I grip my wrist with one shaking hand and hold it close to my eyes.

The indents from Gossamer’s sharpened nails are still there, pressed into the smooth brown skin.

chapter thirty-three

I don’t know when I fall asleep again. It’s probably hours later when I wake to the sound of “Iselia!” whispered in the half light of dawn, but it feels like I’ve barely closed my eyes. I try to turn over and ignore the voice in my ear, but then there’s a large hand shaking my shoulder. I swat upward blindly, getting a good, solid whack to Raze’s nose before I realize what’s going on.

“I’m up!” I whisper, shoving him. “Go away.”

“Ow,” Raze says pointedly.

I sit up, yawn, and roll my shoulders. Sleeping on stone was worse on my aching—well, everything—than you’d think. And I’m still hungry.

“I haven’t eaten in days.” I ignore the fact that Raze is ignoring me, that he didn’t move even when I got up, that he’s so close to me I can feel the warmth of his skin. “You should know better than to mess with me in this state.”

“You were talking in your sleep. Did you have a nightmare?”

I try to think back, but I truly have no idea how to answer that question without giving everything away. “I’m okay.”

The sunrise tints the stone pink as we sit in silence after that. We need to find water soon, and food, too. We can’t just sit here forever.

We don’t know where to go.

But neither of us wants to admit that, so we just sit. My fingers fidget with the shimmering embroidery of my faerie dress, and I wish the fair folk had given me something a little more useful.

Once the egg hatches, Leira won’t need Isolde and Olani anymore. She’ll probably free them. I don’t think she’s the type to kill for no reason despite her threats. We can eventually return to Auremore and find them, once we’re sure she doesn’t feel like we’re a risk to her plans.

But even if we do...we’ll be walking away empty-handed. She’ll have the firedrake egg, the Wildline legacy, the only treasure actually worth anything, which could hatch literally any day now. And then all of this will have been for nothing.

I can’t stomach the thought. There has to be another way, some way to get the egg back before the dragon is in Leira’s hands...or at least to get paid. But we can’t risk following them, not for any amount of money.

“What if you flew there?” I ask abruptly. “Like, in the middle of the night.”

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be able to carry that thing as a bird. Even if I could, she’s definitely going to have it guarded, and I’m pretty sure if a giant eagle flew off with the egg, she’d know who to suspect. And if I flew alone, you wouldn’t be there to try to free Olani and Isolde.” He doesn’t say the last part: and then she would hurt them.