Jackaby was staring at something in his open palm, a small handful of fluffy orange hairs. “One,” he said. “There’s only one. It isn’t different dragons at all . . . It’s one, and it’s growing. Rapidly.”
Rosie let out another screech, and my employer snapped into action. “You’re absolutely right, Miss Rook. You should attend to the bird—it’s the decent thing to do. I’ll see if I can locate any of Mr. Hudson’s more useful hunting supplies. We’re going to need every possible advantage we can find. Charlie, I need you to return to Brisbee’s farmhouse and tell everyone to run—to get as far away as possible. Then ride to every farm you can reach and tell them the same. We need to evacuate Gad’s Valley. Go! Go!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
From around the back of the trapper’s cabin, I spotted a slim window I could just squeeze through into the back of the house. It was dark, but the light from behind me caught a bronze beak and glinted in Rosie’s wide eyes. She hopped anxiously from one foot to another. The wall behind her cage had buckled, and the rafters were collapsing. One wide timber had landed against the cage, bending the cork-coated bars. I could see deep cuts along the beam where Rosie had sliced at it in vain.
“All right, girl,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to pull you out of here, but nip even one of my fingers off, and I’ll leave you to rot, understood?”
The rust-red head cocked to one side.
“I guess that will have to do.” I took hold of the cage and pulled as hard as I could, but it did not budge. The heavy timber had pinned it in place, and the metal was only bending farther as I tugged. Rosie’s eyes bore into mine, but she made no move to strike at my hands.
I took hold of the golden pin in the cage door and pulled. “This is a terrible idea,” I said. It stuck, but I could feel it shifting very slightly. “This is a terrible, terrible idea.” I tried again. Rosie’s head began to bob, and when the pin slid free at last, she exploded past me, screeching deafeningly. With the door unlatched, the cage bars crumpled under the weight of the girder. The whole room shook and then shrank with a loud, crackling roar. The bird and I both pressed back, away from the falling wood and masonry, into the far corner. When the rumbling stopped, I found myself in a dusty, oblong space no larger than a broom cupboard with an agitated wild animal who was, I realized in hindsight, too large to have fit easily through the window anyway, and far too excited to sit calmly while I figured things out.
Rosie screeched and flapped, and a metallic golden feather the size of a carving knife thudded into the wall beside my head. I caught a talon across my forearm, and another sharp blade grazed my cheek. I winced from the pain, shrinking away as far as I could, but there was nowhere to retreat. As the bird thrashed, a small hole opened in the roof above us. We both looked up at the sunlight in surprise, and then Rosie burst upward. Two quick strikes with her razor-sharp beak, and she was out, screeching into the cloudy sky. I stepped forward to climb after her before the whole place came down on my head, but something pulled me backward. I turned. The hem of my dress was pinned between the confounded timbers. I pulled and tugged, but the fabric was thick and sturdy, and the woodwork unyielding.