No. The little lizard had survived the dragon fire before; she must have escaped again. She’d be sheltering somewhere safe from the lava, somewhere I couldn’t go.

I couldn’t wait for her. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I looked down at the chest. The dragon eggs were my responsibility. They might be the last of their kind in the world, and Farthing had brought me to their mother’s lair to rescue them. And with or without Farthing, I had to keep them safe.

I used the oar to direct me out to sea, and once I was past the small breakers I stopped to wait. A wall of black smoke and ash billowed toward me.

I willed Farthing to appear. Please, just this one thing.

If you wait any longer, this will all have been for nothing.

“I know. I know.”

I looked at my fiddle and cleared my raw throat.

There were only a few tiny spurts of water along the seams of the boat—my rosin wax treatment had worked better than I could have imagined—but there was no way to keep Scratch dry now. I could lay the fiddle on top of the eggs in the chest, but the neck would stick out and I wouldn’t be able to close it. If we were hit by a wave, the fiddle and eggs would both tumble out.

Farthing risked her life to stop the eggs being engulfed in lava. As long as I was alive, I’d keep them safe for her.

I cleared my throat and ran my hand over my da’s old fiddle.

“Thank you for all the songs, old friend. I’m—”

Concentrate on your rowing. Promise me that, sonny Syms.

Sonny Syms. That was what Da used to call me.

“Da?”

Scratch and Da.

My da … and Scratch.

A snatch of a distant sea shanty rang in my pulsing ear.

I took a breath and coughed soot from my lungs. I felt a painful release in my ear but still no sound. I touched it and my fingers came away slicked with blood.

The volcano now shot almighty gouts of molten rock high into the air, erupting in horrifying splendor. More black smoke mushroomed from its summit, following me out to sea like the worst London fog. The eggy chemical stench was dizzying and, for all I knew, it could kill me.

I closed the chest and rowed for my life.

I knelt in the bottom of the tiny boat, shirtless and coated in ash—blistered and raw, parched and starved—and heaved my oar through the water on one side, then the other, then bailed, rowed, and bailed, my back bared to the beating sun. I didn’t dare stop as the stinking black cloud chased me out to sea. Ground-shaking rumbles of the volcano created giant ripples that clashed with the waves, splashing me. My fiddle was already ruined. Scratch watched me, and as the water swilled around his base, I felt my heart was drowning too. The last thing there was left of my da.