This excerpt was read to fans on a live Crowdcast and transcribed as accurately as possible. Context given: "Queen Snowfall has been by herself for a few minutes, and now she is interacting with Lynx." "Lynx?" "Hi!" said the dragonet. "Hello. Thank you for not freezing me, hi Snowfall." "Queen Snowfall," Snowfall snapped automatically. Lynx had been her biggest competition all through school and training — at least after Hailstorm was captured by SkyWings. She was only the daughter of a minor noble, but she was hardworking and clever and good at making teachers like her, and Snowfall had wanted to strangle her more than a thousand times. "Right," Lynx said, glancing over her shoulder as if she was already regretting this conversation. "Queen Snowfall. Sorry." She didn't sound sorry. She sounded like she always had, challenging Snowfall to races around the palace, or arguing over points of IceWing law in class. Snowfall narrowed her eyes. Lynx was still a year away from moving to the adult wall, and without Snowfall or any of the cousins left on there, Lynx had been sitting easily at the top of the dragonet list. But Snowfall could move her down. Snowfall could flick her all the way into the Seventh Circle if she wanted to. Snowfall was the queen now. Deciding that Lynx was a disrespectful nobody who deserved to be squashed back into her place was absolutely Snowfall's job. "What are you doing here?" Snowfall demanded, "Are you spying on me?" A normal dragon with a healthy fear of punishment would have denied it immediately. But Lynx made a rueful face, spread her wings, and said, "I am, actually." "Wha-you are?" Snowfall scowled at her. "Why?" Is she working with the NightWings? Or the invading dragons? Or Crystal? Or all of the above? Or is she writing to my cousin Winter about what a terrible job I'm doing? They were always too friendly, those two. Maybe she's convinced him to round up a bunch of SeaWings to attack us — I don't know why, but it's possible. "Because I'm worried about you," Lynx said frankly, "Snowfall, are you alright?" Snowfall's entire brain stopped working. It just rolled over and lay there, suddenly full of nothing to say after months of nonstop yelling about everything. Her mouth was all, "Hello? Any thoughts?" And the response was apparently, "Nope, just flap around like a bewildered walrus for awhile." "Snowfall?" Lynx said after a moment. "Are you — did I break you?" She reached out and tapped lightly on Snowfall's forehead. Nobody tapped on the queen's forehead! Snowfall jumped back and stared at her. Nobody asked if the queen was "alright," either. She had never been asked that question — and certainly not since she became ruler of the whole kingdom! "Of course I'm alright," she snapped, "I am the queen!" "Those two things don't necessarily go together," Lynx observed. "I think maybe the opposite, actually." "Why don't you think I'm alright?" Snowfall demanded. "What are you trying to say? Do you think you'd be better at this than me?" "Oh my goodness," Lynx edged away a step and looked even more concerned. "Not even remotely! I would never want to be queen." "The correct answer," Snowfall said in an icy voice, "is 'No, Snowfall, you are doing amazing!" "You are doing amazing!" Lynx cried. "See, now I don't believe you." Snowfall wrenched a light globe off the tree and batted it up at one of the windows that overlooked the courtyard. Some aristocrat was going to wake up in the morning and be very confused about why he had a second light globe bobbing gently around his room. Lynx watched it sail over their heads, then returned her gaze to Snowfall. "I'm just … worried about the fact that the only dragons you ever get to talk to anymore are old and bossy and kind of mean." Snowfall let out a snort. That certainly described the council of powerful IceWings who had nominated themselves to guide the new young queen. "Some would say that I am bossy and kind of mean too," she said to Lynx haughtily. "Oh, you are," said Lynx, which was not the correct answer, either. "Which means you need to order some, like, kind and agreeable dragons to hang out with you. Ones that won't make your brain hurt all the time." "Like you, I suppose?" Snowfall asked. How did she know that my brain hurts all the time? "No, no," Lynx said, "I'm not agreeable at all. You would be like, 'fetch me a narwhal!' and I'd be like, 'ugh, whyyy, narwhals are heavy and I'm reading, and you'd say, 'but I want one! Right now!' And I'd say, 'then go get one, bossytail!' And you'd bellow, 'I am your queen!' And I'd be like, 'yeah, but this book is at a really exciting part though,' and then you'd probably have me executed. I'd be so irritating, you already know this about me." "How do you know that my brain hurts all the time?" Snowfall blurted. "I mean, that is, what makes you think that my brain hurts all the time?" "Well," Lynx said carefully, flicking her tail. "You haven't stopped frowning since the beginning of the plague, and that would give anyone a headache, I'd think. My brain is always tired when all I have to do is study and train and stay at the top of the dragonet rankings. You have to do all the queen stuff, and then, you know, also the sad bit." "No, no, no" Snowfall stamped right over Lynx's last words. "No time for that! I can handle all the queen stuff, I'm not a lowly noble like you. I can do everything just fine — this is what I've been preparing for my whole life." "Well — sure, but there was supposed to be more of a whole life first," Lynx pointed out. "Like a couple more decades, at least, I imagine." "You don't know that," Snowfall said, "maybe I was planning to challenge mother for the throne, like, next week anyway. Because I'm, like, so already ready to be queen." The light from the tree was too bright, and she could feel her eyes watering. She turned to pace back to the wall, rubbing her face with one talon. A couple more decades with mother as their queen, maybe longer — that was what they should have had. That was what Darkstalker stole. She hadn't really had a plan for challenging her mother anytime soon — she thought there would be plenty of time ahead of them before she had to worry about that. Or that certain sisters would get there first. "I guess I don't know," Lynx said, catching up to her — and walking beside her, instead of a few steps behind — how had this dragon done so well on her exams? Did she not know any royal etiquette at all? "I guess," Lynx went on, "maybe it had to be sooner because you had to challenge her before Icicle did, right? Or someone else? Maybe it's better this way, with her giving you the throne, instead of you having to take it." "I could have taken it," Snowfall assured her. "Any time I wanted to."