The dead buccaneer said nothing. Thankfully.

The boat might need a few repairs, and I wouldn’t know if it was watertight until I tried it in the sea. As I scrambled around the cave floor for anything else that might be useful, I wondered what had happened to the dead man. Had he been set adrift from a ship of buccaneers as a mutineer, left to fend for himself on an island with no source of water? Why would a sailor be marooned with an empty chest—one so sturdy, expensive in its day. Maybe he had become ill—the smallpox?—and been left by his crewmates so as not to contaminate the whole ship. I didn’t fancy investigating him further; he had curled up in peace beneath his boat, hat over his eyes, to die, and it wasn’t my place to disturb him now.

I found a green-black copper pan among the buccaneer’s belongings. Aside from the knife and the coil of rope, there didn’t seem to be anything else of use, and I stowed them in the base of the boat along with a tiny oar.

This man had died down here alone. I was suddenly very keen to get out of these hellish tunnels, dragon or not. But I lingered, wondering how long he’d survived here before—

What are you waiting for? Nothing you can do for him.

“There is one thing,” I said.

Once more I lifted my fiddle from its case and played the hymn I had played at Da’s funeral. I wondered how old this man had been. My da hadn’t yet been thirty when the consumption took him. I sang the words in my mind as I drew the bow across the strings, gripping Scratch tight to my chin.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

The words rang in my head as the last note faded.

“Not found yet,” I said firmly, and packed Scratch away.

I slid the boat back into the darkness and rushed along the rest of the tunnel toward the light.

The passageway grew narrow, sloping uphill The sound of the sea was louder, and amber sunlight soaked into me, filling me with energy. It must be nearing sunset. I stood before the cave exit, a wide crack leading to the outside. I remembered how the dragon fire had billowed into the hole.

I couldn’t take any chances. I had a boat now, but I needed to live long enough to use it.

I ducked out, peered upward first, scanning the sky for signs of the dragon. The sun was setting, and high strips of clouds caught the rosy rays like cheerful pennants. I gazed around me, only daring to dip the top of my head out of the hole. In front, I couldn’t see an awful lot, as black boulders blocked my view. I heard the sweep of the sea from that direction. Behind me, the volcano was spurting lazy gouts of liquid and I imagined lava bubbling in a great pool at its summit, like jam left too long on the stove. Da was good with jam, I remembered—he used my ma’s own recipe. My ma had fallen ill in the autumn just after I was born, and making the jam always made Da twist his wedding ring even more than usual. I sighed. Not the perfect time for memories.