Alice nodded. Now that the hysterical relief was wearing off, she was realizing that their position was still precarious. The stone cottage didn’t have any windows, and the door looked sturdy enough, but Mah-Li and Sah-To might have stopped running by now and come back to wait for her and Isaac to emerge. She glanced nervously at the door, then over at the big chest.

Isaac followed her gaze. ‘It’s in there, if it’s anywhere. Let’s have a look.’

The chest had a padlock, a huge, ancient-looking thing with a big old-fashioned keyhole. Isaac gave it an experimental tug and found it secure.

‘Ending didn’t mention this,’ he said. ‘Did she tell you about some kind of key?’

‘No,’ Alice said. She knelt to examine the lock more closely, trying to see inside the keyhole. ‘You’d think she would have—’

As she took the lock in her hand, there was a click. Surprised, Alice let it fall, and it popped open.

Isaac laughed. ‘Apparently she gave you the key,’ he said, pulling the lock free and setting it aside.

‘Apparently,’ Alice said, frowning.

Isaac lifted the lid. In the padded interior of the chest, looking ridiculously small, was a slim, weathered book bound in something like snakeskin. The title was picked out in gilt on the cover: The Dragon.

It was hard to imagine that this little thing was at the root of so much trouble.

She reached for the book at the same time as Isaac, and their fingers touched. He looked up at her and laughed, a little nervously.

‘We’re taking it back to Ending together, aren’t we?’ Alice said.

He nodded.

‘Then you hold onto it for now.’

An emotion she couldn’t identify flickered briefly across his face, but he nodded. He brought the book over to the table, and he retrieved his battered coat from where Mah-Li had dropped it. It had acquired a few more rips, but Isaac seemed not to mind. He shrugged it on and tucked the book into an inner pocket.

‘OK,’ Alice said. ‘Now we just have to get out of here.’

In the event, that turned out to be easier than Alice had worried. If the three creatures were still nearby, they were keeping their heads down, and no one emerged to challenge Alice and Isaac as they cautiously opened the cottage door and made a dash for the switchback path. The moon was still high, and they ran down the path together in a mad rush, skipping over rocks and jumping ruts in the dirt. When they stumbled to a halt at the bottom in a cloud of dust, it took Alice a moment to get her bearings, but she soon found the silhouette of the pedestal and pointed the way.