“How do you know?” The empress’s voice seemed tiny coming from the middle of all those guards. I hadn’t even threatened her, beyond the growling.

“You were right that I came here for more than I said. And I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have been more forthright from the beginning, although I think you understand my hesitation perfectly well. I’ve trusted the wrong people before; I’m sure you have, too.”

“Mira, if you leave, we can never be friends.”

“I told you that already.” I smiled down at her as thunder boomed outside, and rain continued its endless drone against the roof. “We’re going now, and we’re going to keep the Fallen Isles in place. By the time we return your ships, I hope you will have remembered what I said about forgiveness.”

“You can’t do this,” the empress said.

“I can,” I whispered. “I told you I would do anything. This is my anything.”

With that, I crouched low atop the skull, digging my fingertips against the smooth, ancient bone. The first dragon wrenched her body free of its confines, and together we breathed in—sideways, into second lungs—and fire spun up and out.

Flame burst against the high ceiling, illuminating the throne room in shocks of orange and blue and white. My flame. The first dragon’s flame. They were the same. We were the same, though I still felt my own body—two arms, two legs, one pounding heart. I felt hers, too, ancient and exhausted, but bursting with determination to go home. After two thousand years, she didn’t want to wait anymore.

Fire tore at the ceiling, and the marble began to crack and crumble, crashing to the floor in clouds of white powder. As the ceiling grew thinner and a hole appeared, rain spit through, and the noise of thunder crescendoed.

The empress’s guards charged the first dragon, but their blades hit bone with a loud clang that sent them staggering back. More soldiers flooded into the throne room, but they backed away quickly when they saw me.

And suddenly, the first dragon and I weren’t alone. The other large dragons ripped open the roof, breaking off chunks of marble and glass, widening the hole as quickly as they could. The shredded parts of the building crashed to the floor, causing the guards to raise their shields around the empress—to protect her from debris—and a human part of me felt guilty for ruining her throne room so soon after Paorah’s people ruined parts of her city.

But then the hole in the ceiling was big enough for us to fit through, and the first dragon stomped over the wet rubble until we could rear back and climb up.

It was awkward and uncomfortable, squeezing out of the palace through a hole in the roof, but once her wings were through, the rest followed quickly, and we crouched beside the other dragons, all of us on the storm-slick roof.

Wind grabbed at my hair and gown, but I didn’t struggle to stay on, even when the smooth surface of her skull grew slippery with the lashing rain. I could feel when she was about to move, when she would turn. I compensated for her every motion before it even happened.