He was dragged over the lip of the well so enthusiastically that it took the skin off his shins. Big Eider picked him up in a rib-crushing hug of pure relief that he was safe. But Thymara was the next to seize him in an embrace and he counted his moment of terror a fair price for feeling her hold him so close and hearing her whisper, ‘Sweet Sa, thanks be. Oh, Tats, I thought you were gone forever when I heard you shout!’

‘No. Just startled, that’s all.’ He spoke over her head, his arms still around her. She was so warm under his chilled hands. ‘The way is cleared once we haul up that last piece of timber. We can go after the Silver now.’

Hennesey and Tillamon had just arrived to trade shifts with Big Eider. It startled Tats to realize that a full shift had passed since Hennesey had sent him down the shaft. The mate dropped easily to his knees and peered down the well. ‘That’s even deeper than I thought it was. First thing is to haul up that old beam and then get the bucket out of the way.’ He got up slowly with a wry grin. ‘Time to go fishing, boys.’

Leftrin took the first fruitless turn at the ‘fishing’. It was arm-wearying, shoulder-wrenching work. Hennesey had rigged a line through the same pulley that had supported Tats. On the end of it was not only a heavy hook, but a necklace made of flame jewels. Malta had brought it and all but begged them to use it to light their way to the well’s bottom. Wrapped a few feet above the hook, the gleaming metal and sparkling stones gave off their own light as Leftrin attempted to guide the hook down. The illumination did not spread far. He lay on his belly, one hand on the line, and tried to guide the hook toward what they guessed was the handle of the bucket as he peered down into the well. It was far deeper than Tats had descended. Too deep, Leftrin had decided, to risk sending a person down.

When his back began to ache unbearably and his eyes to water and blur, he gave the task over to Nortel and stood up slowly. His gaze travelled around the circle of watchers. The keepers and some of his crew watched anxiously. At a distance behind them, as if their misery were too great to bear any company, were the King and the Queen of the Elderlings.

Malta sat on a crate that Reyn had carried there for her, her baby in her arms. Her eyes were fixed on the crumbled wall that surrounded the well. Her Elderling robes gleamed in the sun, and a golden scarf swathed her head. Spring sunlight glittered on the fine scaling of her perfect features. ‘Dignity,’ he thought as he looked at her. Dignity, no matter what. Reyn stood beside her, tall and grave, and the three together were like a sculpture of royalty.

Or misery, when one looked at their faces. The child was crying, a thin breathless wailing that made Leftrin want to cover his ears or run away. Neither parent seemed to hear it any more. Malta did not rock Phron or murmur comforting words. She endured, as did her mate. They waited in a silence beyond words, their desperate hope as thin and sharp as a knife blade. The well would yield Silver and somehow one of the dragons could tell them how to use it to heal the baby. The child wailed on and on, a sound that peeled calm from Leftrin’s mind. Soon, it will stop. He will be exhausted, he thought to himself. Or dead, was the darker thought that came to him. The child was so emaciated now that he did not want to look at him. Scales were slipping from his greyish skin; his small tuft of pale hair was dry and bristly on his head. Leftrin knew that if the well yielded Silver, the parents would risk touching him with it. They had no other course. For a long moment, he tried to imagine what they must feel, but could not. Or perhaps dared not.

‘Leftrin.’

She spoke his name breathlessly, and the weakness in her voice jerked his eyes to her. Alise appeared at the bend of a narrow street, walking slowly toward them as if the weight of her Elderling cloak were almost too heavy to bear. ‘What is wrong with her?’ Tats muttered, and Harrikin quietly replied, ‘She looks drunk. Or drugged.’

Leftrin spared a moment to shoot them a warning look, and then hastened toward Alise.

‘She looks very sick,’ Sylve suggested.

Leftrin broke into a run with Sedric and Sylve not far behind him. Up close, Alise looked more haggard than Leftrin had ever seen her. Her face was slack and heavy and his heart sank as he gathered her into his embrace. She sagged against him.

‘I found nothing.’ She spoke the words loud and clear but there was little life in her voice. She leaned into him and looked past his shoulder at Malta. Her voice had the quaver of an old, old woman. ‘My dear, I tried and I tried. Everywhere. I have spent the night listening to stone, touching anywhere that I thought they might have stored it. I feel I have lived a hundred lives since last I spoke to you. Many things I have learned, but of how pure Silver might be used to heal, of how to touch Silver and not die, I have found nothing.’