Ember and the Ice Dragons

by Heather Fawcett

  “As it turned out,” Aunt Myra said, her mouth twitching, “she didn’t have to. I ran into a gang of Prince Cronus’s hunters when I was on my way to the harbor to meet you. Oh, they were crowing about those poor dead dragons, they were. Told me that all the winterglass had been taken to the castle to be inventoried. So I thought I’d pay a visit.”

  Ember stared. “Surely the prince’s servants wouldn’t let you into the castle.”

  “They certainly didn’t.” Aunt Myra patted Puff, which earned her a warning hiss. “But you know, I went to jail once for housebreaking, and twice for theft, and I’m happy to say I completely deserved it.”

  “You mean—” Ember’s breath caught. “You stole the heartscales?”

  “Can you steal something that’s already stolen?” Aunt Myra said. “Well, in any event, yes, I took them into my possession. Then I sent them south with a team of Scientists, to that city you described. If I understood what you said correctly, the spirits of those dragons won’t act up provided they know we’re returning them to their families?”

  Ember’s eyes welled with tears. She couldn’t speak.

  “It doesn’t undo the wrong that was done,” Aunt Myra said softly. “But perhaps it’s something.”

  “What . . . ,” Ember began. “How did you—”

  “How did I break into a fortified castle, staffed by several dozen trained royal guards, and get myself out again in less than an hour?” Aunt Myra grinned. “Because I’ve done it before. Windsor Castle, no less. Wasn’t even caught that time. I’ll have to tell you the story one day, when your father’s not around—it’s a real corker. Suffice it to say, I know these royal castles inside and out.”

  Ember shook her head, marveling.

  “What, you think your father’s the only one able to walk through walls?” she said. “My methods may not be as flashy, but they get the job done, and all without turning anybody blue. There has never been a thief like me.” Her gaze grew distant and longing. “Those days are over, but I haven’t forgotten.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. The door swung open, and Lionel St. George strode in.

  Or, rather, parts of him did. A foot, an arm, and the hem of his black cloak. The arm seemed to be holding a tea tray, though it was difficult to tell, as the hand itself was invisible.

  “Blast,” his voice said from the vicinity of where his head should have been. “I thought I used enough invisibility powder, but I’m afraid, Myra, that I may have given several of your assistants a fright.”

  Aunt Myra let out an irritated sigh. “Of course you did. This sort of thing is why I never invited you to any of the Scientist parties back in London, Lionel.”

  Ember’s father dusted his hair, and more parts of him appeared in a disconcertingly random order. Finally he stood before them, red-faced and smiling sheepishly.

  Ember gave a cry. She made to leap out of bed, but her father motioned her back.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, settling on the edge of her bed and taking her hand. “After what you’ve been through, I want you to remain in bed for the rest of the day. I would like you to heed me in this, Ember.”

  Ember looked away from the disappointment in his eyes. She had hoped her father would shout, or at least get angry. Anger was easy; anger was like fire, which burned hot but eventually went out. Disappointment, on the other hand, had a cold, lingering quality that made her wish she could sink into the carpet and live there like a dust mite. “Yes, Father.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Ember, do you have any idea how worried I was?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Her father ran his hand through his hair, dislodging more invisibility powder (a good thing, for one of his elbows was still missing). “I’m not truly upset with you, my dear. I understand that it would have been a terrible burden to ask you to abandon those dragons. More, perhaps, than either I or your aunt could imagine. I just wish . . . well, I wish I could have been of more help.”

  “You did help,” Ember said in a small voice. “It was Montgomery who saved us all, in the end.”

  He gave her a tired smile. “Well, it’s good to know some of my spells turn out.”

  “Wait,” Ember said. “How did you get here?”

  “I’m not here.” Lionel tapped his mouth with one finger. “And if I was, I could only stay a short time. If the police find out I’ve traveled outside the country, I will most certainly be locked up. Can’t get off on a technicality, either—the judge specifically included travel via interdimensional portals in the conditions of his verdict, the smug stuffed shirt.”

  Aunt Myra rolled her eyes. They looked so alike, sitting beside each other, even down to their posture—the only differences were her father’s height and Aunt Myra’s lionlike mane of hair. “I found that doorknob of yours in your pocket, Ember,” she said. “It wasn’t a difficult leap to guess that was how you and your father had been communicating. In fact, he used to experiment on doorknobs as a teenager—none too successfully, I might add. I recall one time when I opened the door to the root cellar and nearly walked into this awful red maze. . . .”

  “You didn’t—” Ember stopped, remembering that her father had asked her to keep Montgomery a secret from Aunt Myra. He was gazing out the windows as if suddenly fascinated by the falling snow.

  Aunt Myra folded her arms. “Really, Lionel. I thought we had agreed to be honest with each other. What about that rambling speech you gave when you visited me in prison, about trust and starting over?”

  “I am all for honesty when honesty is warranted, Myra, but I should remind you that the last time we spoke, you stole my pocket watch.”

  She snorted. “You should be thanking me for that. Blasted thing made the day start over again when I wound it. Only I was invisible, and watching myself . . . from inside the watch.”

  “It was a prototype.”

  “A prototype of what? An insanity spell?”

  “As I’ve said before, I don’t need you to comment on my spellwork.”

  “I find it amusing that you like to go on about how I need someone to protect me from my bad instincts,” Aunt Myra said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, “while you need someone to protect you from your bad ideas.”

  “Bad ideas? Was it a bad idea to get you out of that wretched prison, then, as soon as I was able?”

  Myra turned pink. “You know I’ve promised a dozen times to pay you back for—”

  “I don’t want you to pay me back,” Lionel said with a withering look. “I couldn’t care less about the money. If your pride would allow you to accept my help once in a while, you’d realize that. That’s why you’ve spent the last few years avoiding me, isn’t it?”

  Aunt Myra was blushing furiously now. “I was avoiding you?”

  Ember, suspecting the two of them could go on all day like this, interjected, “Father, what about Moss? He can turn into an ice dragon. I don’t understand it—Lord Norfell couldn’t detect any magic on him.”

  He turned his attention back to her. “Moss? Ah yes, the boy. In fact, I’ve already examined him. Magically, I mean. It’s true that he is under no spell. But that isn’t to say he’s without magic.”

  “Then he’s a Stormancer?”

  “Oh no,” her father said. “No, he possesses a kind of magic I’ve never sensed before. One that has nothing to do with lightning or stormspeech. I can only assume that ice dragons possess some sort of innate shape-shifting ability, perhaps connected to the nature of their element. They can assume human form at will.”

  “At will?” Ember stared. “Ice dragons can take human form? Whenever they want to?”

  “Yes. It’s not a skill possessed by fire dragons, that’s clear. But who knows, perhaps they too have their own magic that has gone undiscovered. . . .”

  “So Moss is a dragon.” Ember was awed. To think there was someone else like her in the world! She could hardly comprehend it.

  “Believe it or not, he is half drag
on,” her father said. “I used a spell I invented to transform human shadows into corporeal beings, and he—”

  “You cast a spell on a child?” Aunt Myra said in a scandalized tone.

  “On his shadow,” Lionel said defensively. “The boy was perfectly safe.”

  “What if his shadow had run away?” Aunt Myra demanded. “I thought shadow magic was against the law! They say all kinds of things can happen to a person missing their shadow.”

  “Well, it didn’t run away, and the spell was easily undone,” Lionel said, looking harassed. He shifted into an awkward position in his chair, likely to conceal his own lack of shadow. “And not all laws are sensible, Myra—you’d be surprised how rare it is for elected officials to know the first thing about magic. Anyway, no matter how I twisted the spell about, I was only able to transform half the shadow—the left half, for some reason. I assume it’s because the boy is only half human.”

  “So one of his parents was human,” Ember said slowly. “And the other was . . . a dragon disguised as a human?”

  Her father leaned back, tenting his fingers. “Perhaps in the past, when they lived closer to our world, it was common for ice dragons to take human form and walk among us. Perhaps there are more children like Moss—human in appearance but with dragon blood in their veins. He can understand their language, apparently, just like you can.”

  Ember’s jaw dropped. She remembered Moss’s strange mood after they had met Aquamarine. She had thought she was translating for both of them—but Moss had understood all along? “He never said anything!”

  “I expect it gave him quite a turn.”

  “But who were his parents?”

  “That I don’t know. Nor do I understand why he wasn’t recognized.”

  Ember thought back. “The dragons told us there are other cities in Antarctica, with other kings and queens. He could be from one of those.”

  “Hmm,” Lionel said. “I’d like to have a conversation with those dragons. These sorts of natural magics are fascinating. I have a great number of questions. . . .”

  “Good luck,” Ember said glumly. “The ice dragons hate Stormancers, and they won’t talk about magic. It goes against their code.”

  “Does it? Interesting.” Her father’s expression assumed the abstracted look he wore when he was at one of his magical experiments. Seeing it, her aunt gave a sigh.

  Ember tried to sort through it all. Just yesterday, she had lived in a world where she was one of a kind. That had always been a bad thing, a lonely thing, and she had often dreamed of having a dragon friend. Now that she had one, though, she felt strange. As if the world had been turned inside out like a Magician’s pocket, spilling curiosities in all directions. She had always known where she fit in the old world, for better or for worse, and now she didn’t. Then she thought of Moss, and how frightened he must be, and the strangeness softened into sympathy.

  She felt an odd prickle at the back of her neck. She turned to the window and found a penguin staring in at them.

  “Ah! How charming,” her father said. He tapped on the glass, as if they were at an aquarium. The penguin simply sat there, staring in its calm, penguinish way.

  “It’s as if he came to check on you,” Aunt Myra said.

  “Er,” Ember began, “there’s something I—”

  “Eat!”

  Puff abandoned Aunt Myra’s lap and stalked over to the penguin. Though it was bigger than her, she seemed to recognize it as a bird, and thus part of the food category.

  “Puff,” Ember warned, but the cat ignored her, and charged at the glass. The penguin raised its wing—

  Zap!

  Puff gave a startled yowl and skittered under the bed. The lightning bolt flashed across the window like a cloud of fire. Lionel St. George gave a shout, and Aunt Myra threw up her hands. When the fire cleared, the penguin was lying on its back several yards away.

  “Bad cat!” Ember said as Puff hissed and spat. “Look what you did!”

  Fortunately, the penguin recovered. It drew itself to its feet and ruffled its feathers, as if it had merely taken a nap. Then, with the air of an absentminded visitor recalling an errand, it placidly tottered off.

  Aunt Myra fixed her brother with an appalled look. “Really, Lionel! You’ve been here, what, two hours? Whatever possessed you to enchant a penguin?”

  Lionel St. George’s mouth hung open. “Myra, I—”

  “It wasn’t him,” Ember cut in. “I . . . I can explain.”

  And she did. But when she finished, her aunt simply fixed her father with another appalled look.

  “They’re all right,” Ember added quickly. “I mean, the magic doesn’t harm them.”

  “Good!” Lionel exclaimed, though he still looked a bit green under Aunt Myra’s daggerlike gaze. “Very good. I’ll, ah . . . I’ll go for a stroll later, see if I can recover the magic they’ve absorbed.”

  “See if you can?” Aunt Myra said. “We’ll see if you can outrun my Scientists when they find out what you’ve done to those birds.”

  “You could just leave them like that,” Ember said, suppressing laughter as Aunt Myra’s face went redder and redder. “I think they like it.”

  “Er . . . probably best not to,” her father said.

  Aunt Myra muttered something under her breath that sounded like “Typical.” She poured a cup of tea from the pot on the dresser and pressed it into Ember’s hand. “We’ll let you rest now, Ember. Drink this, and sleep.”

  “But I’m—” Not tired, she wanted to say, but her honesty stopped her. In fact, she was tired—not the bone-deep weariness of last night, but still more exhausted than she had ever felt before.

  “After traveling all the way to the South Pole, then flying a dragon back to the harbor to sink Prince Cronus’s ship, I should say you’re in need of a bit more rest,” her father said mildly.

  Aunt Myra shook her head. “She’s your daughter all right, through and through.”

  “But . . .” Ember didn’t want her father to leave. Seeing her expression, he patted her arm.

  “I’ll stay here until you fall asleep,” he said.

  Ember sipped her tea. Puff settled on her lap, purring. Her aunt declared, with a sidelong scowl at her brother, that she was going to make sure that Moss was still in one piece, and thundered off.

  “Like a herd of wild horses, Mother always said,” her father muttered as her footsteps faded. “Anyway! This is a marvelous place, isn’t it? Do you know there is not a single species of insect on the entire continent?”

  He leaned forward. “There is one thing I’m curious about, my dear. How on earth did you fix the spell?”

  Ember choked on her tea.

  “Oh my!” Lionel snatched the teacup away from her, then rushed to retrieve a cloth. “Steady on, there . . .”

  Ember coughed and hacked. When finally she had regained control of herself, she said brokenly, “How I what the what?”

  Her father handed her a glass of water. “I’m sorry, Ember—I just assumed you were responsible for it . . . or perhaps the ice dragons, somehow . . .”

  “Are you saying,” Ember said slowly, “that I’m not going to burst into flames anymore?”

  Her father nodded. “The spell—well, it always had a visible flaw. Visible to me, that is, given that I’m the one who cast it. It was sort of like dozens of tiny tears—places where the edges of the spell wore thin. The tears allowed your natural flame to seep through, a flame that is as integral to who you are as your heart or your thoughts. But it seems that flaw is gone.”

  “How?” Ember murmured. Her head spun. Did this mean . . . could she go back to Chesterfield? Could other people be safe around her?

  “That’s the question,” he said.

  Ember distractedly summoned a shimmer of heat into her palm and ran it over her sleeve, which was damp with tea. Her father watched her, his brow furrowed.

  “You seem to have gained more control over your powers,” he said thoughtfully
.

  “Oh. I guess so.” Ember shook her hand, and the flame disappeared. “I’ve had to use them a lot these last few days.”

  “Hmm.” Her father’s abstracted look was back. “That must be it. Fascinating.”

  Ember stared. “It is?”

  “I can think of no other explanation,” her father said. “Perhaps the problem was not the spell itself, but the buildup of energy beneath it. Using your powers regularly released that pressure. We shall have to test this theory further, of course. But I would recommend you continue using your powers as often as possible.”

  She lay back on her pillow, wincing as Puff kneaded her leg. “Does this mean I don’t have to stay here?”

  “You never had to stay here,” he said. “But this certainly means that you can safely return to Chesterfield with me. If you like. I understand, of course, if you would prefer to remain with your aunt for a time . . . you did always love Science, and she is certainly better equipped to provide an education in that field than I. It’s your decision, of course.”

  Her father’s voice was carefully even, though he hadn’t been able to hide the note of hope when he had spoken of her returning to Chesterfield.

  Ember gazed out the window into the snowy dark. The sky was a dusky rose mixed with golds and violets—all the colors, it seemed, of the rainbow. She had thought she would have to remain here forever, and that had made even a place as beautiful as Antarctica feel like a cage. She didn’t know how she felt now that the bars had vanished.

  “Rest now,” her father said. He tucked her blankets in. “Later, there will be more time for talk.”

  Ember did sleep, then—a deep, dark sleep, haunted by glowing eyes and a glacier shaped like Chesterfield University, filled with ice dragons strutting about in spectacles and tweed jackets.

  Whump.

  Ember started awake with a yell. Someone had leaped on top of her, dislodging a yowling Puff from her legs.

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Nisha said. “You’ve slept enough.”