“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.