And then I crash into the Being. The shock of it jars my whole body, and my teeth snap together. Blood fills my mouth. I spit it out, grabbing for anything that’ll hold as I slide down the creature’s huge shoulder. Smooth scales ripple under my fingers, cool and hard like volcanic glass, same as the scorpion. The sting in my palm burns in resonance. The dim lightbulb at my back flickers off again and this time it doesn’t come back on. I’m falling blindly, scrabbling at a monster, trying to save myself.

My hands close on something that holds. Feathers—massive ones, quills so big I can barely wrap my hands around them. The barbs are stiff and sharp, slicing at my fingers, but I hold on tight anyway. This Being is going to the surface, and it’s taking me with it.

Thud. A shock vibrates across the Being’s body, nearly shaking me off again. The ceiling of the cavern finally gives. There’s a horrific rending noise and then dozens of feet of rock and earth crash down all around us. I duck my head to protect myself as the Being explodes upward, but I still get nailed in the skull with what feels like a boulder the size of my fist. The world flashes strangely bright and my grip on the feathers starts to relax. Everything feels murky and slow. I try to force myself back to alertness through sheer willpower.

Water tumbles over me—the standing water from the hurricane, gushing downward into the crater the Being has just punched through the ceiling. My loft is no longer secure in the slightest, I think with a wild laugh. The monster’s front talons are latched on to the edge of the hole and it’s heaving itself upward. I’m hanging off its shoulder.

The Being leaps up onto the ground. I’m a hundred feet in the air, my grip loosening more by the second, the world a strange blend of light and shadow. When the creature’s wings crack open like thunder, I slide the last few feet down the feathers I was clutching—and fall.

Sky. Being. Ground. They rotate impossibly slowly.

The city is laid out at the feet of the monster. The neat rows of hundred-year-old banyan trees are snapped and splintered. The ration dispensary is already rubble, imploded by the tremors. The hurricane is screaming from not far away, the towering slate-gray eye wall looming just offshore, but here the standing water that stretches across the whole island looks almost peaceful, reflecting the yellow-gray of the sky. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to fall into the sky.

My pulse is a drunken stagger in my ears. Falling. I’m falling. I should be terrified. I am.