She nodded.

“But this one”—I motioned toward the giant crystal—“is damaging. Even leaving it here overnight, when these dragons are so weak, might have hastened their illness.”

Her pale eyes narrowed as she weighed my words for truth. “I can have it removed immediately, but what do you need to heal the dragons? If you don’t do it today, they’ll die.”

“I am aware of that.” I placed my palm against one of the dragons’ flanks—the Drakontos maior—and again felt how unnaturally cool the scales were. How rough and dull. “Have the other noorestones brought here. The regular ones.”

“Will it be enough?”

“I can’t say.” I dropped my hand back to my side. “When I healed the dragons in Anahera, we were in first-century ruins. The noorestones there had been lit for more than two thousand years, because they were still connected to the gods. They were stronger than anything I’d ever felt, and by the time the dragons were healed, all two thousand and thirteen of them were dark. Dead.”

Empress Apolla turned to the dragons and touched the maior, as I had. I fought the urge to bat her away; it would help nothing.

“This day is not going how I thought it would,” she said at last.

I couldn’t disagree. “If you know anything about me, you know I care about these dragons. All dragons. I would do anything for them. You know I’d rather these children of my gods live here—live here—than die in the Great Abandonment.”

It was true.

If the dragons survived this illness.

If they stood a chance of surviving the Great Abandonment, even from afar.

Empress Apolla sucked in a sharp breath. “Every noorestone aboard every island ship will be here within the hour.”

“And then I will do everything in my power to save these dragons.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

TRUE TO APOLLA’S WORD, THE GIANT NOORESTONE was removed immediately.

After one terse conversation with her guard, a team of fifty men and women arrived and maneuvered the house-sized crystal onto a wheeled platform, reinforced with strength and agility sigils, and rolled it out of the park.

“Where are they taking it?” I asked, watching as the noorestone went down the road.

“To a facility for study.” Apolla motioned me toward the keepers’ building. “Perhaps one day we’ll be able to understand its instability and fix it, and it can do some good in the world.”

I sighed, and when she looked at me, we both knew what I was going to say.

“Certainly we can work out an agreement.” She motioned for me to enter the building first as a guard opened the door. “We do seem to be considering lots of agreements today. What’s one more?”

The interior of the building was much cooler than outside, boasting a moderately sized common room with a heavy wooden table, and several closed doors that might have led to individual quarters. If there were medical facilities for the dragons, I couldn’t guess where they would go.