Well, I wasn’t going to make it easy for the beast, not this time. It came for me head-on, its wings tucked back, like an almighty golden spear. The speed of it! I needed to keep my nerve. Use what I had.

I was small, and small things are difficult to get hold of.

The dragon’s claws extended, its wings opened, and I knew what I had to do. When it lunged, I ducked and rolled to the side, then sprang to my feet and kept running. The monstrous claws gouged the ground just to my right, ripping out ferns. With a bellowing shriek it swooped off behind me, the sound ringing in my ears.

It wouldn’t take long for it to gain height, turn, and come at me from behind, and I didn’t know if I could dodge it again. But my triumph gave me strength. I picked up pace, still following the path Farthing had made for me through the vegetation. She stopped and turned. I risked a glance behind and, just as I suspected, the dragon was back up in the sky and making an arrow-straight line for me. I could already feel those claws, and every hair on my body stood on end with dread.

Last time it had dropped me in the sea. Three times! Why? Because it didn’t want me on this island, it had to be. And yet here I was. I hadn’t gotten the message, hadn’t heeded the warning. This time it would kill me for sure.

Farthing stopped so quickly I almost tripped as I raced on past her—and then the ground beneath my feet was … gone.

I screamed as the earth swallowed me.

My legs circled in the air and my arms grasped at nothing. I was engulfed in darkness, then hit the ground with a thump.

I lay on my back, winded and gasping for breath, and stared up at the hole I’d fallen through. It was around ten feet up and lined with grass. The opening wasn’t big enough for the dragon to get to me, but it might force a claw down here, like a blackbird’s beak pecking into the ground for a worm. I scuttled out of the pool of light and into the shadows.

Now I saw what that little green lizard had been up to. Farthing must have known about this hole and led me here to be safe from the beast, the dragon. But where was she now?

An unearthly scream ripped through the air, a shriek like a banshee or some other horror from a penny dreadful and then flames billowed through the opening above. I sprang to my feet and stumbled back into the darkness, finding I was in a tunnel, then turned to watch from a safe distance.

This inferno could not be caused by the volcano. This was pure burning fire ballooning in great clouds of yellow and orange. My eyes stung and my skin tingled in the heat.