Alice nodded weakly. ‘The eyes are no good either. Maybe if we could get up close and bash it with stones, but . . .’

‘We’re dead,’ Isaac said. ‘There is no way—’

‘Don’t start that again,’ Alice snapped.

‘I’m open to suggestions,’ Isaac said. He slid down the rock, tattered coat bunching at his shoulders. ‘God, I’m thirsty.’

Alice’s own lips were cracked, but she’d been trying to ignore them. She was about to scold Isaac again for complaining when something occurred to her.

‘Your iceling can make . . . ice, can’t it?’

‘It doesn’t really make it. It can freeze water that’s already there, and there’s always a little bit in the air.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe we could scrape up the slush and have enough for a drink? It’d be dirty, though, and it wouldn’t be much in any case.’

‘How much water can it freeze?’

Isaac laughed. ‘Quite a bit. One time, I was out with Evander, and we froze a lake solid so we could go skating at mid-summer.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, once it melted, all the dead fish came floating to the top. Master was not pleased.’

‘Water.’ Alice looked upwards. Far overhead, atop the rock-pile, the sun filtered down in a dappled pattern through the sparse leaves of another scraggly tree. ‘Somewhere, there has to be water.’

They climbed cautiously back to the top. The Dragon was visible a way off, still apparently searching around where it had last seen them. Boulders occasionally flew in long parabolic arcs as it hurled them away in a rage. Alice led the way again, picking her way through the top layer of rocks rather than climbing over it, and always keeping something between them and the beast. It made for slow going, and it felt like hours before they found what they were looking for.

A little stream of muddy water trickled down the side of the boulders, and Alice led Isaac along it until she found a little spring-fed pool on top of a great round rock. A couple of shallow depressions had gathered a small bed of soil, and a tree grew from one of them, many-branched and a bit taller than Alice.

The water was so cold that it hurt to touch, but she and Isaac slaked their thirst from cupped hands until they started going numb. Then, sitting cross-legged with the tree between them and the Dragon, Alice jammed her fingers in her armpits and explained the plan. Isaac seemed impressed and dubious by turns, especially when she came to her part in it.

‘Are you sure you can do that?’ he said. ‘I mean—’

‘I did it once before,’ Alice said.

‘What if you get lost?’

‘I won’t get lost.’

‘All right.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’m still not certain the ice will do what you want it to do, though.’

‘Let’s give it a shot, then.’