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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

‘Will he be all right?’ Joe mumbled. He felt ready to collapse, and it seemed impossible that Iggie could launch again, after such a long gruelling day. 165

‘Ig, can you find Milla? Do you know where she is?’ Winter asked. ‘Did she take Thom to the healing house?’

Iggie finished drinking and raised his head, scenting the air. He started lumbering to the edge of the gardens. He seemed restless suddenly, and eager to leave.

‘What’s wrong?’ Joe asked. ‘What if something’s hap­pened to Milla, and Iggie knows?’

‘It’s all right – he just needs to find his person,’ Winter said. ‘And we need to find our eggs.’

Joe’s hand fell on the sling and he pulled his mind back to the task they’d risked everything to achieve. They had to get the silverblue to the eggs, and fast. It began to sink in finally: the eggs had a chance, right now, a real chance of hatching.

Iggie perched on the wall at the edge of the gardens and used the drop to help him launch. Joe listened to the wingbeats disappearing, then turned to Winter. ‘All right. I’m ready.’ He gritted his teeth against the pain. He could do this.

‘Wait, let me fetch a light. You can refill the water flasks and wash your scratches in the well.’ Winter vanished into the nearest ruined villa and Joe did as he was told, grate­ful not to have to make any more decisions. She reappeared holding a lit candle moments later. ‘All these houses in the shadow strip were abandoned. Some were taken, along the lower street, but people think these ones are haunted. It means they haven’t been looted, so they’re full of useful things.’

By the flickering golden light, she found a cellar door 166she’d used before, and they descended into the tunnels, cool and damp, with that sulphurous smell.

They reached the egg cave and went in, clumsy suddenly, as they grew near.

Joe fell on his knees, and with trembling, painful hands, he opened the casket. The eggs waited there, but their glow was fainter. There was a new smell rising from them – sour, rank, rotten – like old seaweed at the high-tide line.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ Winter cried. ‘Are they dying?’

‘Quickly! There’s no time to lose.’ Joe fumbled in the sling for the pieces of silverblue. They fell in a pale scatter and he dotted them around the eggs, on the velvet. ‘Should they it touching, or just near them?’

Winter shook her head, eyes dark in the candlelight.

‘What did it say in the book, do you remember? Something about sparks and liquid fire?’ Joe eyed the candle. ‘I did feel a spark that time – you felt it too, didn’t you?’

Winter recited the words she’d memorised from the ancient book:

‘In the island’s secret heart,

From liquid flame, there comes a spark.

With fire and water, earth and air,

Forged in the ocean’s hidden lair,

A broken heart will dare it all,