Which was, she considered, a fucking stupid way to go. Not that she wanted to go at all. She was eighteen and everything that life had so far thrown at her, and everything she’d thrown at life, had taught her that she was immortal. Stupid, irresponsible, impulsive, angry, alone: but immortal all the same. No matter what she did, no matter how much trouble she got herself into, nothing was actually going to kill her.

Not even the fire that drove her to Down. She’d watched other people die in flames, but it hadn’t claimed her.

And now she was going to get blood poisoning, like some skanky needle-marked junkie. Unless Crows showed up and helped her.

She’d shouted for him. Softly, because she didn’t want her voice to carry as far as a wolf ’s cry, but he never came.

Eventually, after stumbling and falling and crawling and rising, she recognised where she was, and spotted the unfinished crown of Crows’ tower through the forest. She hoped he’d be there. She was still hoping when she passed under the gateway that hadn’t been there when she’d left. She still hoped when she banged her little fist against the dark stained wood of the door, which also hadn’t been there before.

But the door opened slightly with her knocking, and she knew he wasn’t there.

It didn’t stop her from shouting for him.

‘Crows, you bastard. Why didn’t you tell me about the fucking dragon? Crows? Crows!’

He didn’t come, and she slumped against the door frame, immediately falling forward because she knocked the cuts on her back. The waves of pain left her on her hands and knees, gasping and nauseous.

She could feel fresh blood leaking down her sides, soaking into what remained of her boilersuit. She needed water. She wouldn’t feel so dizzy, so exhausted, if she drank more than the few scooped handfuls she’d managed from tiny, earthy-tasting rivulets. And she needed food, whatever she could find. Most of all she needed the pain to subside so that she could move again.

When she woke up, she was face down on the cold, hard stone and the shaft of sunlight through the open door had moved around. Her lips were dry, her mouth parched, her tongue stuck. She almost choked as she gasped, and her coughing was enough to make her whole body ache.

The rest, enforced and reluctant, had helped. She could now creep on all fours back out of the door – with difficulty as she seemed to blunder and sway into either the wall or the door as she tried to pass through – and across the pavement towards the spring.