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“They’ve only just been born, looks like,” Bartos said grimly. “Bet you can outrun them on Noro. I’ll hold them off.”

Thorn thought quickly, her heart dropping with each passing second. “Can you use your magic one more time, Zaf?”

Bartos spun around. “No.No.She can’t.”

“We may not have a choice if we want to survive this,” Noro said quietly.

Zaf’s body deflated. “Thorn, I don’t know if I have it in me.”

“I won’t ever ask you to do it again.” Thorn looked Zaf in the eye, trying to smile even though she felt like crying. “I promise.”

Zaf held her face very still. “I’ll not forget that promise, once we get out of here.”

“And I won’t forget it either,” Thorn replied.

Zaf grabbed Thorn’s arm. “Barty?” she said, her voice thin and shaky.

Bartos grabbed on to Zaf’s other hand, and then clutched Noro’s shining silver mane.

“You are a brave girl,” Bartos said solemnly, “and a strong one.”

“Right you are I am,” said Zaf, her sharp pale chin jutting inthe air, and then three things happened so quickly it seemed to Thorn that they crashed together into the same frenzied moment:

The six baby birds screeched and lunged forward—sharp blue beaks open wide, bright purple tongues reaching.

Zaf’s grip tightened on Thorn’s hand, and then, with a defiant little cry, Zaf lit up like the bolt she had once been.

The world blazed white, knocked Thorn’s head against an unseen wall, and pulled her, hard, into the cold mountain air.

When Thorn next opened her eyes, she smelled salt in the air. A warm breeze kissed her skin.

Woozy, she saw that she stood on a winding road of pale stone, beside a body of water so brilliant with the rising sun that it made her head pound.

She sank to the ground, rubbing the light from her eyes. Zaf had done it again. She had brought them... well, somewhere.

All the way to the city by the sea?

She’d certainly gotten them out of that nest—even if the going had felt a bit rougher.

Because Zaf was still in pain from the first time?Thorn wondered.

She forced her eyes open a crack.

Beside her lay Bartos, moaning, his pale face tinged a nauseated green. He smiled weakly at her.

Noro was picking himself up from the stack of crates he’d crashed into, shaking splinters of wood from his shimmering mane.

And Zaf...?

Thorn searched, her heart thump-thumping.

There. Zaf lay on the ground, not far from Bartos.

And she wasn’t moving.

Her washed-out skin was so dull compared to the vivid world around them that she seemed hardly more than a pale smudge on the ground.

Thorn crawled across the warm stone road, but Noro got there first. He lowered his head to drop two tears on Zaf’s still, still face.