Plot
Three young adults named Arthur, Lucy and Elizabeth were traveling to meet Rupert Steiner, who had received a note from Gadzooks. The word "Scuffenbury" was written in Dragontonge, which is the name of one of the barrows which are said to contain a dragons. Back in their home town, Wayward Crescent, David asks Zanna, David's girlfriend, for more information about Gwilanna. This is where Gwillanna is threatening to hand over the Dark Fire Tear to IX. She had the choice to sacrifice her husband while being threatened, but Zanna was used for David's place. The summoning of the dragon Ghislaine, Gwilanna summoned a darkling. David and Zanna get home one night and discover their neighbor, Henry Bacon, is in the hospital due to a stroke. Liz and Lucy are at the hospital and David gets a letter. He learns about the Scuffenbury. David goes with Liz to visit Henry in hospital, and Henry dies during their visit. After Henry dies, Gwilanna, attends the funeral and gives a warning to David that she will do anything to get her hands on the obsidian and the Dark Fire. The group meet Henry's sister Agatha, a powerful sibyl. They also discover that Henry has left Liz and Lucy $50,000, and left David his collection of Arctic memorabilia and Zanna his house. The will also says that the Arctic would be left in place. After this, Agatha(a Sybil) teaches Zanna healing magicks and suggests that she make her peace with David.
Zanna goes into town with Alexa and Gretel to open her shop, but on the way the group are attacked by the semi-Darkling flock and are rescued by Tam, who destroys them with the spirit Kailar. Zanna was hurt, but uses her new healing knowledge to mend the wound. Tam talks to David about Rupert Steiner, who has come to him with a story about translations of the dragontongue found on the Glacier expedition. Lucy told David that Sophie emailed her, trying to talk to him, and David leaves for Africa. Lucy then receives a phone call from an old friend, Melanie Cartwright, who has seen a video of a Pennykettle dragon moving on TV and is concerned over her own “special” dragon, Glade. David gets to Africa and finds Sophie's wildlife sanctuary on fire. Grockle extinguishes the fire. Sophie was killed and Grace is preparing to cry her Fire Tear. The semi-Darkling which began the fire is still alive. He was planning on inverting Grace's tear to create dark fire. Pieter, Sophie's fiancé, tries to kill it, but it kills him instead. David then distracts the Darkling with the dark fire he already has, captures it and sends it back to the IX with a warning to leave the Pennykettle dragons alone. Mutu, one of Sophie's college roommates, tells David that he saw a woman dancing in the flames. David then leaves Africa, taking with him Grace's stone body. Her Fire Tear was caught by Groyne during the struggle.
When he returns home. David informs Zanna that Alexa is a new species. She is an angel, a bridge between dragons and mankind and when the dragons are revealed, people everywhere will want to be like her. He also tells her that the people will travel to Ki:mera. This is the Fain's home world.
In the Dragon's Den, David gathers the dragons in an attempt to convert the dark fire and return it to Gwillan. Gollygosh will extract the dark fire from the obsidian, Groyne will mix it with Grace's Fire Tear and some icefire to neutralize it, and G'reth will wish for Gwillan and Grace to be reanimated. However, while David explains what will happen, Gollygosh is momentarily corrupted by the dark fire, and releases it early. The Dark Fire then enters Liz and her baby and she is knocked out. While Zanna tends to her, He then sends Lucy with Tam to Scuffenbury. Not noticing that, in the Dragon's Den, Gwillan is draining Grace's auma into himself. Lucy and Tam travel to Scuffenbury. On the way, Lucy reads the article about the last meeting of dragons. This is how eleven of the last twelve dragons shed half of their fire tears, then went into stasis, while the twelfth, Gawaine, ingested all eleven tears and planned to use them to defeat the Ix. Lucy and Tam arrive at their guesthouse, which is run by Hannah and Clive, and has one other guest, Mrs Gee. They climb Glissington Tor, the dragon's burial site, that evening, and that night Lucy has a nightmare about a cat, which she encountered earlier in the day, bringing her a semi-darkling.
In the Crescent, Liz is comatose, but unharmed. When Gwillan suddenly wakes up, Melanie Cartwright comes to visit with her mother, Rachel, and dragon, Glade, who can sense moods. Gretel puts the humans to sleep so they don't get in the way, and Glade goes upstairs to try and check on Liz and the baby. She finds that Liz is all right, but the baby's body is in stasis, and its auma has been transferred to Gwillan. The Cartwrights leave, and David contacts G'Oreal, informing him that Grockle is destroying the semi-Darklings. Early next morning, Tam and Lucy climb Scuffenbury Hill to see the unicorn. While they are there, cairn stones, the remains of a monument on Glissington Tor, begin to rise from the earth and rebuild the cairn, revealing more chalk carvings - a unicorn's horn. Mrs Gee, a sibyl, has rebuilt the cairn to try and wake the unicorn and the dragon, but Hannah, who claims to know all the Tor's secrets, warns her that this legend is false, and waking the dragon requires a red-haired girl, touched by the spirit of a dragon. She also explains that the dragon in stasis is Gawaine, who came to Scuffenbury looking for the unicorn Teramelle's healing to help her give birth, and offers to help Mrs Gee claim the dragon in return for one of its scales.
Gwendolen, left in the hotel to watch for the mysterious cat, is shocked to discover that not only is the cat real, it can do magic, and communicate. It tells her it is truly a girl called Bella, who was turned into a cat by Mrs Gee. The TV news is showing pictures of dragons being freed all over the world, and Hannah tells Lucy that she can wake the dragon if she touches it and sings - and that there is a tunnel under the cairn which will let Lucy touch the dragon.
At Wayward Crescent, Zanna is puzzled by e-mails Lucy is receiving, which David tells her are from other daughters of Guinevere. He also gives her Tam's article, telling her that Gawaine, the dragon in Scuffenbury and the one chosen to fight the IX, was Gawain's mother, and her plan to destroy the IX was to draw the IX to her, then sacrifice herself in the Fire Eternal, a plan which the new Wearle has adopted. Tam and Lucy travel through the tunnels to wake Gawaine, but as the dragon stirs, Hannah betrays them. Tam is trapped underground, and Lucy captured by Mrs Gee, but Bella helps her escape. In the chaos of the dragon's awakening, Mrs Gee, Hannah and Clive are all killed and the hotel collapses. Meanwhile, Melanie and Rachel Cartwright are attacked by the last surviving semi-Darkling, who injures both of them before taking Glade. Glade sends a distress signal to the Pennykettles, which is intercepted by Gwillan.
Lucy calls David for help, and he sends Grockle. With his help, Lucy places some of her tears in Glissington cairn, although Bella tries to stop her. The tears reflect moonlight onto the unicorn's horn, bringing it to life, and it frees Gawaine. However, as Zanna discovers through an email Bella sent Lucy, Gawaine was betrayed and one of her children murdered by a sibyl disguised as a red-haired maiden, and when she sees Lucy, she attacks. Grockle fails to defend Lucy, but, as Lucy is Gawaine's kin, the flames do not harm her, and Gawine is distracted for long enough that David can arrive to help.
Meanwhile, the last surviving semi-Darkling ingests Lucy's auma from the tears she left at Glissington Cairn. It uses the power in the tears to renew itself, and call the Ix towards it, and a full Darkling is born, with the ability to self-replicate, which it does until there are four Darklings. Realizing the danger, David gives Lucy the narwhal tusk talisman which he thinks is Groyne so that she can be transported home, not realizing that the tusk is in fact Gwillan, who has taken Groyne's abilities, and Lucy has only been moved across the valley.
Gawaine and G'lant - the combined force of David and Grockle - begin to fight the Darklings. One invades Gawaine's mind before she destroys it, but G'lant restores her before permanent injury can occur. One then distracts G'lant while the remaining two attack Gawaine. One destroys her wing and poisons her blood, although it is near-fatally injured in the attempt, and falls to the ground near Lucy, who has been joined by Bella. As it attempts to attack the girls, Tam emerges from the ground and destroys it. Zane contacts Agatha Bacon but instead Gwilanna arrives at Wayward Crescent, and Zanna leaves for Scuffenbury after . She arrives near Gawaine, who is gravely injured, and begins trying to heal her with Teramelle's help. The unicorn warns her to hurry, as Scuffenbury is the site of a portal to the Fire Eternal, and the portal will soon open. Meanwhile, Gwilanna, who wishes to deliver Liz's child. She refuses to listen when Arthur explains that Gwillan now possesses the child's auma. She uses a spell to trap Arthur in an armoir and, with the use of Gawain's iscoscele, draws the dark fire out of Liz. The dark fire turns Gawain's isoscele black, then proceeds to kill Gwilanna before traveling to Scuffenbury. Alexa, who was locked outside by Gwilanna, grows full wings and is then taken by G'Oreal of the New Wearle to Scuffenbury.
At Scuffenbury, G'lant continues to fight the two remaining Darklings. Gwillan traps one, purifying its auma and turning it into a dragon, which is no longer any threat. At the sight of Gwillan, the Ix lend all their power to the remaining Darkling, and it overpowers G'lant, but Gawaine drags it into the Fire Eternal, sacrificing herself to save G'lant and fulfill the task the Old Wearle entrusted her with - eradicating the Ix. Teramelle, invaded by the dark fire, follows her.
In the chaos which the dark fire causes, David, Zanna, Alexa and Gadzooks come together, and Gadzooks begins writing a word. David reassures Zanna that everything will be all right, but things will be different. Then David, Lucy, Tam, Zanna, Bella and the assembled dragons disappear. The book ends with the word Gadzooks was writing, "sometimes".
