‘You are not going to turn into a dragon again. No. You with the maps is more dangerous than Crows with the maps, we’ve already found that out for ourselves. If anyone’s going to find him, it’s me.’

‘She can turn into a bird,’ said Dalip. ‘A big one. A hawk.’

The others exchanged more glances, and Mary shrugged, pulling on her wounds.

‘I’ll go in the morning, just before it gets light. Where is this city?’

‘In the far west. If I had my maps …’

‘You’re a regular joker, aren’t you? I’m tired of having to drag everything out of you, one bit at a time. I’m just tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week.’

‘It’s the transformations,’ said Bell. ‘They’re exhausting.’

‘Crows said there’s a chance of getting stuck. Is that right?’

She looked equivocal. ‘It’s been known.’

Mary wondered what it would be like, to forget everything, to give it all up and live each day, free of consequence from yesterday and free of thought of tomorrow, her whole world just flight and wind and feathers. That wouldn’t be too bad, would it? Except she had responsibilities now, to protect this ragged band of survivors. Her crew: her gang, in other words.

Not that she’d done a good job so far, but she was going to change that, and their fortunes.

‘Okay. In the morning, I’ll go out and look for Crows. In fact, what I’ll do is look for crows. If I find some, he might be nearby. What we need to do is make sure that dragon-lady here doesn’t try anything before then. Any suggestions?’

No one, apparently, wanted to kill her. At least, they weren’t saying it out loud.

‘Tie her up and lock her in a room?’ said Luiza. ‘A small room so if she changes, she hurts herself and not us.’

‘Is she that dangerous,’ asked Mama, ‘that we have to tie her up?’

‘I don’t want her coming for me in the night,’ said Mary. ‘And it’s going to be me, isn’t it? I’m the threat to her, no matter how brave Dalip is or how mad Stanislav is.’

‘We should watch her,’ said Dalip. ‘Take turns. But that means one of us is alone with her. Two of us?’

‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

‘Stanislav will have,’ said Elena.

‘We’re not going to ask him for advice,’ said Dalip. ‘Why don’t I check the rooms and see if there’s anything without a window? Or ask someone who knows, which’ll probably be quicker.’

He wasn’t gone for long, when he came running back.

‘Stanislav’s gone.’ He paused. ‘He’s also killed the steward.’ He paused again. ‘It’s … not good.’