic island. Plenty of food to go around for everyone, and a queen who listened to all her subjects. Even the dissenters kept their complaints to quiet grumblings. Yet, if this drought didn't let up, and food became more scarce, this fragile peace wouldn't hold. That was why Glory was desperate enough that she was willing to ask a murderer like Mastermind for help finding out what Toxin's visions meant.

As Glory approached the tree Mastermind was situated in, she pointed her wings up, sailing through a gap in the canopy. Toxin followed, clearly already knowing this path, with Jambu trailing behind her. As the bright sunlight of a clear sky hit Glory's eyes, she saw Mastermind's tree poking out above the rest of the nearby rainforest, a small wooden pavilion at the top. A variety of woven baskets were situated around the pavilion, containing things ranging from food and water to scrolls. The figure of a NightWing rested on the pavilion, and appeared to be carefully studying small glass vials filled with some type of liquid. His wings were bound loosely against his body with a harness, with a rope made of woven vines extending from it, wrapped around the huge tree beneath the pavilion, where the NightWing couldn't reach. It was possible he could try and burn it, but Glory doubted he'd risk the fire spreading and burning himself. It was somewhat ironic, Glory thought, that he'd ended up with his own wings bound, after he'd done the same to so many RainWings back on the island.

As Mastermind saw the three visitors approach, he raised his head. Almost knocking one of the vials over, he pushed one to the side, as if that would hide it from Glory. She frowned. What was he experimenting with? She doubted he was trying to escape — even if he decided to burn his tether and was able to get his harnesses off somewhere, he wouldn't be able to take all his scrolls with him if he flew away. That just made her more concerned. At least a dragon who was trying to escape was predictable.

As Glory, Jambu, and Toxin landed on the pavilion, Mastermind smiled uncomfortably, sitting up. He looked much better than he did before moving to the rainforest, though that was most NightWings. He was no longer as thin and bony, and seemed to be far less stressed. Many of the small scars on his snout were fading, although a few new ones seemed to have been created.

"Hello, your majesty," Mastermind greeted Glory, exchanging a quick glance with Toxin, "what brings you here today? Is it my water shipment? I didn't get any with my sustenance last week."

"We're in a drought, and don't have any spare water," Glory explained with a frown, "you can eat fruit if you need water. Don't complain."

"That seems efficient," Mastermind commented.

Glory snorted, and glanced down to the glass vials at Mastermind's paws. They were filled with a diluted liquid with the faintest hint of black. "What's in here?" she asked, pointing a talon to the liquid, already knowing the answer.

Mastermind squirmed back and forth uncomfortably in his harness. He opened his mouth to speak, but Toxin stepped between him and Glory, interrupting him. "It's just RainWing venom," Toxin snorted. "Why do you care?"

Glory hissed in irritation, pacing back and forth. "You do realize that's what he was experimenting with, back on the island, right? He was torturing us for our venom. Just ask Kinkajou or Orchid how they feel about it."

Toxin turned her head around, towards Mastermind. In a quick motion, she opened her jaws, and sprayed out two shots of venom at Mastermind. Glory's eyes opened wide in panic, then looked away. Jambu gave out a squeal of fright. The NightWing jumped in alarm as the black venom hit him. Instead of hearing screams from Mastermind, the venom harmlessly dripped off his scales. "I'm not a RainWing," Toxin growled.

"It's inert," Mastermind explained.

"Yes," Glory answered, "I can see that. And the point is?"

"Mastermind thinks that it's inert because my venom neutralizes itself," Toxin explained.

"I think I may have discovered the method by which RainWing venom from close relatives neutralizes the biotic corrosiveness of itself," Mastermind continued. "With more data on different venom types, I might be able to create a universal neutralizer."

"So you want to find more RainWings to experiment on?" Glory snapped. "How do you even know that the venom from two relatives neutralize each other?"

"Tiger told him," Toxin explained, "she found out about my venom being inert, and introduced me to Mastermind since he's an expert on it."

Glory flicked her tongue, and shuffled her wings. She didn't like this at all. Toxin was the troublemaker, she had been hoping that she was the one who forced Tiger into talking with Mastermind. "And now what? The two of you are allowing yourselves to be his lab rats?"

"We give him venom samples. It was Tiger and I's suggestion, not his!" Toxin hissed. "Don't punish him for it!"

Glory sighed, pacing back and forth. Maybe she should have kept Mastermind in the quicksand, or at least under stricter guard somewhere. "Mastermind, I want you to stop all experimentation, and Toxin, I don't want you to visiting him anymore. He's a dangerous and evil dragon." Blotches of red were starting to appear on her scales.

"He's not evil," Toxin protested, "And isn't that the whole point of Jade Mountain Academy to forgive dragons for bad things they did during the war and teach everyone to get along?"

"To forgive dragonets," Glory corrected her, "and I'm not a part of that. I'm the Queen of the RainWings and NightWings. If Sunny wants to forgive dragons like him, then she can do that, but I won't."

Toxin glowered, and opened her mouth to continue the argument, but Mastermind stopped her.

"It's alright, Toxin," Mastermind grimaced. "I hurt dragons. Three of their deaths are my fault. If Glory doesn't want to forgive me, I understand. I'll stop experimenting."

Toxin seethed at Glory. "He just wants to help you," she hissed.

Glory ignored Toxin, turning to Mastermind. "Good. You're lucky a criminal like you even gets a place like this to yourself. I've seen prisons in some of the other kingdoms. It's far, far worse than what we have here." She glanced over towards her brother, who didn't seem too interested in the conversation, and currently had a glazed look of boredom on his snout. "Now that that's done with, I had some questions to ask you about the drought."

"You have the audacity to ask him for something after this?" Toxin retorted, baring her teeth.

Glory continued to ignore the whining dragonet. "You can feel it, right? How the humidity of the rainforest suddenly dropped overnight? All the rivers have suddenly dried up, too. Is that natural?"

Mastermind frowned, tapping a claw against his vial. "It's not a weather pattern I'd predict here. And I wouldn't think that the rivers completely drying up in such a short amount of time would normally be possible."

"So it's not natural," Glory said. She didn't like that. "Do you think it's magic? Can animuses control the weather?"

Mastermind tossed his tail back and forth. "I'm a scientist," he responded, "not a wizard."

"You're also a NightWing, and if you're anything like Starflight, you read a lot," Glory continued, "even if none of you had powers until after the eruption, you have to know something about animus dragons or prophecies, right?"

"Prophecies?" Mastermind responded, clicking his forked tongue. "Is that why you brought Toxin here?"

"I told you already, he doesn't know," Toxin muttered.

The NightWing nodded. "There are a lot of things the vision might mean. I've thought it over a bit, but I've read a lot of literature on prophecies and visions, and it's difficult to tell what's true and what's not. It could be metaphorical or literal. Blaze being made of stone might represent how the previous dynasty is fully in the past, and the IceWing with a dagger could mean that Queen Glacier is planning something that could pose a danger to the Sand Kingdom."

"It's literal," Glory stated, her tail twitching back and forth. "Both Queen Thorn and Blaze were recently assassinated. That probably means that Blaze was literally turned to stone somehow. There's magic involved here, I'm sure of it, and I hate it. Jambu here thought he heard of something similar happening years ago. Jambu, tell him."

Jambu's ears perked up, and he glanced over to Mastermind. "Oh, er, I don't know much, but either an IceWing or a parrot turned a dragonet to stone, years ago."

Mastermind mused on this. "So you think that there's an IceWing with some enchanted artifact out there, probably the dagger Toxin saw her holding, turning dragons to stone?"

"Yeah," Glory replied, "she might have found it somewhere, like Silverhorn did. It might even have been enchanted by the Darkstalker himself."

"Which means that the second part of Toxin's vision was also most likely literal," Mastermind concluded. "And possibly related to the first in some manner."

"I could feel the heat and dryness in the second vision," Toxin spoke up, "I can't normally do that. I think it has something to do with the drought."

"And maybe, figuring out what the second part of the vision means could help us find out what caused the drought," Glory suddenly realized. "You said that it happened at Jade Mountain, right? Maybe we should go there, and see what's going on. Moon could be helpful too." Toxin also mentioned a sky-blue hybrid in her vision. Glory didn't remember there being any students like that or any hybrids other than Sunny and Skytaker, but maybe she just missed this one.

"If we're still trying to interpret it, there's a chance some of the scrolls on prophecies might have survived the eruption," Mastermind commented. "There's one in particular that documents a lot of older prophecies, back before our move to the island. I'd be happy to go and check."

Glory snorted. Chances were, he just wanted to save his scrolls. Still, Starflight would be happy to see scrolls rescued, and maybe there would be something useful. The island was just a creepy tunnel away. "Fine," she conceded, "I can have Deathbringer go there for me."

Mastermind fidgeted against the harness binding his wings. "Deathbringer?" he asked scornfully. "I doubt he knows the scroll I'm thinking of. He's been away from the island for years, I'm not even sure he could find our library in all this rubble."

Glory glared, not particularly liking the insult to her mate, but knew Mastermind was probably right. "What, you think we should let you go?"

Mastermind smiled toothily, as if hoping that would convince his queen.

Glory was unimpressed. "I'll talk to Deathbringer about bringing you along with him or I." If Mastermind was going out, she might want to chaperone him herself. It wouldn't take too long, and she didn't want to return to Jade Mountain immediately, considering she just got back from there.

Mastermind nodded, and bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, your majesty."

White splotches of disgust started to appear on Glory's neck. She didn't want this dragon's thanks. "Fine," she muttered. She turned to glare at Toxin. "Jambu, can you take her somewhere and keep her busy? I don't want her chatting it up with Mastermind anymore."

The hybrid growled as Jambu nodded enthusiastically, happy he was needed. "This way, Toxin!" he said gleefully, motioning her with a bright pink wing. "Ready for some tree-gliding?"

Toxin stood still for a moment, as if deciding whether to disobey her queen or not, but followed Jambu off the edge of the pavilion, the two gliding beneath the canopy layer and into the rainforest.

Glory shot one last look at Mastermind. It was so wrong, him leaving so peacefully and healthily in the rainforest, while Bright, Tapir, and Orangutan were dead. Still, something bugged her about it. Almost every NightWing over three years of age was at least a little complicit in what the Night Kingdom had done, both to the RainWings and to the rest of Pyrrhia. Was it really fair that Mastermind was the only one punished like this? Mastermind claimed that he was just acting under his orders. But the NightWings who had guarded the captured RainWings, who'd fed them for Mastermind, they couldn't be innocent either. And Mastermind wasn't the only ringleader — Greatness's claws were hardly clean, and three moons, how many innocent dragons had Deathbringer himself murdered? It had to be more than three. Yet, he was a good dragon, right? Just following the orders he was given from Morrowseer and Queen Battlewinner? Even if he'd done bad things for his kingdom, he'd betrayed them not just for Glory, but because he knew what they were doing was wrong. That had to be the difference between Deathbringer and Mastermind. Deathbringer had redeemed himself, and Mastermind hadn't.

Leaving the NightWing behind, Glory leapt from the pavilion. She had two kingdoms to run, and a prophecy to get to the bottom of. She didn't have time to think about dragons like Mastermind.

Glory found Deathbringer in the hatchery, holding Firefly's egg beneath his snout. He smiled as he saw her, and she glanced down towards the egg. The eggshell seemed as thick and healthy as Glory had last seen it, but again, the colors on the shell had moved around; the purple and violet blotches were in different places. Strange.

"I think I can hear her moving inside," Deathbringer grinned, carefully holding the egg up to Glory, who listened carefully. She wasn't sure, but she thought she might have heard the faint noise of claws scratching against eggshell, and a small heartbeat.

Glory smiled, although it started to droop as she remembered the topic on paw. "Deathbringer," she said, "Toxin had another vision. I think it's about the drought. There's animus magic involved."

"Oh," Deathbringer answered, "that's not good, is it?"

"No," Glory snorted, "it's not good. I'm planning on going back to Jade Mountain. There might be something important happening there, and I should be there for it. Tsunami and Starflight should know about the vision, too." If Peril was going to kill someone at Jade Mountain, then they should be warned. Maybe Sunny and Clay, too, but Sunny was going to be busy with taking over her mother's throne. Glory didn't want to make her worry about this, too. Maybe she'd send someone through the tunnel to tell her, after she knew more.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Deathbringer asked.

Glory thought for a moment. She wasn't sure how long she'd have to wait at Jade Mountain for the vision to occur. It would be nice having Deathbringer there, but with the drought and all, she needed someone she could trust to watch over the kingdom. She supposed that Grandeur and Greatness could work in her stead, but she preferred that Deathbringer be here to help. "I don't think so," she replied, "someone needs to take care of the dragons here. But there is something I wanted to ask you. I talked with Mastermind today. He thinks that there's a few scrolls which might be useful to us on the island, if parts of the library survived."

"And you want me to go?" Deathbringer asked. He tried not to show it, but Glory could tell he didn't seem too happy about going back to the island.

"I want you and I to go, along with Mastermind," Glory corrected him. "It should just be a quick trip, in and out. Maybe an hour or two at most." Glory didn't want to spend more time than she had to breathing in the ash and sulfur, personally, and they were just going to look for a few scrolls.

"You're taking Mastermind?" Deathbringer asked, slightly surprised.

Glory nodded. "He'll be useful for finding the scrolls, and it's not like he's going to try and attack me. He might try to escape, but if you're there, I doubt it. He doesn't seem like the particularly 'courageous' type, if you get what I mean. I assume Starflight got any of that from his mother."

Deathbringer nodded. Farsight was definitely a courageous dragon. Probably had been a bit too much for her own good. "Alright," Deathbringer agreed hesitantly, "if you think this is a good idea."

Glory smiled, and for a moment, the thin yellow stripes on her neck started to brighten into a rosy-pink, bursts spreading across her wings. She moved closer to Deathbringer, and curled her tail around his. "I know this is hard for you, and that you don't want to go back. Thank you." She licked her tongue against the side of Deathbringer's snout, making the NightWing grin toothily.

"What, me?" Deathbringer laughed, putting on fake bravado. "Scared of a little smoke and fire? Ridiculous. I eat lava for breakfast."

Glory rolled her eyes, and looked back down towards Firefly's egg with Deathbringer. Her daughter wouldn't grow up trapped on a barren hell-island, or locked up in a cave. Glory would make sure she'd have a beautiful, peaceful rainforest full of dragons who loved her. That was why they needed to do this.