Then my fingers found the curve of a smooth, warm surface.

I rolled the object toward me. Farthing appeared and nudged it off the edge, and I caught it in both my waiting hands.

It was golden, shot through with marbled lines of black.

I had known what it was the moment I’d touched that perfect roundness, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it.

A dragon’s egg.

I held the golden egg tight to my chest, suddenly afraid I would drop it, and stared up at the hole in the cavern way above me.

I remembered Mr. Darwin’s excitement at the huge rhea eggs we’d found on the mud banks in Patagonia; this was half that size again. The biggest egg ever found. Just one of these golden eggs would be a wonder of the world. Mr. Darwin only ever took what we needed; he was very particular about that, especially when it came to birds’ nests. Yet Farthing was nudging more eggs forward along the ledge. Six, now seven.

My thoughts were interrupted by a screech that made the contents of the cave jangle and clatter, and a burning wind buffeted my back. I spun around as the dragon’s two huge claws descended through the roof of the cavern.

I hooked one hand under Farthing’s belly and slung her across my shoulder; she was lighter than I would have thought and curled herself around my neck. With my other arm cradling the egg, I ran from the cavern, ducking into the entrance tunnel. A second screech rocked me to my core, and I clutched my ear with my free hand, crouching in the dark, out of the dragon’s sight.

A different sound tore the air, like old sheets being ripped up for bandages. The earth beneath my feet didn’t tremble this time; it slid back and forth like a heavy load on rollers. I collapsed to the ground, clasping the egg. With Farthing still wrapped around my neck, I squeezed my eyes tight, waiting for the entire tunnel to collapse on my head.

The rumble died away, leaving the air swirling with dust and stinking as if the guts of the earth had split open. I pressed my neckerchief over my nose and peered into the cavern.

The dragon filled the cave with muscular golden bulk. She nudged at the ledge with her huge snout, pushing the eggs back. All the while she was groaning and rumbling, a sound not unlike the earthquakes, her huge sides panting like bellows. Up close she was beyond magnificent. Her folded wings were a deeper bronze than her scales, which glittered gold where the light hit. She was bigger than ten elephants, maybe bigger than a whale.

Her head whipped toward me, and I pressed my back against the wall, in the shadow of the tunnel.

She sniffed the air through cavernous nostrils on the end of a majestic, long snout. Her dinner plate eyes opened wide and were mesmerizing, a burnished gold like her scales. She reared and bellowed again, a teeth-jangling tormented shriek. Now I saw the reason for her horror.