Now at the bottom of the pile, I only had a short run to get out of this room. Then I’d find the rope and make my escape.

So I got to my feet and ran again, but the griffin found me with her tail, and swiped it so powerfully that it threw me against the cave wall. Never in my life had I taken a hit that hard. With many more hits like that, I might not have much life left. I had to escape this room, get away from that beast. The rope was out there in the darkness. I could still find it, and have Sal pull me up.

The griffin made several circles in the air before landing, then faced me with a low growl that could have come only from something born of the gods. I was trapped.

If I was going to fight this beast — regardless of how poor my chances were — I needed the use of both hands, so I put the bulla around my neck.

A wind swirled up around me when I did. “It isn’t yours,” the wind seemed to say. “It will curse you.”

The threat didn’t bother me — my present situation was worse than any curse from a dusty amulet. My bigger concern was that the wind spoke to me at all.

The wind came again, and bored through me. I felt it inside my bones, and it chilled my very heart. This was what had killed the other miner, what had driven Fidelius mad, I knew it. And though I felt it start to take me too, I clutched the bulla with both hands, instinctively using it to hold on to my life, until suddenly, the wind stopped, almost as if someone had closed a door to lock it out.

Which would have been a fine end to my worries, except for the griffin directly ahead, watching me. That wasn’t natural. At least when she was attacking, I knew what to do, but what was the proper response to a dangerous animal that only stared? I tried speaking to her, hoping to fake enough calmness in my voice to make her relax.

“They call me Nic. It’s only a hiccup of a name, I know, but it means ‘victory of the people.’ One day, all people will be free, and then they’ll call me by my full name, Nicolas Calva.”

The griffin didn’t look all that impressed. Or at least, she took several steps toward me until I could almost reach out and touch her if I wanted to. Which I didn’t, by the way.

I kept talking. “You need a name too.” It wouldn’t matter to the griffin, but it did to me. No matter what she might do next, I couldn’t deny she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. She deserved a name, and nothing ordinary. “I’ll call you Caela, because you are from the heavens. You have flown with the gods.”

Maybe it wasn’t smart to remind her where she had come from. She might not like the idea of living amongst humans now.

The griffin screeched again, revealing the sharpness of her beak. Sure enough, I had reminded her.

“I won’t take any more of your gold,” I said. So much for my plans for a life of luxury. All I wanted now was any life at all. “But you must let me have this one piece. Please!”

Caela flapped her wings angrily, then quickly drew them in again when another wind swirled through the cave. It distracted her, and I took my chance. I darted beneath one wing on a full sprint for the exit. I might’ve had a small hope of escaping, except now that it was around my neck, the gold bulla seemed heavier than before and the weight of it pulled me to the ground. It shouldn’t have. More than once, I had carried heavy sacks of raw metal to the surface on the strength of my back. One bulla shouldn’t be this hard.

Seeing me start to fall, Caela swiped a claw at me, which cut across my shoulder like a knife. I heard the rip of my tunic and immediately felt as if my shoulder had exploded. With a cry of pain, I fell to my hands and knees while black splotches marked my vision. I raised my arm and was half surprised it didn’t fall off. How could it hurt so much and still be attached?

With my other hand, I fumbled about for the bulla to be sure it was still there, but this time, it had become warm. The heat from it poured into my hand and traveled up my arm, straight to my injured shoulder, still throbbing with pain. What I felt there was so fierce that I would’ve sworn fire had licked it. I tried to grab my shoulder and massage the pain away, but I couldn’t reach it, so I had to content myself with letting it burn. The only good news was that I didn’t feel any blood, which seemed impossible considering that it felt like the griffin’s talon had touched bone.

I rolled to my back and saw Caela staring down at me. Why didn’t she take one final swipe? I knew now how deep those claws could go. It wouldn’t take much.

Caela screeched again, but this time her tone had changed. This wasn’t anger. It was a warning. The ground beneath us shook, some sort of earthquake. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled toward the opening from where I’d entered. With the bulla’s glow on my chest, it was easier now to see. I found the rope, but a rock instantly dislodged from above and landed directly on it, not far from my feet.

I needed that rope. It was my only chance to escape this cursed place. So while trying to dodge other falling rocks, I clutched at the rope and pulled with all my strength.

It was a mistake. I didn’t see the rock coming straight for me until it was too late. Even as it crashed onto my head, I thought about how meaningless my life had been, and how quickly I would be forgotten. This was never the way I had wanted to die.

There was no possible way to explain my waking up.

I lifted my aching head long enough to guess at which of the nearby rocks had struck me, but it didn’t much matter. Any of them were large enough to have finished me off.

The scratch on my shoulder still burned, but less than before. Maybe in the chaos of fighting a griffin, it had seemed worse than it really was.

And I felt for the bulla around my neck, breathing easier once it was in my hand again. It was already hard to imagine myself without the bulla, which was absurd, of course. But it should be mine. I had claimed it from the bitter wind. From Caesar’s ghost.

I wished I knew how much time had passed since the earthquake. Was it minutes, or hours … or days? Was it worse on the surface, or had they even noticed it?

I heard breathing again and realized the griffin’s warm body was right behind me. She must’ve dragged me away from the entrance after I fell, or else I’d have been buried there. Either she had nestled into me now, or somehow in this cold cave I had moved closer to her. She seemed to be asleep.

Being so close to a griffin should’ve horrified me, and my instincts should’ve begged for me to run. But they didn’t. In fact, all I felt was the desire to stay close, as if this creature who had so recently threatened my life was now the only one who could save it.

Or more likely, thoughts like these had been the beginnings of Fidelius’s madness. If I moved carefully, maybe I could find a way out of here without disturbing her. But then what? Another cautious peek made it clear that the opening from where I’d come had collapsed. This room was sealed. And somewhere above us, more cracking sounds could be heard. I knew those creaks from other mine shafts that had failed and taken many good men with them. Whatever held the rest of this cave together was slowly crumbling to dust.

As slowly as I dared, I sat up, but I was only halfway to my feet when the griffin lifted her head. I backed up and raised my arms, a pathetic way to fend off another attack, but it was the best I could do in that moment.

She sniffed me, and I tried to convince myself it was only out of curiosity — not hunger. If she had wanted to eat me, she’d had plenty of time for that while I slept.