Lunaria Willowbloom knelt in the empty flowerbed and pressed her hand to the cold soil. The heartbloom had grown here yesterday. Its petals fed her magic, one glowing bloom each morning. Now only a torn stem remained. Someone had dug it out in the night. Without it, her wings dimmed a little more each day, and she had no idea who to chase. She tried a spell to trace the thief. Her fingers sparked, then went dark. The light drained out of her like water through cracked hands. She sat back, breathing hard. Every wasted hour cost her more strength. Soon she would be too weak to fly at all, let alone hunt down a robber. Lunaria climbed to the tallest branch above the yellow house at the forest's edge. From there she scanned the trees. Nothing moved. Then a low voice spoke behind her. "You look for what walked off in the dark." She turned. An old owl watched her from a mossy limb. His brown feathers were smooth, his round eyes calm and steady. He had lived in these woods longer than she had been alive. He blinked once, slow and sure. "You saw it," Lunaria said. Her voice shook. "You saw who took my flower." "I see most things," the owl said. "I do not always tell them." She flew closer, wings trembling with the effort. "Please. It keeps me alive. Without it I fade." The owl studied her a long moment. He seemed to weigh her worth against his silence. At last he tilted his head toward the far ridge. "A red beast came at moonrise," he said. "Big as a fallen tree. Scales like coals. It clawed your bloom from the earth and carried it toward the smoking peak. It answers to the name Fireball." Lunaria's stomach dropped. A dragon. She had heard of Fireball, the beast who hoarded bright and burning things in his mountain den. He guarded his pile with fire and teeth. No fairy who flew there had returned. "You are certain," she said. "I watched him go," the owl said. "Your flower still glowed in his claws. It will not glow forever." Lunaria gripped the branch. She finally knew the thief. But the answer was worse than the question. She had wanted a small culprit, a squirrel or a jay she could scold and outsmart. Instead she faced a creature that could swallow her whole. The owl spread his wings to leave. "Rest here tonight," he said. "You will need what strength remains." She shook her head. Her wings glowed fainter than they had at dawn. Waiting meant fading. Fading meant death. "I can't rest," Lunaria said. "Every day I wait, I have less to fight him with." She turned toward the smoking peak on the horizon and pushed off the branch. Her wings caught the wind. Ahead lay the dragon, her flower, and the one chance she had left.

The smoking peak rose ahead, closer now but still too far. Lunaria beat her wings and climbed the mountain path. She managed a short flight, then dropped to a rock, chest heaving. Her light had faded to a dull spark. Each rest lasted longer than the last. At this pace she would reach the dragon empty, with nothing left to fight him. She pushed off again. Ten wingbeats, then her wings quit. She landed hard beside a still pool tucked in the stone. A single flower floated on the water. Its petals spread in soft pink and gold, wide and calm. Lunaria had no strength to wonder at it. She only wanted water. She crawled to the edge and dipped her hands. The pool moved. A great head lifted from beneath the flower. Scales the color of storm clouds. Eyes like yellow lamps. A serpent, longer than she could see, uncoiled from the water and towered over her. Lunaria froze. She had no spell left to run. "You crawl toward the fire-beast's den," the serpent said. Its voice was slow and deep. "Small and dimming. You will not last the climb." "I have to reach him," Lunaria said. "He took my flower. Without it I fade." The serpent studied her a long moment. Then it turned its huge head toward the blossom on the water. "This bloom is not yours," it said. "But it holds light too. One petal will carry you far. It is not free." Lunaria swallowed. "What do you want?" "A promise. When you take back what is yours, you return here and tell me its name. I collect names. I have waited long for the fire-beast's." It was a strange price. But she had no time to bargain and no strength to refuse. "I promise," she said. The serpent dipped its head. "Take one petal. Only one." Lunaria waded in and plucked a single petal from the blossom. It glowed warm in her hand, light like her own heartbloom once gave. She pressed it to her chest. Heat spread through her wings. They flared bright, brighter than they had in days. She lifted off the pool and hung in the air, steady at last. "Fly," the serpent said, sinking back beneath the water. "The petal fades by nightfall. Spend it well." Lunaria did not wait. She shot up the mountain path, her wings strong and sure. The rock walls blurred past. She climbed higher in minutes than she had all morning. The smoking peak loomed close now, and she could see the dark mouth of the dragon's lair cut into the stone. But the serpent's warning beat in her mind. The petal would die at dusk. She had bought speed, and spent her rest to do it. She would reach the dragon with fresh wings and no way back down. There was no turning around now. Fireball waited at the top, and so did her flower.

Lunaria dropped onto the ledge outside the lair's mouth. Her wings still glowed, but the light had thinned to a flicker. The petal was dying. She felt its warmth leak away with each breath. Soon her legs would fold under her, and she would lie in the open where any eye could find her. She needed cover, and fast. She scanned the rock. Bare stone. No crack, no bush, nothing to fold behind. Below the ledge she saw only the long drop she had climbed. Ahead was the dark hole of the den, breathing heat like an open oven. Hiding inside the dragon's home was madness. But out here she would collapse in plain sight. Inside there might be a shadow, a gap between hoarded things. Lunaria forced her wings to lift her. She flew low through the mouth and into the dark. The air pressed hot on her face. Heaps of gold and glass and burning coals glowed all around. Then her wings quit. She fell, tumbling across a pile of coins, and rolled to a stop behind a cracked shield. She lay still, chest heaving, her light almost gone. The hoard shifted. A great red shape rose from the middle of the treasure. Scales the color of coals. Horns curved back from a broad head. Yellow eyes opened and swept the cave. Fireball. The dragon who had torn her heartbloom from its bed and left her fading. Lunaria pressed flat behind the shield and held her breath. "Something small crept in," the dragon said. His voice rumbled through the floor. He lifted his head and sniffed. "I smell flower light. Sweet. Stolen sweetness." Lunaria's heart slammed. He could smell the petal. She looked past the shield and saw it then, close by his forelegs, a bloom resting on a bed of gold. Layered petals of pink and gold, wide and calm. Her heartbloom. It still glowed. It called to her like her own pulse. The dragon swung his head toward her hiding place. Lunaria had no strength left to fly and no time to reach the flower. So she did the only thing she could. She let her dim wings fall dark and lay as still as the coins around her. A dead spark. A trick of the treasure. Fireball's nose passed over the shield. He snorted. Sparks scattered. Then he settled back down, coiling around his hoard, and closed his eyes. Lunaria did not move. The petal's last warmth faded to nothing. Her wings went cold and gray. She was hidden, alive, inside the lair at last. Her flower lay an arm's reach away, guarded by the sleeping dragon. But now she had no light, no petal, and no way to fly out. She had reached her goal and trapped herself with it.

Lunaria lay still on the cold coins. Her heartbloom rested an arm's reach away, glowing pink and gold on its bed of treasure. She had no light left, no petal, no way to fly. But the flower was right there. If she could only touch it, its power might wake her wings again. She fixed her eyes on it and began to crawl. Her arms shook. She dragged herself over gold, one hand at a time. A coin slipped and clinked. Fireball's tail twitched. Lunaria froze, chest pressed flat, and waited. The dragon breathed on, deep and slow. She crawled again. The heat off his red scales beat against her back. Sweat ran down her face. She reached the edge of the bloom's bed and stretched out her fingers. She touched a petal. Warmth ran up her arm, small but real. Her wings stirred. She grabbed the flower's stem and pulled. It did not move. Its roots had grown deep into the piled gold, twisting between the coins like a vine. She braced her feet and heaved. The heartbloom held fast. She had no strength to tear it free. Lunaria bit her lip and thought. She could not carry the whole flower. But she did not need the whole flower. She needed its power. She reached up and closed her hand around a single petal. She pulled. It came loose with a soft snap, warm and heavy in her palm. Light spilled from the petal into her hands. Her wings flared bright, brighter than they had glowed in days. Strength poured through her legs. She could fly now. She could escape. The snap had been small. But the dragon's eyes opened. Yellow, wide, fixed on her glowing wings. "Thief," Fireball growled. Smoke curled from his nose. He rose from the hoard, coins sliding off his back. "You touched my sweetest thing." Lunaria did not answer. She shot up off the treasure, the petal clutched to her chest. Fire roared past her wing. She dove sideways and darted for the mouth of the lair. The dragon lunged, jaws snapping shut where she had been. She flew low, fast, out into the open air. Cold wind hit her face. She was free of the lair. But she looked back and saw the whole flower still glowing inside, held tight in the roots of his gold, guarded now by a wide-awake dragon. She had only one petal. Its warmth would fade like the last one had. She had escaped with a scrap of her own power and left the true prize behind. She flew down the mountain while she still could. She would have to find another way in. And Fireball would be waiting.