“My word,” he said.

“I’ll go in on my own, sir.”

He nodded.

I approached Farthing. She growled and darted at me, grabbing my shirt sleeve and jerking hard. The thin cotton ripped off in her mouth. I stood my ground and her growl turned into a mournful drone. I was taken back to the lava tunnel, when she’d led me to rescue the eggs as the volcano erupted. She wanted me to follow her now.

I approached the dragons, who were nudging Quartz with their snouts. At his head, fish had been laid out on the mud, all untouched. Sixpence picked up a fish in her jaws and gently nudged it at her brother. Quartz’s head slipped off his front claw onto the mud.

You’d think a sleeping creature and a dead creature would be very similar, but there was every difference. A light had gone out. My heart was a lead weight, plummeting.

Quartz was already gone, but it didn’t stop me shuffling forward onto my knees in the mud to hold my hand against his snout, praying for his hot breath to warm my palm.

My hand became colder. I was cold all over. I swallowed back the urge to vomit.

I removed my hand and bowed my head as tears seeped from my tight-closed eyes. Farthing growled so loud my deaf ear rang. She picked up my hand softly but firmly in her jaw and laid it back on Quartz’s head.

Farthing maneuvered so her snout almost met mine, her copper eyes blinking, ruff of scales flattened back. She growled again, trailing into a whimper, and the others joined in with a cacophony of whines and mournful howls. Quartz’s lifeless body trembled with their nudges and his one white claw sunk out of sight, into the London mud.

When I took my hand from his head again, Farthing snarled and tried to snatch it up. She didn’t understand.

I’d saved the eggs from the volcano; I’d saved them all. She believed I could save Quartz now.

I placed my hands on either side of her wedge-shaped face as she whined and pawed the ground.

“You know I would if I could,” I whispered.

With Mr. Darwin’s guiding hand on my shoulder, I was eventually persuaded to leave the dragon enclosure. The dragons continued to mourn Quartz for a full day and then took turns to guard his body for another. Finally Quartz’s body could be removed, and the enclosure was quiet. The dragons continued their normal routine. The two who had become listless remained listless. The others sometimes played with one another and caught fish. But Farthing now paced the bars for hours at a time. She did not return to how she was before. I was able to visit more often as Mr. Darwin was studying Jenny the orangutan, but my being there didn’t calm Farthing. She tugged at my sleeve; she whined, growled, hooted. She still believed I could do something.