The pup was hungry. Soooooo hungry.

Acorns and thistles and mushrooms might be fine for Flax. (Treacherous Flax.) And Rose seemed to be getting used to them (though she still wished aloud for cake, or porridge-and-cream, or roast-venison-with-gravy).

But they weren’t nearly enough for a growing Spellhound pup.

What he really wanted was to catch a rabbit. He thought about it every morning before they set off, and every night before he went to sleep, just after he thought about his parents.

What’s that?

Yes, several days have passed.

Why didn’t I say so?

I just did.

How many days exactly?

I have no idea. I heard this part of the story from the pup, and Spellhounds are notoriously bad at keeping track of time. All the pup could tell me was that they had gone up and down a lot of hills, crossed a lot of streams and avoided a lot of humans.

What, you still want to know how many days?

Very well, let us say five.

No, I have no idea if that’s right! I told you—

Look, just sit down and be quiet. We are coming to a very important part of the story.

In the past five days, the pup had chased many rabbits, with ears pricked and mouth watering.

But he hadn’t caught a single one. They dodged. They dived. They doubled back in the most unexpected fashion.

Then they disappeared down their burrows.

The pup wished he had time to stop and dig them out. But he couldn’t stop, not while the dragon had his parents. So, each time, he snuffled and snorted at the mouth of the burrow, then hurried after Rose and Flax. (Treacherous Flax.)

On this particular morning, as they walked up a steep hill and down the other side, he had a brilliant idea.

‘When I get my parents back,’ he said to Rose, ‘they can teach me how to catch rabbits. I can practise all the way home. And by the time we get to the Floating Forest, I’ll be able to do it.’

‘The dragon has the Floating Forest,’ said Flax. ‘Home will be right there.’

The pup didn’t want to admit she was right, so he sat down and scratched, which always helped him think. He scratched behind his right ear. He scratched behind his left ear—

Then he scrambled to his feet, thinking, I’ll ask my parents if we can stay in the World Below for a little while. Just long enough for me to learn to catch a rabbit!

It was such an exciting thought that when he caught up with Flax and Rose again, he bounced around them three times.

Or rather, he bounced around Rose. He definitely didn’t bounce around Flax.

‘Hey, Rose,’ he panted. ‘Are we nearly there? How far to go? Are we close? Huh? Huh?’

Rose looked at the hill behind them. She looked at the river that lay at the bottom of the hill, and the odd-shaped mountain that loomed a little way ahead, its peak hidden in cloud.

‘I think that must be Mount Tangle,’ she said. ‘So yes, we’re nearly there.’

‘That’s where the dragon lives?’ asked Flax. ‘Mount Tangle?’

Rose nodded. ‘It said so in the book. It said dragons have lived at Mount Tangle forever.’

Flax folded her ears back. ‘How old was this book?’

‘I only read the first page.’

‘So you don’t know how old it was?’ asked Flax.

‘Well—’ said Rose.

‘Yes?’ The pup wagged his tail.

‘It was – old-ish.’

‘How old-ish?’ demanded Flax. ‘Ten years? Twenty?’

‘A bit more than twenty.’ Rose’s face was red, and she was biting her lip.

‘How much more?’ asked Flax.

‘Um – about – five hundred years?’

Flax let out a squeak of dismay. Then she and Rose began to argue about whether the dragon would still be living in the same place after five hundred years.

The pup didn’t like arguments. So he set off to look for rabbits.

Flax called after him. ‘Don’t go too far. And don’t go near any humans; remember they can see you.’

The pup stuck his nose in the air. He wasn’t going to listen to Flax. (Treacherous Flax.) He would go as far as he liked.

But before he found a single rabbit, he smelled something on the wind; something so glorious that he started drooling on the spot.

Right there and then he decided it was his new favourite smell. His nose headed straight towards it, and the pup followed.

He didn’t think of danger – how could a smell like that be dangerous? He didn’t think of anything except food.

The source of the smell turned out to be a pile of meat strips, set on the ground beneath a tree. The pup galloped towards it. His stomach made excited noises. His tongue tried to get there faster than the rest of him.

The meat tasted as good as it smelled. He was gulping it down as quickly as he could when a voice above him hissed, ‘Now!’

And a web of knotted rope dropped around him.