He holds me against his chest as we fall to the ground. My heart is thudding against my ribs, and I can feel his, too, a thundering beat that echoes in my bones.
“Where were you meeting Ygdris?” he yells over the alarm.
“He said to go to his ship, but I don’t know where that is, and—” An image of the flooded building where I left the dragon flashes through my mind. “He was screaming – what if—”
“Don’t say it.” Still holding me against his chest, he strides to the door and kicks it down. The corridor beyond is a nausea-inducing nightmare of flashing lights and screeching alarms, and the walls seem to twist and bubble in the pulsing red light.
His cell is almost at the end of the corridor. There’s a dead end only a few metres away. He glances at it, grunts – and starts sprinting directly towards it.
“No, wait, there isn’t a—”
The lights are messing with my eyes. I can’t tell how far away the end wall is. Ten metres? Five? The prisoner shows no sign of slowing down and I close my eyes, bracing myself. Great. I survived being turned into paste downstairs, and now this crazy treasure-man is going to flatten us both against a solid wall.
At the last moment he twists his whole body around, throwing himself at the wall back-first. His arms ripple around me. My eyes shoot open just in time to see them start to change shape. Feathers break through bruised s
kin, black and glossy, and he shifts his grip on my body just as heavy claws burst from his fingertips.
“Oh my God.”
Feathers appear across his chest as he smashes through the wall. Light, real sunlight, pours in through the hole as we tumble through it, and then huge wings tear out of his shoulders and flap once, twice, catching the air as he finishes transforming.
Two heavy, feathered arms clutch me safe. I crane my neck and see a head that looks like an eagle’s, but a hundred times too big. And the rest of his body is like a black lion’s, covered in sleek dark fur. His wings make a sound like thunder as he flies higher and higher, circling the Spire.
He’s not a dragon. But he’s not human, either.
I have no idea what he is.
*Where is he?* His voice shatters my thoughts. *Put the image of it in your mind so I can see it!*
What? Stunned, I do as he says, picturing the broken-down hiding spot as vividly as I can. The faded signs, the water lapping at the windows – the route there, past the half-submerged Beehive and War Memorial, across the flooded streets – I blink dust from the smashed wall out of my eyes and look down at the city far below us.
It’s like a toy. Like a children’s toy that the kid got tired of and decided to smash. My breath catches in my throat. Seeing it like this… the city looks dead. Hopeless.
Movement catches my eye, and the image in my mind wavers because I can see the real thing, now, a tiny fleck of broken masonry far beneath us. Surrounded by dragons the colour of storm clouds.
“There!”
Wind whips against my face as Ygdris’ treasure dives. I scream, and it’s a scream of rage as I see what the dragons are doing.
One of the dragons, whose blue-grey scales are almost invisible against the murky water, tears a chunk off the front of the building. Another reaches one long, clawed arm in.
“Get away from him!” I roar as the dragon drags Ygdris out.
Above me, Ygdris’ treasure screams.
He’s human-shaped. They’re going to tear him apart. Why the hell hasn’t he shifted?
I can’t breathe. We’re diving too quickly for that, so fast the wind is whipped away before I can take a breath, but still not fast enough.
It’s like watching a series of pictures flash in front of my eyes. The sort of nightmare that goes on and on and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
The dragon who dragged Ygdris out of the building flies up to roof-height and drops him. Ygdris falls like a rag doll onto the balcony. His chest is red.
He’s not moving.
I don’t know whether I’m screaming out loud or just in my head. He must have seen them coming. Why didn’t he transform? Even if he was trying to save his energy, he must have known he’d die if a full squad of six cloudbreakers attacked him.
Two of the dragons look up as the eagle-lion’s shadow falls on them and screech a warning to the others. One of them takes wing, flying up towards us with his teeth bared.