“Uh, sure,” Hector said. “But what –” He fell silent, his eyes growing wide as he followed Trent’s gaze to the glittering opal. “Holy shit. That’s enough opal to set you up for life, Trent.”
“Maybe so, but it belongs to Dusty and Goldie,” Trent said firmly. “They found it, and they’re dragons. They need their hoard.”
“True enough,” Hector agreed, as he headed back to the hole to get the excavator. “We’ll have it out in a jiffy. No worries.”
As Hector returned with the excavator and he and Euan started debating the best angle to start digging out the seam of opal, Zina felt herself beginning to relax for the first time in a long,longtime. She wasn’t sure whether everything was going to be okay – they still hada lotto deal with, and things were far from over yet.
But somehow, as she looked down at Dusty and Goldie in her arms, and then at Quicksilver in Trent’s, she felt a thawing in her chest – as if the cold tension that had gripped it was at last beginning to melt away.
Not least, she supposed, because she could feel the aura of Trent’s body heat by her side, and she had to stop herself from snuggling into it.
There’ll be plenty of time for that later, when we’re not at the bottom of a mine shaft,Zina told herself as she looked up at Trent’s face, her heart speeding up in her chest as she took in his concerned, loving expression.
“You okay?” he asked softly, as Hector started up the excavator.
Zina wasn’t sure she could get out the words – all she wanted to do right now was go to sleep for about a thousand years. But it was okay – she knew Trent would understand the look in her eyes.
I’m fine,she told him silently, as he gazed down at her, his hand coming to rest on her side.With you here, everything’s going to be completely fine.
“Oh – hey!”
Zina was jerked out of her near-reverie, staring into Trent’s eyes, by the sound of Hector’s voice from behind them.
Turning, she saw that he and Euan had shut off the excavator, and were staring at the wall of the cave with great intensity.
Is it the opal?she wondered, as she and Trent came over to join them where they stood.Is it bigger – or smaller – than they thought?
But as she leaned down, squinting in the low light of the flashlights, Zina realized Hector hadn’t been shouting about the opal at all.
They’d managed to dig the seam free, as far as she could tell – at least, a hunk of rock with a glittering, pearlescent line of opal running through it was lying on the ground at their feet, with Goldie and Dusty joyously scampering about over it, snapping at each other a little in what Zinahopedwas a good-natured way.
But the opal clearly wasn’t the only thing that they’d discovered.
“What’s that?” Zina asked, crouching down, as Trent directed the beam of the flashlight into the small cave that had been revealed when Hector and Euan had dug out the opal.
“I’m not sure,” Euan said slowly, leaning down and frowning. “Maybe just a little pocket of nothing in the rock. When the opal seam fell away, it opened up suddenly.”
There’s something inside,Zina thought, catching her breath. And there was – something shiny and oval-shaped, glittering in the light –
“It’s an egg!” The words were out of Zina’s mouth before her brain had caught up with her eyes.
Beside her, Trent, Euan and Hector all crouched down further in unison, all peering closely into the small hollow.
“Strewth, so it is,” Hector murmured after a moment.
“Do you think – do you think it’s the egg Hargreaves were after?” Zina asked, as she gingerly reached out to touch it. They’d been searching for it for such a long time, and then it had been here all along. Buried in this abandoned mine.
“Maybe,” Trent said. “It’d be a bit of a coincidence if not – well, a bitmoreof a coincidence.”
Zina nodded wordlessly, running her fingers over the smooth surface of the egg. She was a little apprehensive about the possibility of breaking it – but then, she thought, if it was all that delicate, it probably wouldn’t have survived all this time here.
Still, better to be safe than sorry,she thought, as, carefully, she lifted it up from the small shelf of rock it sat on, cradling it gently in her hands.
“You take care of that egg, and I’ll handle Goldie, Dusty and Quicksilver,” Trent told her, scooping up the two baby dragons in one enormous hand – though they immediately started crying at being taken away from the newest addition to their hoard. “All right, all right,” Trent jokingly grumbled, as, putting Quicksilver up on one broad shoulder, he picked up the hunk of opal in his now free hand.
Zina stared down at the egg, resting in her palms, still feeling a little dazed.We found it. It’ll be safe now – Hargreaves won’t get their hands on it after all.
“We ready to go then?” Hector asked, as he slung the excavator over his shoulder. “We should get out of here while the going’s good.”
