Cat Dragon

Set in Tangleroot Valley, a land where magic flows from an ancient well sustained by a fifty-foot Guardian, a sentient plant dragon on an endless pilgrimage, the story follows Aloysia Papplewick, a magicobotanist witch in her thirties who runs her family's small farm alone. In this world, witches and wizards bond with cat dragons, small winged feline-dragon hybrids that serve as magical familiars and enable collective spellcasting. Aloysia has never bonded with one despite decades of trying, leaving her unable to participate in the most powerful forms of magic. Her only companion is Crow, a sarcastic black bird she rescued as a fledgling from her cockatrice coop years earlier.

Each autumn, Aloysia regrows her deceased relatives as Prattling Pumpkins, sentient gourds that offer unsolicited criticism. Her great-grandmother Ethelbah's pumpkin berates Aloysia for her solitude and her lack of a familiar. When the local familiar-shop owner, Mr. Kingyosō, offers Aloysia an appointment in exchange for curing his cat dragons, she visits hoping to finally bond. A "Velvet-Pawed, Pin-Clawed Longhair" cat dragon appears to accept her, rolling onto its back in the ritual gesture of trust, but it bites her hand and draws blood. She leaves devastated.

The annual Harvest Night ceremony brings the valley together to witness the Guardian's return from its pilgrimage. While waiting, Aloysia spots a small, russet-colored cat dragon with red eyes darting through the shadows and tackles it before it can reach Elder Sassafras. Moments later, Aloysia's pregnant best friend Ivy Longcaster, a Councillor of Tangleroot, watches as her brother Hollis staggers from the woodland, bloodied and frantic. Hollis is the valley's Shepherd, a protector charged with guarding the Guardian on its pilgrimage, and the first non-magical person ever appointed to the role. He announces that the Guardian has veered off course and is heading for the Papplewick farm.

Aloysia and Hollis fly to the farm on Ivy's cat dragon, Hedera. The Guardian, an immense dragon of twisted vines and spring flowers, tears through the property. Aloysia notices it is shedding its blooms, something unprecedented, and concludes the creature is ill. She climbs its tail and packs Come-Along Compost, a powerful fertilizer, into its root system. The Guardian's flowers briefly flourish before transforming into autumn berries, and the creature collapses onto Aloysia's cottage, destroying her home.

Ivy reveals that Great-Granny Ethelbah recognized the Guardian's symptoms from a folktale about Dryadin Vale, where a Guardian suffered an identical illness called Shepherd's Warning. That valley no longer exists. Aloysia discovers a counterspell called Guardian's Gaiety in her ancestral spellbook, but three of its ingredients, stonecaps, skater's snare, and pattyberries, can only be found beyond the valley. At a formal hearing before the valley's governing Council, Elder Sassafras threatens to strip Aloysia of her wand and witching license, and to expunge Hollis's Shepherd record, if the Guardian dies before their return.

Before departing, the russet cat dragon from Harvest Night reappears and completes the Flickering, the first stage of bonding, with Aloysia. Their Bond, however, does not fully confirm: When the cat dragon holds her wand, it fails to change color. Aloysia, Hollis, Crow, and the cat dragon set out from Tangleroot.

Their journey takes them first to Castercombe, a vast underground cavern city, where they meet Witch Lán Huā, a magicolinguist and folklorist who specializes in Spellspeak, the dying art of writing spells. Lán guides them to a cave where the ceiling is covered in bioluminescent grubs capable of dissolving metal. A mercenary wizard betrays the group, and one of his ricocheting magical bullets wounds the cat dragon. The cave's protector turns out to be Castercombe's own Guardian, a fifty-foot axolotl made of flowers and living-stone plants. Aloysia climbs its body and harvests stonecaps from the ceiling using Lán's yammerphone, a device that broadcasts Spellspeak commands.

After the cat dragon convalesces, the group travels to Strømoten, a fishing hamlet where they meet Shikha Jaadoovaara, a non-magical zoologist who serves as Shepherd to a fifty-foot oarfish Guardian named Rohaan. Together they harvest skater's snare from the mouths of riverweevers, enormous magical fish. During a campfire conversation, Hollis confides that he has never found his purpose, and he and Aloysia nearly kiss before Crow arrives with alarming news: The Tangleroot Guardian has taken on winter colors weeks ahead of schedule because the Council has intensified magical use rather than rationing it.

With time running out, Aloysia splits the group. She and Shikha ride Rohaan to Gipfelburg, the mountain's peak city, while Hollis and Lán fly to Jordevær to check for cultivated pattyberries and send Crow back to Tangleroot with the ingredients already gathered. In Gipfelburg, Aloysia meets Eckhardt Beaumont, the city's Shepherd, who reveals that Gipfelburg's Guardian, an enormous snow griffin, is also dying from the same illness. Under magical secrecy spells, Eckhardt confesses that Hollis once visited him, and the two Guardians met off the pilgrimage trail. Aloysia harvests wild pattyberries by playing a specific rhythm on their stems to open their protective leaves and negotiates an exchange of ingredients with Eckhardt, who accompanies them back to Tangleroot.

Back in the valley, Aloysia brews the Guardian's Gaiety and administers it to the now winter-white Guardian. The creature briefly improves, then speaks through a carved pumpkin in an ancient language, telling the crowd that its time as Guardian is at an end and urging them to protect the new Guardian. It dies, and enchanted buildings begin collapsing across the valley as magic drains from the well.

Lán identifies the lullaby "The Snapdragon and the Thistle," which Aloysia has sung throughout the journey, as one of the Eight Prophecies, ancient predictions that shape the future of magical life. She determines that the two Guardians mated and produced offspring, and that the old Guardian's death was a natural part of its reproductive cycle. The prophecy indicates the new Guardian must be found at the Spire, a tower near the valley, before the full moon, which is that night.

Aloysia initially suspects the russet cat dragon, whose fur has been turning white and whose Bond never confirmed. But she realizes the answer lies with Crow: He was hatched in the cockatrice coop the same spring the Guardians met, has been growing rapidly, and breathes violet fire unlike any cat dragon.

The group flies to the Spire and battles lichenthropes, poisonous wolf-like creatures with lichen coats, guarding its entrance. Inside, they fight through a massive sentient vine called a wavering winder that has taken on dangerous plant forms. In the attic, they channel their magic into the russet cat dragon through a golden table, but the effort drains them completely and fails. Then Crow, now enormous, crashes through the Spire's golden roof. The wavering winder, which Aloysia has befriended by singing it the lullaby, wraps itself around Crow and channels its own magic into him, transforming him into an immense dragon griffin of twisted branches, flowers, and wind-dispersed seeds. As the tower collapses, the newly transformed Crow catches everyone, speaking directly into Aloysia's mind: "I think we'll call this even."

In the weeks that follow, magic slowly returns to Tangleroot's well. Eckhardt sends word that Gipfelburg's snow griffin survived. Ivy gives birth to a daughter named Zinnia and gives Aloysia her blessing regarding Hollis. Aloysia and Hollis share their first kiss in the snow-covered grounds of the corn exchange, Ivy's home where Aloysia has been staying. The Council offers Aloysia a seat among their ranks, which she pockets without responding. Lán reveals a final verse to the lullaby that Aloysia has not yet heard, suggesting the story of Tangleroot Valley is far from over.