Waiting for the cloud juniper berry to wear off was more difficult than I’d anticipated. I paced the cavern, the light from my lantern casting wild shadows. All I wanted to do was return to the tunnel, pull the stones free of the entrance before I no longer had the strength. I wept, I dug my fingernails into my palms, I ran my hands over and over my close-shorn scalp. No one would care if I died here. But, then, no one would care if I died in the monastery either. They might look for the books, but they would not search for me.

When I felt the last of the strength leave me, I carried the lantern over to the pool. I reached in, cradling the creature in my arms. I lifted it free.

I waited a while for it to wake up. It took a shuddering breath and let out a mewling sound. I held it closer to my chest, hoping it could feel my heartbeat.

“We’re in this together,” I said to him, knowing the beast could understand me. I stroked the soft fur at the top of his head. “There is no one else.”

He blinked, his eyes shining like pebbles by lamplight. He wriggled out of my arms and I let him go. The cavern was broad and took him some time to cross on legs still wobbly and unsure. Instinct guided him to the tunnel.

The way was blocked.

He began to mewl again, a screeching, plaintive sound that echoed from the cavern walls. His soft paws scrabbled at the stones, his nose nudging into every crack, trying to find an opening.

“There is no way out,” I said.

The creature stopped at the sound of my voice, one ear swiveling back toward me.

“I am your only way out. Bond with me, and I will have the strength to clear the way.”

It wasn’t what the beast wanted to hear. He threw himself at the rocks with more vigor, wedging his way between stones, his cries pitiful.

I sat and waited until he’d tired, until his paws were raw and his breathing labored. And then I went to sit with him. He shrank away from me.

“Either we both die or we both live. Which one is the worse outcome?”

He lifted his trembling nose, the skin on the end rubbed free. And after a long moment, he placed a paw on my knee.

“Lozhi,” I said, naming him.

He looked at me with sad, solemn eyes.

“You will grow to love me,” I said, and I knew, from all the reading I’d done, that it was true.