‘Once she has turned into a dragon, then killing her becomes so much more difficult. She can keep us trapped here until we starve. Or make another mistake such as this one.’

‘I’m not making a mistake. If we rush her, we might win, but we might all get eaten and we’re smarter than that. None of us wants to face a dragon, not if we can help it.’ Dalip pushed the steward in Luiza’s direction. ‘We were told, right at the start, that we could be whatever we wanted to be. We still can. Let me talk to her, tell her we’ve taken her steward and the tower. She’s not stupid.’

‘Evil and intelligent is worse.’

‘Killing her is not our only option.’

‘For God’s sake, Stanislav,’ hissed Elena, ‘let him try.’

Mama nodded. ‘We can fight, but if we didn’t have to …’

‘Make it good,’ said Luiza, and Stanislav could only growl in frustration.

‘This is not the plan.’

‘The plan went out the window when you decided we’d not wait for the next fight. So don’t complain.’ Dalip wrapped his fingers around the knife handle and stepped to the door. ‘I’ll, well. Do my best.’

25

25

She flew along the silver length of the river, with the storm chasing her all the way. The wind blustered at her back, and the black line of cloud came at a gallop, pulled in from the wild ocean by white horses.

She didn’t know what she’d do when she got there. There was a dragon, and she would fight it in the sky, while the rain lashed down and the thunder cracked. She would throw it down and feel her beak close on its neck, her head shaking with its death-throes. And then she would … what? What could she do after that? Find her friends and perhaps find a way home.

She thought about that. There was, according to both the wolfman and Crows, no way back to London: but neither of them were the most trustworthy of witnesses, and she’d have to make that judgement for herself, later. The geomancer would have maps of her own they could look at, and once the dragon had gone, she wasn’t going to be able to stop them going through all her things and asking as many questions as they wanted.

She flew low over the trees, the rush of silvery crowns a blur beneath her, the mountain rising ahead of her, split in two by the river gorge. She flew lower, the walls of rock rising up either side in blank-faced slabs and drawing together, until she was forced to twist and turn in the gap, threading her way like a needle through the weft of the landscape.