“He could hear us when we talked to him,” said Chantel. “But—”
“Do not be impertinent,” said Miss Flivvers. “About an hour after the first attack, the Marauders launched three missiles into the city. The upper stories of two houses were destroyed, and two people were killed.”
“Oh.” Chantel suddenly felt terrible. By rescuing Franklin, it seemed, she and Lightning had caused several deaths. “Lord Rudolph was up on the wall to execute Franklin, you know.”
Anna gasped, and the little girls let out cries of dismay.
“He’s not dead,” Chantel added hastily.
“I suspected that boy was a spy,” said Miss Flivvers.
“I beg your pardon, he is not!” said Anna hotly.
“I don’t think he is,” said Chantel. “He’s the son of Karl the Bloody, you know.”
“Who’s Karl the Bloody?” said Holly.
“The leader of the Marau—the Sunbiters,” said Chantel.
“Then the boy clearly was a spy,” said Miss Flivvers. “Though I am still sorry that he was killed, as I know you girls had a sentimental fondness for him.”
“He wasn’t killed! I beg your pardon. I just said. I—The dragon and I rescued him.”
“I knew there was really a dragon,” said Holly, giving an extra-hard tug with the comb.
“Did you ride on it?” said Daisy.
“Yes,” said Chantel.
“Do not fill the children’s heads with foolishness,” said Miss Flivvers, warily.
“Where did the dragon come from?” said Anna.
“Inside my head,” said Chantel.
“Not just inside your head. We all imagined we saw a dragon,” said Miss Flivvers.
Chantel explained.
“Chantel, really—” Miss Flivvers looked stunned. “I have always known you to be an essentially honest girl—”
“The dragon came out of your mouth?” said Daisy.
“You went through the roof?” said Holly.
“Yes. And . . .” Chantel took a deep breath. This next part was going to be difficult. “And I’ve found the sorceresses.”
A gasp from all around the kitchen.
“Oh, marvelous! Why didn’t you say so at once!” Miss Flivvers jumped to her feet. “Is Euphonia—are Miss Ellicott and the others safe? Are they well? Where are they?”
Chantel told her.
“But this is excellent!” said Miss Flivvers. “If they are helping the king, then all is saved!”
“I’m not sure it is.” Chantel hurried on before Miss Flivvers could tell her to beg her pardon. “Really it’s the king fighting against the patriarchs, and meanwhile we’ve got those Marau—Sunbiters without the walls. The king tried to get me to help him—”
“Then it was your duty to do so,” said Miss Flivvers firmly.
Do your duty, Miss Ellicott had said.
“No, it was my duty to protect the city and the people,” said Chantel. “And it’s the king’s and the sorceresses’ duty too, but instead they’d rather fight for power. And they want me because I’ve got the dragon.”
Chantel expected Miss Flivvers to argue some more, but Miss Flivvers was silent.
“Then if they want you,” said Anna, “that explains why there was a man here looking for you yesterday.”
“What man?” said Chantel.
“He looked like death,” said Anna.
“Oh,” said Chantel.
It was very like Bowser’s description of the man who’d come for Miss Ellicott.
Just then there was a knock on the street door.
Everyone in the kitchen drew closer together.
“Oh dear, I suppose someone ought to answer it,” said Miss Flivvers.
“I will,” said Chantel, freeing herself from Holly’s and Daisy’s ministrations.
“I’ll come with you,” said Anna.
They started down the hall. Chantel heard Miss Flivvers following behind.
Anna opened the door. It was still pouring down rain outside. A skeletally thin man in a soggy black cowl stood on the doorstep, rivulets cascading off his cape.
Chantel saw what Anna had meant. The man did look like death.
“The king has sent for the girl, Chantel,” he said, in a cold, sepulchral voice.
“She’s not here,” said Anna, before Chantel could speak.
“Then the king wishes the girls in the school to come to him.” The man who looked like death shivered.
“Why?” said Anna.
“For safekeeping. The situation in the city may become difficult, especially should the Marauders without the walls gain entrance.”
Chantel, meanwhile, was making signs with her thumbs, strengthening the ward spell on the door.
“Thank you,” said Miss Flivvers, stepping forward. Chantel could tell Miss Flivvers was having a lot of trouble not inviting the soggy man in to dry off. “I am touched by His Majesty’s concern for my humble charges. Truly, he is a good king. If there should be any signs of danger, it is a comfort to know—”
“You fail to understand me,” said the man, his voice like an echo from a tomb. “His Majesty demands that the girls be sent to the castle now.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t do that without the approval of the headmistress,” said Miss Flivvers. “If she were to return and—”
“Miss Ellicott requires it,” said the man.
“Then she must come and tell me so herself,” said Miss Flivvers firmly. “Good evening.”
She closed the door on the rain and the man who looked like death.
“What if she does?” said Chantel quickly. “What will you do then, Miss Flivvers?”
“If Miss Ellicott comes here—” said Anna.
“She’ll be sent by the king,” said Chantel. “And she’ll be taking the girls hostage.”
“What a way to speak of Miss Ellicott!” said Miss Flivvers.
“Hostage for what?” said Anna.
“To make me cooperate,” said Chantel. “And no, Miss Flivvers, it is not my duty, and I won’t let the king use the dragon to fight the patriarchs when they all ought to be defending the city.”
“Can we make the wards strong enough to keep Miss Ellicott out?” said Anna.
“What a thing to say!” said Miss Flivvers.
“I kind of really doubt it,” said Chantel. “I think she’ll walk right through our wards.”
Chantel and Anna looked at each other hopelessly.
“I hardly think Miss Ellicott would—” Miss Flivvers began.
“We have to get the younger girls out of here,” said Chantel. “We’ll take them to the dragon’s lair.”
“Oh, they’ll love that!” said Anna.
“What a shocking idea,” said Miss Flivvers. “And I, for one, have no desire to—”
“We’ll leave you here, Miss Flivvers,” said Chantel. “That is, if you don’t mind. We’ll need you to talk to . . . anybody who comes knocking.”
20
IN SEARCH OF BOWSER
The rain had let up. Water still chuckled down the streets and gurgled in the gutters, on its way to the culverts and the sea.
Franklin was waiting for them at the entrance to the lair, inside the abnegation spell, in Bannister Square. He was still in a rotten mood, but the small girls were so delighted to see him that he had to cheer up, and was soon happily recounting how he’d nearly been executed.
One or two tiresome girls squealed in fright at the darkness of the underground passage. Most of them, though, were sensibly fascinated. Those who knew how did light-globe spells, and they began the long descent into the caves. The girls stopped to shine their lights on tall wedding-cake columns of glistening stalactites, and to press their hands into the soft moonmilk that coated the walls.
They arrived at last in the library, where the girls ran to climb the spiral staircases.
“Careful!” Anna commanded. “Don’t fall.”
Just then Holly let out a squawk and froze, sta
ring.
Lightning’s golden dragon head came through the doorway, followed by a long sinuous stretch of dragon neck, and then the rest of the dragon.
One of the smaller girls buried her face in Anna’s robe. But the rest gazed, awestruck.
“It’s beautiful,” said Daisy.
“Not an it,” said the dragon.
“His name is Lightning,” said Chantel. “Lightning, I, er, brought you some guests.”
“Not lunch?” said the dragon.
Several girls backed up against the bookshelves, trying to get out of sight.
“He’s joking,” said Chantel. “Er, you are, right?”
The dragon nodded solemnly. The girls looked only slightly reassured. But they went back to exploring the side caverns, and the walkways that crisscrossed the bookshelves.
Chantel turned to Anna. “These books—”
“The long-lost lore?” said Anna.
“Maybe,” said Chantel. “But so far all I’ve found is boring stuff.”
“The lore could be boring,” said Anna. “I mean, it could look boring. We need to know—”
“I know!” Holly interrupted, hanging down from the railing of a spiral staircase by one hand. “What the words are that Queen Haywith spoke.”
“Right,” said Chantel. “And I also want to know . . . what happened to her. What she did, and what happened afterward.”
“I know that,” said Daisy, who was crouched beside Lightning’s left front foot, examining his sword-sharp claws. “She breached the wall, and then they locked her up in a tower and she drowned to death in her own tears.”
“Nobody could drown in their own tears,” said Holly thoughtfully. She was hanging by her knees now. “Especially not if they were in a tower.”
Overhead, the walkways (which did not have railings) rattled as girls ran along them, shrieking. Franklin was watching them with a slightly worried expression.
“I want to know what happened to Queen Haywith in books that don’t have a purple patriarch stamp on them,” said Chantel.
Anna picked up a book from the table and flipped through it. “You’re right. They don’t.”
She kept paging through the book, fascinated.
Then she set it down. “What we really need to know, though, is what the rest of the Buttoning spell is.”
“Right,” said Chantel. “And I’ll bring more food as soon as I can find some, and . . . and there are blankets and things here, you’ll find them, and there’s water in Lightning’s room, he won’t eat you—” she looked at the dragon. “Right?”
The dragon nodded, looking, Chantel thought, amused. It was hard to tell facial expressions on a dragon. You mostly had to go by the eyes.
“Wait, you’re leaving?” said Anna.
Overhead, a small girl named Ivy tripped on the hem of her long school robe and fell.
Everyone watched in horror for a fraction of a second, and then Lightning spread a wing. Ivy hit it and rolled, with a metallic rustle of scales, to land safely on the dragon’s back.
The girls up on the walkways applauded.
“All of you come down from there!” said Anna.
Chantel suddenly felt the little girls were going to drive her insane if she had to be in the same cave with them for one more minute. “I have to go find Bowser,” she said.
“I’m coming with you,” said Franklin.
“You can’t leave me alone with them,” said Anna. “I won’t be able to find anything in the books. I’ll be too busy mopping up blood!”
Chantel looked up and all around. “Come down!” she said. “And do as Anna says. Or, or the dragon will eat you!”
“No he won’t,” said a girl on the top walkway.
Chantel turned to Lightning in despair. “Can you—”
In answer the dragon breathed flame. The flame formed into an orange ball. The ball grew larger and larger, a roaring, burning sun. It began to grow uncomfortably warm in the library.
“Um, thank you, Lightning,” said Chantel. “That’s—”
The ball of flame grew larger still. Now it was really hot. Chantel felt her face burning. Some of the smaller girls looked quite overheated. And very frightened.
“Really, Lightning—” said Chantel.
“You’ll set the books on fire!” said Anna.
The flame ball popped out of existence.
“Right,” said Chantel, casting a nervous look at Lightning in case he was going to do it again. “Everybody please listen to Anna and do what she says, and help her search the long-lost lore so that we can do the spell to seal Seven Buttons.”
She gave them all the Look. That quieted them. Most of the girls came clattering down the stairs and went off to explore the storeroom.
Chantel turned to Anna. “Miss Ellicott told me the sorceresses do a Contentedness spell, to make people happy with the way things are—”
“So that’s why you people haven’t killed your patriarchs and your king,” said Franklin.
“Probably,” said Chantel, exasperated with him. She turned back to Anna. “We might be able to—”
“Do a spell on the girls? No.” This came from the rock-hard part of Anna that had never been shamefast or biddable. “No. I can manage them.”
“They seem pretty happy with the way things are already,” said Franklin.
Screams came from the storeroom. Chantel shrugged. She slid past the dragon and went into his chamber. Her green robe had gotten wet again in the rain, so she put on the purple one.
She had just finished buttoning the embroidered dragon together when the real dragon oozed into the chamber, gave an expressive sigh, and flopped down on his couch.
From out in the storeroom came the mostly gleeful yells of little girls.
“I’m sorry,” Chantel told the dragon. “They’re not usually like this. Or at least, they never have been before.”
The dragon grunted.
“I think it’s getting away from the school,” she added. “They—um, I’m sure they’ll calm down.”
More shrieks from without. The dragon snorted.
Chantel sat down by his head. “Were you Miss Ellicott’s familiar? When she was a girl?”
“Snake,” said Lightning,
“Well, yes, I know, as a snake, but—”
“I change,” said the dragon.
“Oh.” Chantel didn’t really feel this had answered the question, but from a dragon point of view it apparently did. “All right. Um, I was wondering. About the Mar—the Sunbiters. Can’t we, um, do something?”
The dragon peered at her orangely. This had the effect of making her feel stupid for asking. But it was important, so she went on. “I mean, if you burned those catapults of theirs first, what could they do? And then you could just fly in and flame them—”
“Would you?” said the dragon.
“Well, no. But I’m not a dragon.”
“You wouldn’t.” Lightning said this with finality, and closed his eyes.
“But, well, don’t you eat people?” said Chantel.
“Sometimes.”
“So what’s the difference?”
“You.”
Chantel’s toes curled with frustration.
“Grew with you,” said the dragon.
“Right,” said Chantel. “Queen Haywith said something about that.”
And the dragon had changed her too, the queen had said. Chantel wondered if that had really happened. She hadn’t noticed anything.
There was a distant thud and a smash, followed by sobs. Chantel jumped up and ran out. She found Franklin and Anna picking up several small girls from the library floor.
“Chantel, we found a cart!” said Holly, emerging from the wreckage. “In the storeroom. And I was giving them rides, and—”
“Is everyone still alive?” said Chantel.
“Seems to be,” said Franklin.
“I think so,” said Anna.
“The cart’s wrecked,” said Holly. “But loo
k, we found this!”
She waved a small gold crown, just a circlet, really.
“That looks very valuable,” said Anna. “Perhaps Lightning ought to put it in a treasure chest.”
Chantel hooked the circlet on her finger, and took it to the dragon.
He blinked an orange-gold eye at it. “Not mine,” he croaked.
“But shouldn’t you put it somewhere for safekeeping? It might get damaged or lost or—” Chantel didn’t want to say stolen. She couldn’t imagine any of the girls would try to steal it. Then again, she didn’t know. You couldn’t count the way they’d behaved at Miss Ellicott’s School as real deportment, perhaps.
The dragon’s eyes glowed dangerously. “Not. Mine.”
“Okay,” said Chantel hastily. “Well, I’ll, um, find somewhere to put it.”
But she didn’t, not right away. She stuck it in one of the many inside pockets of her dragon robe.
Franklin and Chantel climbed the tunnel to Bannister Square.
The rain had stopped. The last of it was sluicing down the steep gutters, winding its way around the twisting streets. People were everywhere. And they were doing one of two things: standing in line or marching.
If they were boys or men, they were marching. Chantel and Franklin passed columns of unlikely-looking soldiers everywhere, bearing swords, spears and crossbows, trying to stay in formation as they rounded quirky bends in streets not made for marching.
The girls and women were standing in line, at shops and market stalls.
“Shortages and rationing,” said Franklin. “And people panic, too. They want to get their share before it’s gone.”
“How are we going to find Bowser?” said Chantel.
“It won’t do any good to find him,” said Franklin.
“I just need to talk to him,” said Chantel. “Make sure he’s okay.”
Franklin shrugged. “They’ll have him drilling with new recruits the same height as him.”
“The same height?” Chantel looked at him to see if he was joking.
“Yes,” said Franklin patiently. “And he comes up to here on me.” He touched the bridge of his nose.
They found a troop of boys the height of Franklin’s nose down near Dimswitch, in a market square called Traitor’s Neck. There were at least a hundred boys, standing ramrod straight, in ranks and columns. They moved their arms and stamped their feet in response to the things a guard captain standing on a box yelled, which sounded to Chantel like “Hut! Hop! Yop! Yup!”
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