Even on the other side of the wasteland that buffered the civilized world from the Wilds, the Jade Mountains had loomed. With each step that Floridiana and Den had pushed through the tangle of grasses, shrubs, and thorns that had once been fertile farmland, back during the Empire, before the demons expanded their territory, the mountains had blocked out more of the sky.

Floridiana had always assumed that the Jade Mountains felt so ominous because she knew what they held: long-established demon kingdoms, newly-awakened animals who hadn’t learned the ways of civilized folk, and, on the far side, the shore that adjoined the Northern Sea with all its fish demons. But no, now that she was in the Jade Mountains, she could attest that the landscape itself felt ominous.

The peaks were great, grey masses of marble cliffs, broken by expanses of gravel from rocks that had shattered in landslides, and they were much, much too big. They went up and up and up until they seemed to crush her with their weight. She thought they were dotted with shrubs until she looked at the mountainside around her and realized that they were actually trees – and not short, stubby trees either.

Who knew what lay around the next bend? Who could guess what lurked behind or on top of the next boulder? (Because the boulders were the size of hillocks here!) Who knew what demon lord’s borders they were breaching?

This was the most exciting place she had ever visited!

“Isn’t this magnificent?” she breathed.

The wind tore the words from her lips and hurtled down a ravine, so Den didn’t hear them. At least, she assumed that was why he didn’t reply.

“Shouldn’t be much further!” she called back over her shoulder.

For their first foray into the Wilds, she’d opted for a day trip to scout out a good spot for a campsite. The locals hadn’t been able to tell them much about the demon who ruled here, only that he was a rock macaque named King Haplor “wha’ mos’ly keeps t’ hisself.” That sounded promising: A demon king who mostly kept to himself couldn’t be too strong, and hence was probably too busy fighting off other demons to harass a pair of travelers.

Since Den was still sunk in gloomy silence, Floridiana kept the conversation going. “It’s a nice little brook. You can have a nice soak. That’ll perk you right up, won’t it?”

For a member of the group of spirits that controlled all the water in Serica, Den was not very brave. At the mention of the brook, he shot her a look of pure terror.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he answered at last, in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Why not?”

If they were going to camp anywhere for a significant length of time – which they would, in order to measure their rate of magical growth – then it would have to be near a source of water. Both humans and dragons needed it to survive.

“We have no idea what’s living in the brook.”

She repeated the argument she’d made, and which…The Demon…had confirmed, back when they were planning the expedition in Honeysuckle Croft: “It’s a very small brook. Any demon living in it can’t be too powerful.”

She’d have shown him the map in The Mage’s Guide to Serica, except that she hadn’t brought the precious book with her. Instead, she’d memorized the map before they set out. (Admittedly, it was on the sketchy side, so there wasn’t much to memorize.)

“Anyway, it’s got to have a water court. Worst comes to worst, we’ll appeal to the dragon king for help.”

She’d meant to reassure Den, but if anything, he looked even more petrified. “I really don’t think – ”

“I brought money for bribes. He won’t report you.”

The dragon’s face was a mask of horror.

She soothed him, “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

Whether they could fend off demonic water-dwellers or bribe dragon kings turned out to be a moot point, though, because the brook wasn’t there. In fact, there wasn’t a trickle of water in sight.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Mage’s Guide to Serica was supposed to be right.

Well, the brook must have dried up in the decades since whichever intrepid mage had explored the area. It was just a brook, after all. Such things happened. It was fine. A setback, yes, but setbacks happened.

Floridiana shrugged. “Well, on to the next site then.”

The next site was a stream not too much further into the Wilds. However, when they arrived, they realized that once again, the map was outdated. This stream had once lain at the bottom of a narrow gorge – which had since been filled in by an landslide. Maybe water still flowed under all that rock…but it wasn’t going to be useful to Floridiana and Den.

On Den’s face, relief that they hadn’t found an appropriate campsite yet warred with terror that the terrain was so different from the map on which they had based all their planning.

Floridiana herself was starting to feel a little anxious, but she had to stay strong. She was the backbone of this expedition, after all.

“Let’s check one more site today,” she decided. “We can still make it out before dark if we push ourselves.”

Den protested, as she’d known he would, but since he protested while scurrying after her, it didn’t waste any time.

The third site was next to the Caligo Amnis or, in modern Serican, the Fog River. It, too, flowed at the bottom of a deep gorge, but Floridiana could make out the remains of a crude path down the cliff.

“Excellent! This is it!” she proclaimed.

“I don’t know – look at that path – someone cut it into the marble – ”

“Yeah, but consider this: We’re far above any water demons. They’re not gonna attack us.”

“But who cut that path – ”

“Look, spirits live in the Wilds. You knew that coming in. You agreed to come.”

Well, to be honest, it was less that he’d agreed to come, and more that it had been agreed for him and he hadn’t resisted hard enough to overturn the decision. But as far as Floridiana was concerned, it just meant that he secretly wanted to grow into a great dragon but didn’t have the guts to admit it.

With Den standing guard while sputtering and darting glances all around them, Floridiana took out her dish of seal paste. She picked up her seal, which swung from her belt as it always did, and coated the runes of her name with the vermillion paste. Then she envisioned a small hole, brought the seal down on the ground, and thrust as hard as she could with her will. Dirt and pebbles sprayed up around the bronze. When she lifted it, underneath was an irregular hole roughly the size of the seal.

Next, she took out a piece of string whose end was weighted with a lead bead and whose length was marked like a ruler, and lowered it into the hole.

Finally, she recorded the hole’s location and depth in a notebook that she’d splurged on for just this purpose, making her writing as tiny as possible. Parchment was so expensive that the notebook was a sheaf of loosely bound palimpsests. Even though she’d gotten a discount on it at a mage supply shop that she frequented, it still hurt to use the pages. Ah, if only Sericans could still make paper!

After that, she performed the experiment nine more times, since ten was a number favored by Heaven and she could use all the divine favor she could get.

Once she had finished, she brushed the dirt back into the holes, stamped it flat, and scattered leaves and pebbles back over the surface so it looked undisturbed. King Haplor probably wouldn’t mind a handful of small holes in the ground, but it never hurt to be polite.

“All done,” she announced to Den. “Your turn.”

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, why was he standing on the edge of a hundred-foot drop off a cliff into an icy river that probably belonged to some powerful demon who’d warped the local dragon king to his or her will? What had he done to offend Lady Fate on the day he met Rosie?

Where Floridiana saw access to a supply of freshwater for their future campsite, Den saw only an unnatural footpath. Which had almost certainly been gouged out of the stone by demonic claws. When they’d studied the map in the Jeks’ cozy cottage and debated the merits of various rivers, this was not what he had envisioned. He’d assumed that all rivers looked like Black Sand Creek – wide and peaceful, with gently-sloping banks covered in plants and wildflowers. Why did this Fog River have to be bordered with rocks of all sizes, from boulders to grains of gravel, which served as a painful reminder that a landslide could crush them at any moment?

And why wasn’t Floridiana, who was only a human after all, more worried?

She was crazy. That was the only logical conclusion. Only crazy people came into the Wilds.

“All done. Your turn,” announced the mad mage.

At the sound of her voice, Den jumped so high that he practically leaped into an aspen. “My-my-my-my turn?” he stuttered.

“Yes. We have my baseline now. We still need yours. So we can compare future measurements to it and calculate your growth.”

She seemed to assume that he’d forgotten their experimental design. But that wasn’t the case. “Shouldn’t – shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow? We’ve got to get out of the Wilds before dark.”

She cast an experienced glance at the sky, assessing its shade of blue. “We have enough time if you start now.”

The implication being that if he didn’t, if he used up more precious daylight minutes arguing, then they wouldn’t get out of the Wilds before dark.

He did not want to be in the Wilds after dark with no protective wards or spells.

“Do you remember what you’re supposed to do?” prompted the merciless mage.

“Yeah….”

Reluctantly, Den crept into the open and lay down in the dirt in front of her, stretching to full length. She used her string to measure him from his snout to the tip of his tail and recorded the number. Then he stood up on his hind legs, closed his eyes, touched the pearl at his throat, and visualized growing larger.

His body resisted the change, much as his subconscious did. He was happy the way he was. He didn’t need to be any bigger.

Still, this was the best way they’d come up with to measure his magical growth – and if he were going to help everyone fight Lord Silurus the way they wanted him to, then he had to get bigger and stronger.

Grow! Grow! Grow! he chanted to himself.

It felt like it took forever – maybe it did take forever – but at last his toes began to scrape along the dirt as they lengthened. There was a weird sensation of being squeezed in the middle and tugged from both ends at the same time. When he opened his eyes again, they were somewhat higher up than they had been.

“Is that all you can do?” asked the mage. She sounded unimpressed.

Den bobbed his head vigorously. “Yes. This is as big as I can get.”

He lay back down, and she measured and recorded his length again.

“Now shrink back to your normal size and repeat it nine times,” she ordered. “I’ll calculate your growth percentage once we’re out of the Wilds.”

Den had no choice but to obey.

High in the branches of an aspen, Tamiops observed the invaders. The striped squirrel demon’s small size and golden-brown fur helped him blend in so well that he was King Haplor’s best scout. Neither the human nor the dragonet had noticed him tailing them all day.

When he’d first seen them, he’d assumed that the dragonet was invading their fief to take it over, and he’d nearly rushed back at once to report in person.

But now he was glad that he’d sent one of his runners, Papilio the swallowtail butterfly demon, and stayed here himself. Because, impossibly, it seemed like the human was in charge. Whenever she gave the dragonet an order, he pouted and whined – while doing exactly as she said.

What the heck kind of spell had a human worked on a dragon to put him so completely under her control?

And what the heck kind of orders was she giving him? Why was he growing and shrinking over and over, and why was she measuring him with a string?

Also, why had she poked holes in the ground only to fill them back in?

What the heck were they trying to do here?

The human shut her notebook and put it away. The dragonet stood up. They seemed to be preparing to leave.

Tamiops swished his tail, signaling the other swallowtail butterfly demon to approach. “Macula, report that the invaders are leaving,” he commanded, and off she fluttered.

While he waited for her to return with new instructions, he continued to tail the human and the dragonet. They were blundering along the Caligo Amnis.

In no time at all, both butterfly demons were back, flapping around his head. “Orders from His Majesty! Report to Captain Rock! Prepare for an ambush!”