Always - Moonbli

18. Jewels and Rescues

Qibli

'Careful,' hissed Nightfrost. 

Qibli gently lifted a glass lamp into the air and passed it to Nightfrost, who was dangling half out of the trapdoor of the guest room they were in. She blew frostbreath into it and Qibli watched, mystified as always, as delicate ice crystals swirled around in the glass, coating the sides with frost. 

She then sat up and gave it to Turtle, who added it to the growing pile beside them. 'There, that's the last,' said Qibli, handing her a lamp in which Qibli's fire burned away merrily. She gingerly handed it over to the SeaWing prince - IceWings, it transpired, did not like hot things (duh - they were called IceWings and not FireWings for a reason). 

Qibli spiralled up to her and she scooted backwards so he could squeeze into the tunnel. 'All done!' he whispered to Winter, whose blue eyes stared angrily at them from around a dark corner. 'Keep it down!' he snapped back softly, glancing cautiously at the floor. Thankfully, no one heard them. 

They had been working furiously ever since they'd glimpsed Darkstalker. When they had finally proceeded to ransack the final room, Moon and Kinkajou had snuck away to spy on Darkstalker. Qibli hoped they were okay. 

Once, he'd almost walked straight into a grumpy, rather blind guard, and had avoided capture by jumping into a room whose door was open. Still, he'd seen the same guard suspiciously poking around the room later. 

Qibli wondered exactly how many dragons knew about the secret passageways above their heads. Clearly Nightmare didn't, for she would have sent in guards to scour the area for them a long time before. 

Then why hadn't Eagle told her about them already? Qibli shook his head to clear it, extremely puzzled. 'Hurry up!' said Winter, annoyed. 

Qibli looked up. 

His friends had disappeared and Winter's ice-white snout was poking around the same dark corner he'd been sitting in. 'Grab the rest of them and come quickly,' he said snappishly, watching as Qibli clumsily swept the remaining glass lamps into his talons. 

'Careful!' added the IceWing touchily, and Qibli rolled his eyes at the ceiling. The lamps were both hot and cold at the same time in his grip, which was obvious, since half of them were fire and the other half frostbreath.

 As he walked, Qibli kept glancing at the lamps. They were beautiful. Some were ice-blue, sculpted six-sided ice crystals forming a miniature blizzard, and some were a flaring yellow-orange, tongues of vivid autumn-coloured flames licking hungrily at the edges of the lamp. 

Mesmerised, he nearly ran into Winter's back. 

'Qibli, how many times do I tell you to be careful?' demanded Winter angrily, keeping his voice low. 'Sorry, sorry!' muttered Qibli, neatly catching a falling fire-lamp with his tail. He craned his neck to see why their small procession had stopped. 

Nightfrost and Turtle were standing near a trapdoor, and the small form of Kinkajou emerged, grinning. Behind her, Moon's ebony snout appeared. 'Why so cheerful?' asked Turtle, pulling up Kinkajou. Nightfrost helped up Moon. 

'Oh, we just heard a bunch of good stuff,' replied Kinkajou, dusting her scales. Turtle stifled a cough as Qibli pushed past Winter, ignoring the IceWing's 'ow'. 'What did you hear?' he asked, carefully setting the lamps down. 

Moon smiled. 'They've gotten nowhere. Wherever Fin's taken them, it's a good place. They haven't seen neither scale nor tail of my mother and the rest.' 'Do you know why Darkstalker's here?' asked Nightfrost, shifting the weight in her talons side to side. Moon quickly took some from her and she smiled gratefully.