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“Right. I’ll follow him,” I said, already moving.

“I’ll meet you back at Drakharrow Tower.” Theo hesitated, then added. “Try not to die. Good luck.”

I nodded, hoping I looked more confident than I felt. Then I took off after the fluffin. As soon as he knew I was following, Neville led the way without hesitation. My backpack bounced heavily against my shoulders as I ran after him. Overhead, the castle’s towers loomed high, their shadows stretching out over the rocky cliff face. The beach narrowed, and the rock wall on my right pressed closer. Neville suddenly vanished behind a cluster of stones near the base of the cliff.

“Neville!” I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and hoist the pack higher. Then I scrambled around the rocks. At first all I saw were boulders. Then I heard it: a loud bark echoing from within. There, half-hidden behind the stones, was a narrow opening, hardly more than a crack. I swore. Then I pulled the backpack off my shoulders. This was not going to be fun.

I paused, glancing around the beach, when a memory slammed into me. A moonlit night. A bonfire. A tiny creature bleeding in the sand.

“This is where I found you,” I whispered. “That night …”

Neville answered from within the stone passage with a high-pitched yip, as if telling me to stop remembering things and just hurry up.

I dropped to my knees, shoved my pack forward, and squeezed in after him. The rocks scraped against my shoulders as I crawled. The passage was cold and tight, and smelled wet and earthy. I didn’t even want to think about getting back out again. After a few minutes, the tunnel widened. I emerged into a broader passage and pushed myself upright again. Only a small amount of light filtered in from the way I’d just come. “Neville?”

A yip sounded from a few feet ahead in the dark. I took a cautious step, my hand flat against the stone. I heard the fluffin’s paws scrambling over dirt. I followed, more by sound than sight. One hand skimmed the wall as I listened for Neville’s little yips as he darted ahead.

The passage twisted and turned, sometimes narrowing, but never so low I couldn’t keep upright. Light appeared ahead. The tunnel turned, then opened suddenly. I stepped into a long stone corridor. On my right side was solid rock. On my left, the stone face opened to the sea with rough columns and arches, the only things separating the passage from the waves crashing below. I’d been here before, while following Blake. My mouth twisted in memory. How I’d hated him then, and how much simpler that had been. Now here I was, following a fluffin through the tunnels, hunting for Blake again—but for far different reasons.

I moved on through the ancient passage, my gaze tracing over the high arched ceiling and the stone ledges. Not for the first time I speculated that they might have been dragon lairs, places where the dragons had come to perch and rest beneath the school, while their riders had slept in the towers above them. Back when there had been more dragons. Had those been better days? It was hard to imagine living in times more chaotic than these ones.

Neville veered away from the open arches and plunged back into a dark tunnel.

“Shit,” I muttered, hurrying to follow.

This passageway was deeper. The air grew cooler as I walked. The sound of the sea faded, replaced by a heavy hush. I walked on and on, hoping I’d been right to put my faith in the little orange furry creature who had always seemed to know far more than he should. “You have that in common with Rodriguez,” I murmured. “You should be in the Emberwatch.” The thought of Neville trying to master a secret handshake briefly replaced the ones in my mind of Blake bleeding out alone on a beach somewhere, and despite my anxiety I grinned.

Then the space suddenly opened, and I stopped short. I’d entered an enormous cavern, wide enough and high enough for a dragon to fully stretch its wings. The stone floor sloped down toward an opening at the far end where light spilled in from the sea beyond.

And there at the edge of the light lay Blake.

He was on his side, motionless. He was in highblood form, but his wings were still out and folded behind him. For the first time I took them in: scarlet and shimmering. They really were beautiful.

My heart pounded so hard it hurt to breathe. And then I was moving, running down the slope. Blake was breathing—shallow, uneven breaths—but breathing.

“Shit,” I murmured as I watched him, hesitating. It was all very well to make abstract plans. And it was quite another to actually enact them. I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to do it. But it was going to be so fucking hard.

Neville bounded ahead. He stopped beside Blake, yipping softly and circling him at first, then butting his little head insistently against his chest. My heart sped up as Blake stirred. Barely a movement, then an intake of breath. His fingers tightened. His lashes fluttered once, twice. His eyes opened fully.

My heart sank as I saw their color: red like Viktor Drakharrow’s. At first they were dimmed, then, slowly, they focused. I watched him take me in. There was a lump in my throat.

“Pendragon,” he rasped. He tried to push himself up onto his elbows.

I made a sound I could hardly recognize as mine and sank to my knees beside him. Neville sat back on his haunches, staying close and watchful. I wondered if the little creature knew what came next.

Blake’s gaze moved over my face. “Why—” he coughed weakly “—why are you crying?”

I scrubbed at my cheeks with the back of one hand, holding my backpack close in the other. “I—” I swallowed hard. “Is it … really you?”

He gave a weak, crooked smile that stole straight into my heart. Unmistakably Blake. “Yeah. It’s me.” He winced as if even speaking hurt. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Fuck you, Blake Drakharrow.” My chest tightened painfully as he grinned again. “And Vorago?”

“The emberfern worked, but he’s still in here,” he said quietly. “I can feel him. He’s angry. Not like that’s anything new.”

I nodded. “All right.” Both of my hands fumbled in the back-pack now.

Blake raised a brow. “All right?”