Later, when the laughter inside the base had quietened into sleepy chatter and the pizza oven had finally stopped being treated like a holy relic, Celeste slipped outside with her training bag over one shoulder.

The afternoon had softened toward evening. Gold light filtered through the strange sugar-glass branches of the egg-tree, catching on candy leaves and turning them amber at the edges. Beyond the base, Clawdiff stretched beneath the fading sky, distant and wounded, its rooftops dark against the lowering sun.

Celeste took a breath.

Fresh air. Or as fresh as air could be when the city still smelled faintly of smoke, sugar, and disaster.

She set her bag down beside one of the roots and rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the stiffness in her arms. Training would help. It always helped. Even if she was tired, even if her head was full of generals and strange lynxes and words like Glyndŵr that made people go quiet.

She reached for one of her swords.

Then froze.

A short distance away, Marzipan stretched.

The white dragon uncoiled herself from where she had been resting near the outer branches, her long body shifting with a slow, rippling grace. Her iridescent scales caught the sunset like wrapping paper under candlelight. One massive wing extended, then the other, each movement making the leaves tremble.

Celeste’s paw tightened around the strap of her bag.

Marzipan’s yellow eyes slid toward her.

“Oh,” Celeste whispered.

A small shape dropped from the branch above Celeste’s head.

Lumina landed beside her with a soft little bounce, wand tucked under one arm and her dress slightly ruffled.

“She’s friendly,” Lumina said brightly.

Celeste glanced down at her sister. “I know. Mostly. I think. I’m just… curious about her.”

Marzipan watched them both without moving.

Very carefully, Celeste stepped forward. Not too fast. Not too close. Her ears stayed low, but she kept her voice gentle.

“Hello,” she said. “Sorry to bother you. Do you mind if I just… chill out here for a bit? I won’t be in your way.”

Marzipan stared at her for a long moment.

Then she nodded.

Celeste blinked. “Oh. Good. You understand.”

She sat down slowly in the grass, as if sudden movement might still be a poor life choice. Lumina immediately flopped down beside her, legs folded neatly beneath her.

For a moment, the three of them sat in strange, almost peaceful silence.

Then Lumina leaned toward Celeste and whispered, loudly, “Ask if she’s a zombie general.”

Celeste’s ears flicked. “Lumina.”

“What? We should know.”

Celeste looked back at Marzipan, awkwardly smoothing her hoodie. “Oh, um… are you a zombie general?”

Marzipan shook her head.

Lumina exhaled in relief. “That’s good. I don’t want her to eat us.”

Celeste gave her a look. “Lumina.”

“What?”

Celeste turned back to the dragon, nervous smile wobbling. “You won’t eat us, will you?”

Marzipan lowered her head.

Very slowly.

Her jaws parted.

Celeste’s entire soul left her body.

“AH!”

She scrambled backward so fast she nearly tripped over her own tail.

Marzipan stopped.

Then her chest rumbled.

Not a growl.

A laugh.

A deep, crackling, zombie-dragon laugh that came out like stones rolling inside a music box. Her eyes gleamed with wicked amusement.

Lumina clapped both paws over her mouth.

Then she started laughing too.

Celeste sat frozen in the grass, one paw pressed over her heart. “That was not funny.”

Marzipan rumbled again.

Lumina giggled so hard she nearly fell sideways. “It was a little funny.”

“It was not.”

“It was very funny.”

Celeste narrowed her eyes at her. “Traitor.”

Lumina, apparently deciding that fear was for people with less curiosity, stood and padded right up to Marzipan’s enormous snout.

Celeste stiffened. “Lumina, careful—”

Lumina tilted her head. “Are you ticklish?”

Before Celeste could stop her, Lumina reached out and wiggled her fingers under Marzipan’s chin.

The dragon jerked.

A strange chirping purr burst from her throat.

Lumina gasped in delight. “You are!”

She tickled again.

Marzipan’s wings twitched. Her claws flexed against the ground. Another low purr rolled out of her, followed by a clicking, chirruping sound that was somehow both terrifying and adorable.

Celeste watched with both paws hovering helplessly in front of her.

“Please don’t get squished,” she said faintly. “I only have one little sister and I’m quite attached to this one.”

Lumina ignored her completely, laughing as Marzipan lowered her head further, allowing more tickles.

Despite herself, Celeste smiled.

Marzipan was huge. Undead. Powerful enough to crush the base if she wanted to.

But she was also letting Lumina tickle her chin.

That had to count for something.

Celeste relaxed a little, resting her arms around her knees.

“You’re looking after us,” she said softly. “Aren’t you?”

Marzipan’s purring faded.

Her gaze shifted away.

Celeste’s smile softened. “It’s all right. You don’t have to answer.”

The dragon stayed still.

Celeste looked down at the grass, then back up at her. “Thank you, though. For helping us. Whatever your reason is.”

Marzipan’s tail moved.

Before Lumina could react, the tip curled around her middle and lifted her gently into the air.

Lumina squealed with laughter as she dangled upside down from Marzipan’s tail.

“Celeste! Look!”

“I am looking,” Celeste said, trying not to sound too alarmed. “I’m also deciding whether to panic.”

Marzipan purred, pleased with herself, and swung Lumina lightly from side to side.

Lumina kicked her feet, giggling. “Again!”

Celeste laughed despite her nerves. “You are both terrible influences.”

The sunset deepened, painting Marzipan’s white scales in rose and gold.

Celeste watched her for a while, then spoke again, quieter this time.

“I always wondered if the dragons in stories were true,” she said. “Not the people ones. They’re different. I mean… dragons like you.”

Marzipan’s eyes lowered to her.

Celeste swallowed. “Were you turned into a zombie?”

The dragon went very still.

Then, slowly, she nodded.

Celeste’s chest tightened.

“Oh.”

The word came out small.

She looked at Marzipan properly then. Not just as a strange protector. Not just as a terrifying undead dragon curled around their impossible tree. But as someone who had been something else first.

Someone who might have had a life.

A voice.

A name before Marzipan.

Celeste stood and stepped closer, careful but no longer quite so afraid.

“I promise I’ll find a way to turn you back,” she said. “Or help you. Somehow. I don’t know how yet, but… I’ll try.”

Marzipan lowered her head.

Then she nudged Celeste gently with her snout.

The push was soft, but Marzipan was still enormous, so Celeste stumbled back a step with a startled laugh.

“All right, all right,” she said, rubbing her cheek where cold scales had brushed her fur. “That was sweet. Very big, very undead, but sweet.”

Marzipan huffed.

Lumina, still hanging from the dragon’s tail, grinned. “She likes you.”

Celeste smiled up at the dragon. “Do you know us?”

Marzipan’s expression changed.

Her gaze lifted past Celeste.

Into the branches of the egg-tree.

Lumina followed her stare.

For one blink, she saw it.

A tiny white dragon-shaped robot perched among the candy leaves, its small eyes glowing faintly. It was almost hidden in the shimmer of sugar-glass and sunset, watching them with silent precision.

Lumina’s smile faded.

Celeste didn’t see it. She was still looking at Marzipan.

“Do you?” Celeste asked again.

Marzipan looked back at her.

Something unreadable passed through those yellow eyes.

Then her wings snapped open.

The rush of air nearly knocked Celeste backward.

Lumina yelped as Marzipan lowered her safely onto the grass before beating her wings again. The dragon lifted from the ground in a swirl of leaves, light, and candy dust, rising past the branches.

Celeste grabbed her bag as it tipped over, but not fast enough. A folder slipped out and landed open against the grass.

Across the front, written in sharp black letters, was one word.

TEMPEST.

Lumina noticed it.

Her eyes went from the folder to the trees.

The small white dragon robot had vanished.

Above them, Marzipan flew hard toward the dying light, chasing something neither of them could fully see.

Celeste stared after her, ears drooping.

“Did I upset her?”

Lumina didn’t answer right away.

She watched Marzipan’s shape shrink against the sunset.

“Maybe,” she said softly, “she does know us somehow.”

Celeste looked down. “Hm?”

Lumina pointed at the folder. “What’s that?”

Celeste followed her gaze and quickly picked it up, brushing grass from the cover.

“Oh. The lynx gave it to me.” She turned it over in her paws, frowning at the word. “I don’t really know what it means.”

“Tempest,” Lumina read.

Celeste nodded. “Yes. That.”

“Can we find out?”

Celeste hesitated.

The folder felt heavier than paper should.

“Maybe,” she said at last. “When things are safer.”

Lumina wrinkled her nose. “Things are never safer.”

Celeste gave her a sad little smile. “That is unfortunately very true.”

The last of the sunlight spilled over Clawdiff, soft and bruised-purple at the edges. For a while, Celeste stood there holding the folder against her chest, watching Marzipan disappear into the sky.

Then Lumina tugged her sleeve.

Celeste looked down.

Lumina’s eyes were wide with questions she was too little to carry, even if she pretended she was very grown-up about it.

So Celeste tucked the folder back into her bag.

Then she suddenly reached out and tickled Lumina’s side.

Lumina shrieked with laughter. “Celeste!”

“This little princess needs her beauty sleep,” Celeste declared.

Lumina wriggled away, giggling. “I’m not a princess!”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m not!”

“You are tiny, bossy, magical, and you demand plushies. That is princess behaviour.”

Lumina darted behind a tree root, laughing. “You’re not my mum. You can’t tell me what to do!”

Celeste put her paws on her hips. “I’m older, and yes I can.”

“No you can’t!”

“Yes I can.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Lumina squealed and bolted across the grass.

Celeste chased after her, laughing properly now, the folder forgotten for one precious moment inside her bag.

Above them, the first stars came out over Clawdiff.

And somewhere far beyond the egg-tree, a white dragon hunted a tiny machine through the darkening sky.