The dragon did not return.

Now I would just wait for the sharks to snap at my drifting legs. Or the sun, or a delirium that made me drink seawater, or drowning. There were a lot of ways to die out here—everything hurt and I’d run out of ideas.

I do not know how long I floated, head and arms draped over the chest. I thought I’d been in trouble before, but it was a trifle compared to being adrift. My thirst became an agonizing torment that controlled both my body and mind, but it also prevented me from sleeping so deeply that I would let go of the wooden trunk, which was the only thing keeping me afloat. My arms weakened and I repeatedly slipped, almost losing the chest, but each time, my body clung to it, without the help of my mind. I hallucinated, though not like the poison dreams after the centipede bite. My mind saw islands, trees growing in the middle of the ocean, boats … I was carried up and down waves of hope followed by crushing disappointment.

I pressed my chin against the wood and imagined it was my fiddle; I fingered ballads, shanties, and jigs to the sun and the sea, humming in the back of my cracked throat, trying to chase away the torture of thirst with the memory of songs. I sobbed a little then, but my body was so dry that no tears fell.

Finally, at night, I fell from my chest raft completely and woke, spluttering, some yards from it. I somehow found new strength to release my ragged trousers and use them to tie myself around the chest. The eggs and I would die together in the ocean, me in only my torn undergarments. I managed a smile at the thought, then groaned in pain when my parched lips split open. I’d exhausted myself and fell asleep, cheek pressed against the wood as it had once pressed against Scratch’s case.

I awoke to a nudge at the wooden chest. And another. The floating trunk was being bumped by something, pushing us along.

Sharks. It had to be. I’d thought things couldn’t get worse, but I’d been wrong. I groaned. Of all the ways to die …

I couldn’t even open my eyes. I reached my hands over and splashed some water on my face to loosen the salt crust that gummed my eyelids shut.

I blinked. It was another vision.

Two glowing copper farthings. A triangular green snout.

I didn’t want to reach out a hand because she would surely disappear. I just drank her in with my eyes.

“Farthing.” The sound that emerged from my mouth was eerie, a hoarse whisper, and if I’d had any tears, they would have stung my burned and blistered face. When my sobs turned to a laugh, I groaned with the pain in my throat.

The lizard had to be a cruel illusion. But she was a stubborn one. And she was nudging at the chest, rocking it, pushing it. I reached out my trembling hand and she nudged it with her snout, firm and smooth, a hot breath on my palm.