“You came here for me?”

“Ember,” growled a new, impatient voice, one that was vaguely familiar. I gazed past her shoulder and saw a second figure, dark haired and dressed in black, scowl at me from the open door of the guard room. With a start, I realized it was the other dragon, the one Ember had fled with when she left Crescent Beach.

“No time for this, Firebrand,” he snapped, and tossed something to her, something that glittered as she caught it. “Come on. Those guards won’t stay down forever. Open the door and let’s get the hell out of here.”

I was still reeling from the fact that Ember was here, that two dragons had shown up in the middle of the night to save me, but the second dragon’s words jolted me out of my trance. As Ember shoved the key into the lock and wrenched the door open with a rusty creak, I suddenly realized what this meant, what was really happening.

“Garret,” Ember said as I paused, staring at the open door. “Come on, before someone sees us. What are you doing?”

At the edge of the hall, the other dragon gave a snort of disgust.

“I told you, Firebrand.” He gestured sharply in my direction. “You can open the monkey’s cage, but you can’t force it to leave. He’s not moving because we’re the enemy, and he’d rather stay and let them put a bullet through his skull than escape with a pair of dragons. Isn’t that right, St. George?” The figure turned to me, mouth curled in a sneer. “Never mind that they sold you down the river without a second thought. But you know, I don’t care one way or another about your loyalty hang-ups. You have three seconds to choose before I say the hell with it and leave you here. So what’s it gonna be? Come with us, or stay here and die?”

Escape. Leave St. George with two dragons. With the enemy. I’d been fully prepared to die a moment ago, but now freedom was staring me in the face. If I did this, if I stepped through that door, there was no turning back.