When the car finally had shuddered to a halt in the early hours of dawn, I’d looked up, surprised. In front of us had sat a large but rather run-down-looking farmhouse, with a sagging wraparound porch and a blue tiled roof. An old barn had squatted off to the side, all color leeched from the boards until they were a dull, uniform gray. Hills and fields had surrounded us and had done so for the past thirty minutes as the car had rattled and bounced its way down a narrow dirt road that had finally run out at the steps of this place.

“Where are we?” Mist had asked from the passenger seat.

“My last safe house,” Riley had muttered, turning off the headlights. Gazing up at the sagging building, he’d sighed. “No one knows about it—I’ve never used it before. In case the worst happened and my network was exposed, I wanted a safe place to hide everyone. This is my last-ditch, shit-has-hit-the-fan fallback point. There’s a couple hundred acres of nothing in every direction. No one is going to find us here.”

He’d opened the door and stepped out, and the rest of us had followed, our feet raising tiny dust clouds as we’d stepped onto the driveway. It had been quiet out here; there’d been no horns, no sounds of traffic, no people hurrying down sidewalks. Nothing but the cicadas and a lone bird could be heard for miles.

Footsteps had echoed from the house, and a woman had walked onto the porch, squinting over the railings as she’d peered down at us. She’d been lanky and rawboned, her brown-gray hair pulled tightly behind her, and she’d looked like she’d spent most of her time out in the sun. She’d stepped to the edge of the porch and crossed her bony arms, shaking her head at Riley.

“Well, well. Never thought I’d see you again, lizard. It’s been a while.”

Riley had given her a tired grin. “Hey, Jess. Yeah, it has. What’s it been, six, seven years since I was here last?”

“Try eleven.”

“Ah. Well, you haven’t aged a bit.”

“Insufferable lizard.” The woman had dropped her arms and beckoned us inside. “Come on in, everyone. There’s plenty of rooms, and I’ll see if I can find some bedding for y’all.” She’d paused as we’d started forward, her gaze seeking Riley again. “Can I assume, since you and your friends have shown up out of nowhere, that it has finally happened?”

“It?” I’d looked at Riley, confused. He’d grimaced.

“Yeah. Sorry, Jess.” He’d offered the woman a grim, apologetic smile. “Wes has already given the signal for the safe houses to clear out. The first of the hatchlings should be arriving soon.”

“How many dragons are we talking about?”