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Contents ( 50)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. PROLOGUE
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  16. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  18. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  20. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  21. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  42. CHAPTER FORTY
  43. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  47. EPILOGUE
  48. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  49. Also by Liz Flanagan:
  50. COPYRIGHT

‘All right, we’ll do it.’ Winter shook her hair back, no 76longer hiding. ‘I’ll get some parchment. We’ll start as soon as you’re strong enough.’

‘Thank you.’ Joe grinned. She trusted him! He felt it like a warm glow in his chest, all his frustration gone. He would focus on recovering his strength, eager to turn the next page in his new story and start exploring the secret kingdom underground.

77

CHAPTER ELEVEN

One day, a month now after Joe’s fall, Winter produced some wrinkled parchment and a stub of charcoal. ‘We can make a map of the tunnels. But’ – she took a breath – ‘promise me, Joe Thornsen, you will never share this? This is just for us.’

‘I promise,’ he said solemnly.

She drew a rough map to show Joe the tunnels she already knew by heart. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the scrawling lines. ‘That is where you fell, and here is the passage back to this cave we are in. Now this one here goes up to the palace. This one, down to the docks.’ She’d been using the main passageways, the wide ones, but there were so many side tunnels she hadn’t been in yet, for fear of getting lost.

‘That one to the docks must be an escape route,’ Joe said, eagerness building. ‘Maybe the old kings of Arcosi used it for sneaking away!’

‘Or smuggling things in?’ she suggested, matching his 78enthusiasm. ‘We are here.’ She showed him a small marked cave. ‘This is the way I get to market. I haven’t been down there yet’ – she pointed to another area on the parchment – ‘further west.’

‘Let’s start there!’ Joe was impatient to begin. Every day he had more energy, and it felt good to have a new purpose after this strange in-between time of healing and darkness.

They worked together to explore the unknown tunnels. They secured the fishing line from the shipwreck kit he had left in the huge cavern, then reeled it out as they walked deeper and deeper into the rocky heart of the mountain that made up Arcosi, marking the tunnel walls at each turn to show their way back. They found evidence of the old days: fragments of broken pottery, shreds of half-rotten fabric, tantalising clues to the people who’d used these tunnels. Every day they added new lines to their map. Every night, they carved a copy painstakingly into the rocky wall of the largest cavern – Joe’s ‘dragonhall’ – which they used as a base now.

They were a good team: Winter was steady and methodi­cal, while Joe was eager and creative, and his energy carried them on when they were both tired. He was still reliant on her for food, and her knowledge of the main tunnels, but soon he knew them almost as well as she did.

‘Where shall we head tomorrow?’ Winter asked one night as they gnawed on some stale bread rolls.