Thrana trembled as we went to the back of the room, all the hair on her back standing on end. Still, she set one foot in front of the other. I stopped, knelt and threw my arms around her shoulders, burying my face in her neck. She smelled earthy and sweet, like freshly turned soil. “I know you were hurt down here, but I’m here now. I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise. Please trust me.”

The trembling settled. “Yes.”

When I rose, she followed me without complaint through the cloud juniper doors.

The cavern was as I’d left it, the hatch still open. I had to refill and re-light the lamps, and it took a little coaxing to get Thrana to move past the entrance. But it was easy to be patient for her, even when I’d never really been patient before. Maybe it was because of her absolute trust in me, or the way I thought of Numeen’s daughter – her namesake – each time I looked at her. She was strong, but also fragile, and she needed me.

“Where did you live before my father brought you here?” I asked her as she stepped gingerly past the memory machine.

“Don’t know,” she said, her head and tail low. “Don’t remember. Just dark and then him. Wanting me to be still. Wanting me to cooperate.”

I put a reassuring hand on her head, scratched behind her ears and horns in the way I knew she liked. She leaned her head against my leg. She didn’t seem to know where she came from and neither did Mephi. Perhaps buried somewhere in my father’s cryptic notes was some mention of where he’d found Thrana. It would be a start, at least, to piecing together if Jovis and I were indeed Alanga. And if we were – why and how Alanga were created. Why now? Why not earlier? Had my father truly been doing something to stop the Alanga from re-emerging, and if so, what was it?

My lamp shone on a messy scene as I descended into the hatch. Thrana was too large to follow me down the ladder the way Mephi had, but she hovered at the edge, ready to leap down should I need help. The shelves I’d seen against one of the walls were covered in shattered pieces of clay. I picked up a shard and smelled it. Sweet and coppery, like the fluid from the memory machine. My father might have shattered them, or the monster had when it had awoken to face me, or Jovis when he’d shaken the cave with his magic. I tossed the piece back onto the shelf, frustrated. I’d never know now. There were no labels on these shattered flasks, nothing indicating what had been inside them on their stoppers. Would I have really started drinking memories when I had no clue what lay inside?