Inside Hallows’ Mouth, it took Quirk a while to realize that the dragons were simply not coming back. She had told them that Will was stealing their gold, and their collective roars of rage had knocked much of the sense out of her for a while. But she remembered them taking off, remembered them wheeling away toward the crater.
And they had left her here all alone inside the volcano.
And she was, somehow, against all the odds, still alive.
She stood up. She took stock. And a realization fell upon her. This was her chance to study a dragon’s lair. This was her chance to examine their most intimate abode. Who knew what traces they left beneath the gold. Scales? Picked-over meals? Scat?
She could take the risk. She could learn so much.
After careful consideration, she reached down, grabbed as much gold as she could shove into her pockets, and legged it as fast as she could out the door.