But at least he wasn’t dead, he kept reminding himself. Eventually, when he grew hungry enough, he worked up the courage to ask for help with fishing from a passing dragon named Astrid. She obliged without argument and said she’d deliver it to wherever Dev decided to sleep for the night. He found an empty cave nearby and watched for Astrid to come back so he could flag her down in case she forgot who she was bringing it to. When the ghost dragon returned with a nice plump fish, she started a fire for him with one breath so he wouldn’t have to and left him to settle in and cook his dinner.

The peaceful environment gave Dev plenty of time to think about his narrow escape from death, as well as his predicament going forward. Did the Revinir think he was dead? He certainly hoped so. And would he stay here in the cavelands? While this sort of quiet boredom was nice for the moment, he didn’t think he could stand it for long. But Drock had practically ordered him not to return to Grimere, and for once Dev felt strongly that he should not challenge that directive. Maybe it was the near-death experience that had him wanting to obey, or his increased fear of the Revinir now that he was back in control of his own mind. Or perhaps it was the compassion that the dark purple dragon had shown him. The memory of Drock’s kindness warmed him. Dev wasn’t quite sure how to accept that sort of gift, since he’d rarely seen such generosity directed toward him.

Eventually Dev’s mind wandered to the images that had flashed before his eyes when he was falling from the window, which had been caused by the Revinir’s roar. He’d experienced them a few times since taking the ancestor broth, whenever the Revinir sent out her call. But it always seemed like he’d been on the run and too busy trying not to get caught to contemplate them.

Not so, now. He had all the time in the world to think them through. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure what the images stood for. He’d never seen anything like them before in his life that he could remember.

He’d heard Thisbe talking about this phenomenon briefly in the catacombs—before he went to sacrifice himself to give the others a chance to escape. And he remembered the first time it had happened—it was in the kitchen, around the time he’d recognized Thisbe was back working with him. Maybe he’d seen them before that, but if so, he didn’t have any recollection of it. It was like he’d come back to life in that moment after Thisbe fed him the ancestor broth.

She’d saved him, really. He knew that. Saved him from being under the Revinir’s mind control forever. She’d risked coming back to Grimere, getting sent to the catacombs, and being taken captive again just for him. For the others, too, of course, but she didn’t know them very well. And he could tell how glad she’d been to see him recognize her, which made him feel like he had a real friend for the first time ever, even though that feeling was short-lived. So him saving her right back? Well, Dev thought it shouldn’t be feeling as bad as it did. It felt lonely, like his insides had been shredded by Drock’s teeth too. Maybe the brokenness inside him that Drock said he couldn’t fix wasn’t his ribs after all. “It’s just that they all left me,” he muttered, staring at the embers of the fire.