Fighting his body as it clenched up, Sly grabbed the cloak, the bottle and the satchel, and staggered to the door in total agony, toppling on the crumbling edge of shock. He acknowledged his body’s need to curl up in a corner of the room but tore himself on to true safety.

  He fumbled with the handle, but it defied him, it was locked!

  “Come on, c’mon... abracadabra, asshole!”

  For a terrifying instant the door fought him, but the resistance was all rust and disuse. With a pop and a piglet-squeal it opened on decrepit hinges just enough for Sly to squeezed through. He yanked it shut behind him. Unless the dragons could open doors, for the moment he was safe.

  And, once again, completely in the dark and blind.

  Image intensification was useless as there was no light. Echolocation, on the other hand, revealed the hard-walled corridor but no details of the bag in his hands. He tried clicking his tongue against the roof his mouth, and saw splashes of detail reflected from the leather, but not enough to be helpful.

  He dug to remember what Hetlagh told him. The liquid could bring him back from the edge of death, she said, and despite her son’s incomprehensible attack he believed she told the truth about the qualities of the potion.

  Powder for your outsides, she’d said, liquid for your insides, salve for a kick.

  He rifled around in the satchel. He immediately found a pot of salve and put it aside, and a second later his fingers found another container, recognising its distinctive hour-glass shape. The seal was pristine under his fingers but ages old and brittle. The sinuous vial of liquid, half gone, was already in his hand.

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  The liquid was nearly drained.

  But it had remained red, hadn’t it? Surely the powder would be the same?

  She’d told him the risk, but he wasn’t about to go back into the inferno for the light to check the label! Some quivering part of him knew he was in shock and not thinking straight. But the other part of him cravedboth liquid and powder and he needed them now, or he might as well lie down and die.

  He was going to do this. He would take the red potions, no matter how old.

  With unseeing eyes and shaking hands he unsealed the powder vial.

  Powder for wounds.

  He sprinkled the powder on his hands and tentatively touched his face. The sticky feeling of raw and charred skin was so gross it made him want to cry out, but the agony from his face was worse – he just screamed.

  He held his head back and sprinkled the powder directly on his face. Then he rubbed his hands together and caressed arms, back, all the bare skin where he felt any sting of burns, for as long as the powder lasted.

  There was no instant reaction.

  “That’s a good thing,” he muttered to himself as the pain receded. “The medicine’s old—terribly old. It’s weak. It won’t work immediately.” He exhaled, trying to believe his own words. “But I need it to do something.” A pause. A flicker of doubt. “And I really hope it doesn’t kill me.”

  With tremulous hands, he found and picked up the vial, which sloshed.

  Half empty. Had it drained away? Had the orc managed to drink some, before succumbing to his burns? Sly didn’t know, and for the moment that he put the container to his lips and drank, he really didn’t care. The red potion dripped into his mouth, slick and a bit sour. He left it there for a long time before swallowing. It was a tiny amount but that was all he had.

  Again, nothing. No reaction.

  Finally, his fingers claimed the jar with the ointment.

  In for a penny, he thought, and imagined the cool sensation against his burnt skin. He opened the seal, twisted the cap, and put his finger in the cream.

  His scream was shrill and sharp in the dark but there was no one to hear, except the agitated dragons in the great hall. After an excruciating second, even he became deaf to the sound.