Page 74 of Spark of Sorcery

I want to stick my tongue out at him, because, of course, he is right.

Keeping the stone hidden was relatively easy. Keeping a dragon hidden will be much harder. So I decide for now to go with the cage idea and work something else out later.

“I still think it would be better to hand this dragon over. If the Empress were to find out you had a dragon and it hadn’t been declared–”

“Please can you just magic up the cage? Only, make it a snuggly one. He’s only little.”

“We can use the extra blankets I conjured here last night to make it comfortable.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Thorne watches the dragon while I freshen up in the tower bathroom, then leaves right before dawn. I feed the dragon some more milk. He seems to be growing in strength with every meal. By the time the seven o’clock bell clangs, he’s crawling about across my bed and beginning to uncurl his wings. Occasionally he’ll let out a snort of smoke, but no real fire, and his steps are pretty unsteady.

“I guess, if you’re planning on staying around, we ought to give you a name, huh?” I say to him as I stroke afinger down his knobbly spine. “Something … dignified? George? Charles? Albert?”

The little dragon snorts at those suggestions and I take it he doesn’t approve of those regal-sounding names.

“Something a little less formal perhaps? Hmmm … Berty?”

The dragon shakes his head as if he understands, then lets out an almighty sneeze, that has him zooming backwards across the bed as a burst of fire shoots out of his nostrils.

“I got it!” I say, scooping him up and hugging him to my chest. “Blaze.”

When Fly knocks for me, I tell him I’m skipping breakfast and don’t place the baby dragon in the cage until the very last minute.

I’ve tried to make it as comfortable as best I can with the blankets and one of my old shirts.

I use the lid of the flask as a dish and leave him some milk.

“I have to go,” I say sadly, feeling more guilty than I have ever been in my life. “I promise I’ll be back. Just … be good.”

It feels totally surreal to be closing the door behind me and leaving a dragon in my bedroom. As I skip down the stairs, I debate whether I dreamed the whole thing up. Thorne, the fire, the dragon. Was that all just some crazy fantasy?

But my drooping eyelids, and inability to stop yawning, tell me it was real.

“Did those Princes keep you awake all night?” Fly says from nowhere, making me jump a mile.

“No,” I say.

Fly! Did he hear anything strange last night? Should I tell him?

But I can’t. Thorne implied I will be in trouble if it comes out I’ve been hiding a dragon and I don’t want my friend implicated.

He studies my face, a wicked grin on his.

Is dragon written across my forehead?

He must be able to tell.

“I slept in my own bed last night,” I tell him. Not adding that Thorne Cadieux was in my room.

“Stars,” he says, “things are moving at a glacial pace.”

“Don’t you have your own love life to keep you entertained now?” I point out. “You no longer need to rely on mine for entertainment.”

“But yours is so much more interesting.”

“Clearly not,” I mumble as he links his arm through mine and we head off toward Professor Tudor’s classroom, my belly filling with a dread I can’t understand.