Flax pressed herself against the pup’s trembling flank.

She was trembling, too. What if this didn’t work? What if the pup’s hiccups stopped it somehow? What if he was too scared?

What if she was too scared?

After all, she had never actually seen a Spellhound eat thunder and swallow lightning. But now she thought about it, it sounded awfully dangerous.

Maybe she should hide under Uncle Edwin’s bed, just in case. Or out in the labyrinth, where the thunder and lightning couldn’t reach her.

But she had promised the pup she would stay with him.

‘WHERE IS IT?’ asked Rose. ‘WHERE IS THE STORM?’

‘Overhead,’ whispered the pup. He opened his eyes. ‘And c-coming ^hic closer!’

The hair on his back stood up in a ridge. Flax could hear his teeth grinding.

And then she heard the storm.

No, she felt the storm.

It came crashing down through the mountain, through gaps and gullies, through caves and cracks, through soil and solid rock.

Thunder, a thousand times bigger and wilder than a dragon.

Lightning, as sharp and bright as the sun.

All of it pouring into the cavern, which suddenly felt much too small.

Flax put her hands over her ears and tried to burrow into the floor. Beside her, the pup and Rose were doing the same.

Where was I?

Hiding under the bed, of course.

I am a dragon, not a fool.

Eeek! thought Flax. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

All around them the storm raged. It bounced off the rock walls. It set fire to the bed, driving Uncle Edwin out from under it.

‘Spellhound!’ he shouted, and Flax could barely hear him over the rumbling of the thunder, and the terrible spark of the lightning. ‘Spellhound, you must control it or it will kill us all!’

The pup didn’t move. Except perhaps to hiccup, and try even harder to burrow into the floor.

Flax grabbed hold of his ear with shaking hands. She shouted, ‘Pup, we’re here! Rose and me and the sword – I mean the teaspoon. We’re here with you!’

She thought perhaps the pup whimpered, though the sound was lost in the storm.

But then his ear twitched. Just a little.

‘We’re here!’ Flax shouted again.

On the pup’s other side, Rose cried, ‘WE’RE WITH YOU.’

For a moment, Flax thought they hadn’t made any difference.

But then the pup opened his eyes, though they were white with terror.

He stood up, though his legs were trembling.

He braced himself.

He breathed in … and in … and in …

And suddenly the hiccups and the terror left him. He opened his mouth wider than Flax had thought possible – and roared.

It was the biggest sound Flax had ever heard him make. Her skin prickled all over. She could smell the lightning, as sharp as a hedgehog needle in her nose. She wanted to run, but she stayed.

The pup roared again. He snapped at the lightning with his great teeth. He bit the thunder in half and swallowed it. His eyes burned in his head; his paws scorched the ground.

He danced on the spot, full of crash and sizzle.

‘Now,’ he said, in a voice almost as big as Rose’s. ‘Try your magic now.’