"What is it?" Percy asked.

"There's a nail sticking out. I cut my hand," Matthias said.

A nail. .

Matthias forgot his pain and reached up again, a little more cautiously. The point of the nail was facing him, so he had to put his hand out through the crack and work the nail out from the other side. He was scared it was stuck in the wood too tightly, scared he'd drop it even if he man' aged to pull it out. But a few seconds later, he crouched down holding the rusty, bent nail like a great treasure. It was a great treasure. A gift.

Thank you, God, he whispered silently, an old habit he'd learned from Samuel. The old man had believed every' thing good was a gift, and Matthias could remember him giving prayers of thanks for lukewarm cups of tea, wilted sprigs of flowers, even floods when they didn't reach the heights of previous years.

"Got it?" Percy asked. "Help Alia first."

Matthias turned and began sawing away at Alia's seat belt with the point of the nail. His muscles began to ache before he'd cut through even two or three threads, but he kept trying.

"Get some sleep," he told Percy and Alia. "This is going to take a while."

Obediently, the other two hunched over and seemed to slip instantly into unconsciousness. As far as Matthias could tell, all the other children were asleep now too. He felt alone, just him and his rusty nail moving back and forth, back and forth.

Matthias couldn't have said how many hours it took him to completely sever the seat belt holding Alia in place. But when he was done, he rewarded himself by rising to his knees, stretching his cramped muscles. Through the crack in the wooden wall, he could see the first glimmers of dawn on the horizon.

"Not much time left," he muttered to himself. He clutched the nail again and began attacking Percy's seat belt with renewed vigor.