Penelope yawned. “Well, when you get bored researching that, you can figure out what’s up with those dragon stones. I mean, how many of them have we come across?”
Hiro looked up from his book. “Seven in the Copper Knights. Seven from the fake committee members. One from Rokk. One from Emmanuelle. One from the dragon queen. One lost with the Matron. And one from Mr. Shard.”
“Don’t forget the one in Greystone’s possession,” said Anne.
“We don’t know for certain yet if that’s actually a dragon stone,” said Hiro.
“I think it’s a reasonable guess.”
Penelope shook her head. “Who designs these quests, anyway? I mean, seriously. A four-day Level Thirteen quest? A dragon queen who slays herself? In some ways, it feels completely random, and in other ways completely interconnected.”
“It all definitely has the feeling of having been planned out in advance,” said Anne. “The question is, was it designed thousands of years ago and is now just happening automatically, like a machine, or is the person responsible still pulling the strings?”
“Like a puppet,” said Hiro.
“It gives me a headache just thinking about it,” said Penelope.
“No more quests for a long time,” said Anne. “And I really mean it this time.”
Hiro let his book fall into his lap.
“Oh, wow,” he said. “I just thought of something.”
“What?” said Anne.
He slapped his hand against his forehead. “This could be… this could be incredible.”
“She asked nicely,” said Penelope. “My request comes with a knuckle sandwich. So spill it.”
Hiro snapped the book closed and leapt to his feet. “Come with me,” he said, and he ran off into the forest.
Penelope shook her fist at him. “I swear, one of these days…”
Anne and Penelope caught up with Hiro outside the entrance to Shaft Eleven, the mineshaft that led down to the burned-out lab where their first quest had ended. Standing next to Hiro were the three iron knights that belonged to Saint Lupin’s. They were currently assigned to coal-mining duty.
“You wanted some coal?” asked Anne.
“No,” said Hiro. “I wanted to take a look at this.”
Hiro was standing on a boulder behind one of the knights; Anne climbed up beside him and looked toward where he was pointing. On the back of the knight’s collar was a circle with an engraving of a bird, just like on the Copper Knights.
“But it can’t be,” said Anne. “The queen said the Copper Knights were unique.”
“Maybe the queen didn’t know everything,” said Hiro.
Anne reached out hesitantly, not daring to believe it. She pushed on the image. There was a sharp hiss, and a seam appeared down the back of the iron knight.
A smile spread across Anne’s face.
“Well,” she said, “maybe just one more quest.”
“Yes!” said Penelope, and she pumped her fist into the air. “The Knights of Saint Lupin’s will ride again!”
Anne lay in her bed. She’d taken a long, hot shower, and her bed was freshly made with two quilts on the top for extra warmth. Penelope, as usual, was already fast asleep on the other side of the room, snoring not-so-softly.
The candle on the nightstand was burning low, but Anne wasn’t quite ready to blow it out yet. Instead, she looked at the gauntlet lying beside it.
“Jeffery?” she whispered.
Jeffery appeared in a flash of light. “What’s up?”
Anne smiled. “I was just checking to see if you were still here. I thought you might have shut off already.”
“Without saying good-bye? You know me better than that.”
Anne smiled, and a single tear ran down her cheek.
Jeffery hopped off the nightstand onto the edge of the bed. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
Anne shook her head. “I don’t know. I finally found out some information that might help me discover where I’m from, and I feel like I should be happy about that. But with some of the things that happened these past few days, and some of the choices I had to make… I… I think it’s going to take me a while to get over this quest.”
He patted her hand with his wing. “For what it’s worth, sometimes it’s okay to not get over something. Sometimes you just have to figure out a way to live with it.”
She sniffed. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said. He gave her a salute with his tiny wing, and then disappeared, this time for good—or rather, until the next quest.
Anne remained awake.
She still wasn’t ready to go to sleep. Not just yet.
But she would eventually.
(MOST ASSUREDLY NOT)
THE END
Most Certainly an Epilogue
And so Anne was given the official title of Dragon Slayer, a title Nana insisted on using every time she spoke with her, even when only asking to pass the salt, much to Anne’s annoyance. Saint Lupin’s temporarily lost its status as an official quest academy, but since even a regular school still needs a headmistress, Jocelyn satisfied herself with continuing to boss everybody around. Captain Copperhelm was given a salary by the capital, on the condition that he hand in the rest of his emergency command cards and stop shouting at all the guards. Professor Sassafras replaced his bed with a wheelbarrow.
Rokk added wood chopping to his list of chores, and the Three-Handed Sword proved useful for this purpose.
Hiro received a new Special Order Spell Catalog in the mail and immediately tried out the Pillar of Flame Spell. This did not end well. Penelope continued practicing her swordplay, and she became so good that she no longer stabbed people in the buttocks by accident. She now only did so on purpose.
And Anne reopened Saint Lupin’s forge and began studying how to be a blacksmith, because she figured it was probably about time.
Also, the iron knights were kept ready.
Just in case.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST FOR WOULD-BE ADVENTURERS
(only to be read by those students who didn’t die during their first quest)
QUESTING 201
• One Thousand Quests for the Armchair Adventurer
• Laughing in the Face of Danger, but Not in Danger’s Face
• Ancient Archway Networks and Other Completely Mythical Forms of Travel
• The Good and Bad of Dragon Slayer Quests (but Mostly the Bad)
• The Ultimate Do-It-Yourself Guide to Saving the World and Failing
HISTORY OF ADVENTURING 201
• History Is So Boring We Only Wrote the First Ten Pages of This Book and the Rest Is Blank
• Invisible Outhouses: or, Why People in Stories Never Seem to Go to the Bathroom
• The Official Uncondensed Version of the Condensed Version of Adventuring
• History as Myth, and Myth as History, and History as Myth Again
COMBAT 201
• Fighting Lava Beetles
• Buyer’s Guide to Lightning Bolt Staffs
• Old World Power Suits: Full Schematics
• Squirrels: Loveable Fluffballs or Evil Incarnate
MAGICK 201
• Magick as Sport
• Fifty-Three Ways Magick Would Have Fixed Obvious Plot Holes in Your Quest
• There’s No Such Thing as Magick, Volume 1: Real Proof About Fake Spells
• There’s No Such Thing as Magick, Volume 2: You Should Have Listened to Us the First Time
• There’s No Such Thing as Magick, Volume 3: Now It’s Just Getting Ridiculous
DRAGONS 201
• Help! A Dragon Just Ate My Leg! (and Other Unfortunate Tales)
• A Brief History of the Dragon Monarchy
• How to Survive the Dragon Trials (Hint: You Won’t!)
• How to Write a Book About the Dragon Legal System That Doesn’t Get Accidentally Served as Dessert at a Barbecue
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It continues to amaze me that I get to do this for a living, and I am indebted to many, many wonderful people who have supported both this series and my writing career in general over the past few years.
My thanks to Elizabeth Kaplan, my agent, for her invaluable guidance, for reading every draft and providing sage advice and encouragement, and for ensuring that all the non-writing-related stuff that publishing seems to be forever filled with gets dealt with professionally and efficiently so I can focus my energies on the actual writing itself.
My thanks to Lisa Yoskowitz, my editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, for her ongoing enthusiasm for this series and her sharp and insightful comments. She is every writer’s dream editor, and it has been a true pleasure to work with her and learn from her over these past two years. This book and the series as a whole are much stronger for her input.
My thanks as well to the entire team at Little, Brown for all their efforts on my behalf, including (but not limited to): Kheryn Callender, Jenny Choy, Jeff Campbell, Melanie Chang, Saraciea Fennell, Jen Graham, Karina Granda, Mike Heuer, Allison Moore, Lisa Moraleda, Emilie Polster, Jessica Shoffel, Carol Scatorchio, Victoria Stapleton, Hallie Tibbetts, Megan Tingley, and Karen Torres. A special thanks also to Jacques Filippi from Canadian Manda Group.
My thanks to Mariano Epelbaum, whose beautiful artwork continues to capture the heart of this story and these characters.
A huge thank-you to all the fabulous booksellers who supported and promoted the first book in the series. Your enthusiasm and support is greatly appreciated.
Many thanks to both friends and fellow writers who continue to be a source of encouragement and inspiration (and also, when needed, invaluable critique): Tim and Nadine Beers, Laura Capasso, DJ Church and Danayi Munyati, Tatum Flynn, Keith Grant, Kimberly Johnson, Kim Long, Casey Lyall, Wendy McLeod-MacKnight, Paul and Rebekah Maxner, Rob and Jill Nylen, Phillip White, and everyone at the Best Word writers group.
And finally, thanks to all my family, especially Wendy and our three boys, who generously allow me the space and time to write and also keep life full of joy and laughter.
*Some people will tell you that there’s no such thing as a middlelogue. Those people, of course, would be wrong, since this is clearly a middlelogue and therefore concrete evidence against all who would claim otherwise. Faced with such overwhelming proof, these same people might, after some thought, point out that even if there is such a thing as a middlelogue, there really isn’t any point to it, and in that regard they would be absolutely correct. There is no point to this whatsoever. Please carry on.
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