When Willum, an apprentice book maker, has a nasty fall, he loses all of his memories...including the strictures concerning protective magic for the exquisite miniature dragons called Dragilios. Not knowing he is breaking the magic law, and sending the little Dragil, Malle, into deadly peril, he draws the friendly, little dragil. The moment the picture is finished the protective spell shatters. Her anguished cry as she disappears restores his memory.Devastated at what he has done and wanting to right the wrong or die trying, Willum undertakes a dangerous quest into the malignant world of the giant leather-winged dragons. Can he find her in time before she is ripped apart and eaten? If he stays too long in that lethal land, he becomes stone.The hourglass sands are slipping away toward the doom of the boy and the fragile little dragil. Can he save them both?