“Well, she was dragonbound,” said Anna, reaching for another book. “And dragonbound sorceresses are powerful. But they’re bound. They can’t do anything a dragon wouldn’t do, and the dragon can’t do anything they wouldn’t do.”
She and Franklin both looked at Chantel expectantly.
“I know,” said Chantel.
They were still looking at her, so she added, “I’m not a sorceress.”
“Not yet,” said Anna. “But you got the dragon at the right time. You let him into your head, and he grew, and he learned from you, it says here, and you learned from him. And now that you’re bound, that goes on happening.”
“So have you found the real Buttoning spell yet?” said Chantel.
“No,” said Anna.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll—”
“No.” Anna cast a despairing glance at the books spread out on the tables. “I’ve looked everywhere it could possibly be. Chantel, I don’t think there is a Buttoning.”
“But . . . but . . . the Sorceresses wouldn’t . . .”
Chantel trailed off.
“Sure they would. Makes them seem more important,” said Franklin. “I wouldn’t think you’d need a spell for a wall that thick. Well, I mean, if you hadn’t—”
“I didn’t know fire was going to weaken it!” Chantel turned back to Anna. “We’re going to have to make a Buttoning.”
“Yes,” said Anna. “I know the sorceresses say never to try anything new but . . . do you ever get the feeling that what we were taught was maybe a little . . .”
“Too small?” said Chantel.
“Yes.” Anna picked up a book and frowned at it. “I think this one talks about how to make new spells. But it’s all written in very old-fashioned flowery language.”
Chantel reached for it. She wasn’t afraid of old-fashioned flowery language. The book smelled ancient. Bits crumbled off the edges when she touched it.
“There are some other spells I found that look useful,” said Anna. “There’s one called Inversion, where you make your enemies see everything upside down.”
That did sound useful.
“I wonder why I only found six cracks in the wall?” said Chantel.
“Because the gate is the seventh button,” said Anna.
Chantel went back to the city the next day to see if there was anything she could do. She changed into her green school robe, because the purple one attracted too much attention. People were busy fixing iron bars to their doors and windows and preparing to be invaded. Panic reigned; it seemed the sorceresses had not had time to do a Contentedness spell.
The water was ten feet deep in the lower city. An unpleasant dirty-water smell drifted through the streets. It hadn’t rained again yet; the floods would get deeper when it did.
Chantel could think of no spell to fix this problem.
Men in boats were hammering and prying at the sealed city gates. They even tried to bore a hole in one of them, but their auger broke.
At least the Sunbiters with the battering ram had given up.
The sorceresses attempted the Buttoning several more times over the course of the next few days. Chantel could tell, because things got worse and worse. The ground trembled, and one of the towers of the castle collapsed, raining blocks of stone down on the city. Several entire houses in Donkeyfall Close sealed up, their doors and windows becoming solid stone, and men pounded vainly at the walls with sledgehammers. Finally the people inside were rescued by pulling apart the roofs.
The message was clear: the sorceresses could seal everything but Seven Buttons.
The attackers were at work on the walls with pickaxes and levers. The sentinels and boys of Lightning Pass rained arrows, rocks, and boiling water down on them. The Sunbiters responded with crossbow bolts and catapult missiles. There were many casualties, and Chantel couldn’t find Bowser anywhere.
The sorceresses kept trying to do the spell. And more strange things happened.
Sinkholes opened at random places, dropping people suddenly twenty feet down. Then a thick hoar-frost formed over everything, and ice coated the trees and the potato plants and melon vines in the Green Terraces.
Meanwhile, Chantel and Anna had figured out that the book with the flowery language was a sort of chart for making spells. There were different signs, and magical ingredients, and times of day that worked for doing magic in certain places, and on certain objects. For example, any spell that had to do with stone required a thorn from a rose that had bloomed at the full moon. A spell related to water required hair from a mouse’s tail.
“We need ingredients,” said Anna.
“I’ll get them from the school,” said Chantel.
“I’ll go with you,” said Franklin.
“And see if you can find out what happened to Bowser,” Anna called after them.
But they couldn’t. They never could.
They knocked on the door of Miss Ellicott’s School for Magical Maidens.
Miss Flivvers opened the door a crack, then threw it wide when she saw who it was. “Oh, Chantel! The most wonderful news!”
“What?” said Chantel warily, as she and Franklin came in and wiped their feet.
“Miss Ellicott was here! She’s safe!”
Chantel clenched her teeth in exasperation. “Of course she’s safe. She’s in control of the city, Miss Flivvers.”
“What a dreadful thing to suggest about a lady like Miss Ellicott!” Miss Flivvers said. “The king is in control.”
And that, Chantel reflected, was probably more or less the truth. “What did—”
“Miss Ellicott was very concerned at finding the students missing,” said Miss Flivvers.
“Because she wanted them for hostages. We talked about all this. . . .” A sudden thought struck Chantel. “Miss Flivvers, you didn’t tell Miss Ellicott where they were, did you?”
Two pink spots appeared on Miss Flivvers’s cheeks.
“Um, she might’ve figured it out for herself,” said Franklin.
Miss Flivvers shot him a grateful glance.
Well, the damage was done, Chantel thought. No time to worry about it. The king might know the girls were in the dragon’s lair, but the dragon was, after all, a dragon. Meanwhile Chantel and Franklin had to hurry in case Miss Ellicott came back.
“I need some things from Miss Ellicott’s supply cupboard, please,” said Chantel.
She had a list of ingredients in the pocket of the purple dragon robe. When she reached for it, the gold circlet from the dragon’s storeroom fell out and rolled. Franklin caught it as it went wuppa-wuppa-wuppa on the floor.
He looked at it thoughtfully, then handed it to Chantel. She stuck it back in her pocket and unfolded the list.
“Can you help me find everything please, Miss Flivvers? I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“I hardly think—”
“Please, Miss Flivvers. It’s an emergency. You don’t need to think.”
And to Chantel’s relief Miss Flivvers didn’t. She led the way upstairs, rattling her keys, and opened the supply cupboard. Chantel handed her the list, and together they gathered . . .
. . . dried powder made from the first red oak leaves of spring
. . . a small phial of dew gathered on May morning
. . . silver scales from a fish that had been caught by a left-handed fisherman with seven sons and seven daughters
. . . six hairs from the tail of a cat named Herman