Ahead — something. Someone. Standing.

I blink. Mirage? Trap? Another hallucination?

"Relax, kid," Don Juan says. "It's just a meteor shower. Dodge."

I look up. Fire. Falling. Slow. Beautiful. Wrong.

Above me — shapes. Metal. Wings. Mechanical birds. Circling. Watching. They don't fall. They wait.

I move. Left. Right. Stones hit the ground around me. I don't hear them. I feel them.

"Bad place," I mutter. "Always bad."

Around me — people. Laughing. Or are they? I can't hear. Maybe they're screaming. Maybe they're not real.

The horned one. Red skin. Siren? No. Different. Watching.

"Armor stopped moving," I say.

"Of course. You're deaf. You can't hear the steps."

"Ha-ha. Funny."

The dragonling shifts in my arms. Heavy. Warm.

"Leave it," Don Juan says. "Or put it on your back. Use it like a flamethrower."

"How?"

"I don't know. But the arquebus has no bullets. So you'd better make it work."

I stop. I look at the dragonling.

It looks at me. Smoke curls from its nostrils.

"You ready?"

It snorts.

The mechanical birds keep circling.