Drock landed on the sea and glided to a stop. With his head down, he floated on the water, waiting as the Revinir and her team of dragons circled overhead, observing them. Thisbe pinched a fold of Drock’s skin in her hands, feeling like she was going to throw up. “Let’s get this right,” she whispered, going into character.

Drock’s skin quivered, but he held steady.

The Revinir shouted in a terrible voice, “Who are you? Why have you come to meet me?”

Thisbe’s insides screamed. The Revinir knew full well who they were. She was testing them to see if they were under her spell. She stayed silent and let Drock speak first.

“We’ve come to answer your call, Revinir,” said Drock.

Thisbe slid to one side of Drock’s back so the moonlight would strike her face. “We have come to work with you,” she said.

The Revinir took in a sharp breath, and then she smiled evilly. “It’s about time,” she said. “You’ve wasted precious days for me.” She eyed Thisbe with a look that turned the girl’s stomach.

Thisbe tried her best to fix her gaze to be lifeless and appear like the other black-eyed slaves she’d seen. Complacent and obedient. Glassy-eyed. Monotone when speaking. Even as she did so, she attempted to see who was with the dragon-woman, but the moonlight was behind them, and all she could detect were a few shadows of small humans on the Revinir’s back. There were three or four more on the backs of unidentified dragons that were with her. If Drock could smell one of his siblings or his mother among them, he didn’t let on.

“You will join me on my back now, Thisbe,” ordered the Revinir. “We won’t be going through this rigmarole again. There’s no escaping.”

“Yes, Revinir,” said Thisbe, though everything inside her screamed to run away.

“Help her, Drock,” the Revinir commanded. Obediently Drock unfurled his great purple wing and held it up for Thisbe to climb out on. The Revinir swooped low and hovered nearby, close enough for Thisbe to take a running jump. Despite her fears, Thisbe leaped and landed on the Revinir’s back, her legs and arms splaying in all directions as a pair of hands reached out to help her stand. Thisbe, trying hard to maintain her glazed-eyed appearance, didn’t get a good look at any of her new companions, here or on the accompanying dragons. She realized with a sinking heart that they weren’t the old blue-uniformed soldiers that guarded the catacombs. They were probably the black-eyed slaves that Thisbe had once worked with. She faced forward, as they did, and then she couldn’t see them at all.