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‘The griffin… his snake’s tail!’ That was all Ben needed to say.
The troll shaved the fur off her skin with his knife where the snake had bitten her. Then he made deep cuts in his own green thumbs and rubbed his pale, troll’s blood into the snakebite.
Even though Sorrel had closed her eyes, she was muttering mushroom curses. Of course. Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘Don’t worry, she’ll recover!’ Hothbrodd clapped him on the back so hard that he fell on his knees. Then he gave Firedrake his most confident troll smile. ‘Have you lot finished up there?’
Ben looked at Firedrake in dismay.
The sun-feather! He saw Kraa’s plumage before him, all of it turned to stone. No! Had it all been for nothing after all?
‘Shriiii!’
Above them, the griffins were calling the name of their new king, but Firedrake had forgotten both them and the Pegasus eggs. He had eyes only for Sorrel. An eternity seemed to pass before she finally opened her eyes.
Firedrake sighed with such relief that his breath struck sparks.
‘Why do I stink of fish?’ murmured Sorrel, sitting up unsteadily.
‘Herring!’ grunted Hothbrodd. ‘Troll blood smells of herring. Would you rather smell of dead brownie?’
Sorrel touched the bald patch on her arm. The pain brought back the memory of the viper’s fangs, dripping poison, and Kraa’s triumphant glance as they dug into her furry arm…
‘What happened to the griffin?’ she asked.
‘We’ll tell you later,’ said Ben. ‘Twigleg, Barnabas, and Lola are still up above us. We must bring them down, but you’d better stay here.’
Naturally Sorrel didn’t like that at all. ‘Great stinking crested newt, what the…’
‘Ben is right. Don’t you move from the spot!’ Firedrake interrupted her sternly. ‘And be nice to Hothbrodd!’ he added before he spread his wings.
‘Nice?’ Sorrel called after him.
She already sounded more like herself. Troll blood was a strong antidote to poison.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Too Late?
Fear tastes quite different when
you’re not just reading about it.
Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
They would be back too late! If they ever came back at all! By now Ouranos had grown so much that he could hardly move. Chara was kicking the shell that surrounded him in increasing panic, and even Synnefo was trying in vain to turn around in the egg, or even lift her wings. When Guinevere saw them, she found it hard to breathe, as if she were with them in the prison that their eggshells had become. Ànemos was circling in the air above the fjord and the surrounding forests all the time, in the desperate hope of seeing Hothbrodd’s plane appear in the distance. But for all the inhabitants of MÍMAMEIÐR, that hope was dwindling with every hour that passed. It was so hard to believe that all was not lost. The foals, Ànemos, Ben, her father, Hothbrodd, Twigleg, Lola… Guinevere repeated their names as if she could protect them all like that, but she was so frightened that she could hardly think straight.
Professor Spotiswode was already carrying out tests on diamonds for possible ways to open the eggs without hurting the foals after all. And Vita was frantically getting in touch with friends and members of FREEFAB all over the world to see if they could think of anything.
Two days left, said Guinevere’s calendar. Forty-eight hours. But Guinevere wasn’t even sure whether they had as long as that. And there was no sign of life from Ben and her father. Her mother had asked every conservationist in Indonesia to look out for them, but they seemed to have vanished without trace, like the griffins they had set out to find.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
A Royal Price
Today I have so much to do: I must kill memory
once and for all. I must turn my soul to stone.
