Meet Millie, the charming but somewhat cursed daughter of Princess Emma and Prince Eadric. Why cursed? You see, every time Millie gets mad (and she gets mad a little too often) she turns into a dragon. And not a cute little pink dragon either. She is a full-on, green-scaled, huge-winged, fire-breathing dragon—big enough to scare the petticoats off her own friends, family . . . and, of course, potential suitors who come to see about her hand in marriage.

It’s embarrassing—even maddening—that this has to happen, but no one seems to have any answers for her . . . until she hears about a witch in the far reaches of the Icy North, a witch guarded by a frightening brigade of abominable snowmen, creatures who have no interest in helping a princess in distress.

PROLOGUE

Though she was just a few minutes old, everyone agreed that the baby was beautiful. She had eyes like those of her mother, Princess Emma, and a shock of blond hair much like that of her grandmother, Queen Chartreuse. Emma swore that her daughter had Eadric’s smile, but her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother all claimed that the baby was too young and wouldn’t really smile for some time yet.

When she was only three months pregnant, Emma had dreamed that the baby was going to be a girl. After that, she and her husband, Prince Eadric, had never worried about a boy’s name. The baby would be named Millie, after the second Green Witch, Emma’s long-ago ancestor.

Although Emma wanted to show Millie to Eadric right away, the midwife and all the other women in the room insisted that they wash the baby first. Unfortunately, an overeager lady-in-waiting hadn’t bothered to warm the water before bringing it to the midwife. The midwife, rattled in the presence of so much royalty, most of whom were witches, splashed the cold water on the baby. With a startled cry, the baby turned red as a strawberry, and her thin wail broke the calm of her parents’ bedchamber. Emma sat up to see what was wrong. At that instant, the air seemed to sizzle and the baby turned from a beautiful human newborn with honey-blond hair into a baby dragon with scales of the palest green. Queen Chartreuse screamed. Two ladiesin- waiting fled the room. The midwife fainted.

Emma sighed and reached for her baby. “I was afraid of this,” she murmured, gazing down at the squalling infant. Turning to her aunt Grassina, she added, “This is what comes of spending half my life as a dragon.”