The dragon was already asleep.
“Come on,” said Franklin, finishing off his fourth saltwater-soaked tart. “Let’s find a way out of here.”
“I don’t think we should,” said Chantel, doubtful. “He’s expecting us to wait for him.”
Franklin made an exasperated noise. “Well, let’s at least look around.”
Chantel lifted the light-globe high. There was that tunnel by the waterfall, through which the stream ran away into the darkness. But there was also a dragon-sized doorway at the far end of the chamber.
Beyond it was another passage, and it split immediately.
“We could get lost,” said Chantel.
“Not as long as we can hear the dragon,” said Franklin.
In fact, the dragon’s rumbling snore filled the passage.
On the left, the passage opened into another cavern. This room was full of . . . well, not treasure exactly. It was more of a junk room. There was furniture, much of it broken. There were weapons, and an entire suit of armor. There were flowerpots, for some reason. And tools of various sorts. A large brass cauldron. An old cart. It was all a jumble and a terrible mess.
“Let’s go the other way,” Franklin suggested.
They reached another chamber. And stopped and stared.
“Owl’s bowels!” said Chantel.
“It’s some kind of library, isn’t it?” said Franklin. “We, er, burned one once.”
It was like no library Chantel had ever seen. Darkwood shelves lined the walls of the chamber, twenty feet high. They had been carefully crafted to curve and slope where the cave did.
Besides that, there were other shelves that twisted their way into smaller caves, high in the wall, and within these caves Chantel could see more shelves and more books.
Spindly spiral staircases climbed the shelves in the main chamber, and insubstantial-looking green copper walkways stretched before every seventh shelf. These were for the humans to access the highest books, Chantel supposed. Lightning could simply reach for any book he wanted, and probably stretch his long neck into the high caves, too.
Chantel had never seen so many books in her life. She hadn’t known there were so many books.
She took a book from a shelf. It smelled of leather and old, old paper. She paged through it. It was about plants. Plants did not interest her particularly. But this did: there was no purple stamp on the book anywhere. Every book she’d ever read had had APPROVED stamped inside it, sometimes covering the words.
Was this the long-lost lore?
She put it back, and took another book. And another. None of these books were approved! They were unapproved books.
“Chantel,” said Franklin.
There was an odd diffidence in his voice. Chantel turned to look at him. His red hair was still wet, and plastered flat on his head. He rubbed his crooked nose nervously.
“I was wondering,” he said. “Um, how did you find a dragon?”
“He came out of my head,” said Chantel.
Franklin looked hurt. “Well, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”
Chantel managed to avoid sighing in exasperation. Her deportment was that good. “Remember how I had a snake in my head?”
“I thought that was just an expression.”
“No, it wasn’t an expression, it was a snake,” said Chantel. “And I went to see the king, and he took me prisoner, and the snake came out as a dragon, and broke through the roof of the castle and we escaped. Then we saw you about to be executed, so we flew down to rescue you.”
Franklin gave her a pained look. “That didn’t really happen. About your head, I mean.”
“All right, suit yourself,” said Chantel. She turned back to the books.
There were books about architecture, and books about geography. There was a long book about a country Chantel had never heard of. There was a book about beetles. None of these books were approved. Not one of them. Not even the most boring one she’d seen yet, which picked sentences apart and laid them out on stick drawings.
“Well, say that was really what happened—” said Franklin.
“I beg your pardon. I believe I did say that,” said Chantel.
“What’s the dragon going to do with us now?”
“I don’t know,” said Chantel, putting the book about sentences back on the shelf. “I’ve never met a dragon before today, and I’m not familiar with their habits. I think he’ll probably show us the way out of here, if we ask nicely.”
“You don’t think he’ll eat us?”
“He might,” said Chantel, and then felt mean for saying it. “No, I don’t think he will. This is his house. Do you see any signs of eaten people around here?”
“Just that empty suit of armor,” said Franklin. “And these clothes.” He pulled at his crimson robe in disgust.
Chantel felt an uncomfortable twinge. But she really didn’t think Lightning was going to eat them, and she did her best to convince Franklin of it. It was odd he needed reassuring, she thought, when he’d been so brave about being executed on the wall.
The fact was, now that the snake was out of her head, she didn’t find Franklin nearly as annoying. Even his twangy accent didn’t bother her as much.
“Is Karl the Bloody your father?” she asked.
Franklin looked down at the floor. He walked over to a table and sat on it. He swung his feet so that they thumped against the table’s stone leg.
“Yeah,” he said. “But we don’t get along.”
Chantel didn’t know what to say. She remembered how Karl the Bloody had jerked his head at Franklin and said kill him. It seemed to her that that went a little beyond not getting along.
“Well, so you ran away from home,” she said.
“Yeah. And I thought if I could just get into the walled city, I’d never have to see him again.”
“Karl’s not attacking the city because of you, is he?”
“Nah. He’s always hated all that stuff about the pass and the harbor and everything. Even before my mother died. Everybody hates you guys for the toll road and the harbor fees.”
“Oh,” said Chantel.
“Plus we hate the wall. And maybe we hate the whole idea of having a city on a hill looking down at us.”
It was hard to continue a conversation after being told that everyone hated you, so she turned back to the books.
“If I promise to believe you, will you tell me what happened?” said Franklin.
“Why, if you hate me?”
“I don’t! I didn’t say that!” Franklin looked distraught. “I didn’t mean it. Girls, sheesh.”
“You did say it,” said Chantel. “And don’t blame girls.”
“Okay. I’m sorry,” said Franklin. “Everyone hates the toll and the harbor fees. Is that okay?”
“I suppose so,” said Chantel. “I didn’t even know there were harbor fees until you told me. Maybe because I’m a girl.”
“I said I was sorry,” said Franklin.
Chantel knew she was being difficult. She’d had a hard day. But then, she reminded herself, so had Franklin.
So she left the books, and sat down on a bench, and told him everything that had happened.
“Huh,” said Franklin, when she finished. “So you found your Miss Ellicott, and she turned out to be just as bad as my dad.”
“She did not,” said Chantel.