The Dragon in the Volcano (14 page)

“Is there a dragon or fire fairy settlement in the Outer Reaches?” she asked.

“No,” said Opal. “This area is uninhabited.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t,” said Daisy.

Then Jesse tugged at Daisy’s arm. “Look up!” he urged her.

She trained the spyglass higher and then she saw it: a small green speck circling in the air above the castle. She brought the speck into focus until she saw two wings sprouting from it.

“That looks like our dragon!” she said happily.

“It sure is!” said Jesse. “We’ve always been on her back when she flew, and I never realized until now that her wings are purple on the top … but
green
on the underside.”

Whether Emmy’s wings were purple or green or, as was the case, purple
and
green, they were, by far, the most heartening sight Jesse and Daisy had seen in a long time.

Everyone did their part. The fire fairies blazed their whitest and brightest. The dragons flamed for all they were worth. Jesse and Daisy conjured up a banner that read,
HAIL, EMERALD! JESSE AND DAISY ARE OVER HERE!!!!!!

Their combined efforts paid off, because the speck began to enlarge as Emmy winged her way toward them. And then she was looming above them, her green scales shimmering. When she came in for a landing, everyone stood back to make way.

Dragons and fire fairies alike stood in awe of what did not exist anywhere in their realm:
a dragon with wings
.

Jesse and Daisy held themselves back while Emmy folded her wings against her body; then they ran and hurled themselves at her.

“We knew we’d catch up with you!” Daisy said.

“The old trail of socks,” said Jesse. “Works every time.”

“I’m very glad that it did,” said Emmy. “I wasn’t sure about lava socks. I was afraid the fire birds might eat them the way birds ate Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs in the forest.”

“Lucky for us, fire birds don’t have a taste for socks,” Daisy said happily.

Jesse stood back and tried not to sound too stern. “What made you go off half-cocked like that?” he asked.

“Oh, I was fully cocked after I visited Jasper in the pokey,” Emmy said.

“How did you get down that spiral staircase?”
Daisy asked. “We barely fit down it ourselves.”

“Plus it was made of iron,” Jesse said.

“Those stairs are for fire fairies. I went in through the dragon’s entrance, which is larger and iron-free,” Emmy said. “I was heading back to my house when I spied Malachite and her rumble leaving the Ruby City. After Jasper spilled the peas to me about what they were up to, I just had to find out where they were going.”

“Spilled the
beans
, you mean,” said Jesse, grinning.

“Oh, no,” said Emmy, with an adamant shake of her head. “It was peas. Peas, for sure. That would be P as in ‘plot.’ And P as in ‘pee-yew,’ that stinky George Skinner, stealing all the gemstones from the Great Grotto.”

“So it’s true,” Jesse said. “St. George has escaped and is helping himself to the riches of the Fiery Realm.”

“Sadra too, now,” said Emmy. “Hop on my back and we’ll go spying and catch the two of them purple-handed!”

“That’s
red
-handed,” said Jesse.

“Wrong again, Jesse Tiger! St. George and Sadra have
purple
hands now,” Emmy said. “Purple gloves, purple coats, purple hoodies.”

“Hmmm,” said Jesse thoughtfully.

“Us too! Us too! We love to spy!” said Fiero, as she and Spark and Flicker all vibrated with excitement.

“Only if you promise not to tell the Grand Beacons I flew you,” Emmy said.

“Cross our flames and hope to fizzle,” all three of them vowed.

“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” Jesse said. It was the thing Jesse’s father said whenever the two of them got ice cream right before dinner.

Jesse and Daisy climbed onto Emmy’s back. Then there came the familiar soft
pop-popping
sound as Emmy’s wings unfurled to either side of them. The fire fairies scrambled onto Emmy’s tail.

Emmy turned to the dragons and fire fairies remaining behind. “We’ll make a full report when we come back. Meanwhile, why don’t you fix us a cozy nest for the night?”

“Will do, Emerald,” said Zircon and Opal, looking lively.

“Beware the Forces of Darkness,” Galena intoned darkly.

“Yes, be very careful,” said Opal as Emmy moved toward the edge of the precipice.

“Don’t worry. I am a very careful dragon,”
Emmy assured them as she stepped off the edge of the grotto and into the air.

For a heart-stopping instant, Jesse felt himself falling as Emmy plummeted downward until, mere feet from the grotto’s jagged garnet floor, her wings caught the updraft and she began to float, higher and higher. The fire fairies squealed in terror. Jesse knew just how they felt. The first time he flew on Emmy’s back, he had been afraid, but the fear quickly vanished and was replaced by what he called the flying feeling, which was something like a wide-open singing sensation.

Before long, the fire fairies settled down as the grotto twinkled up at them like an enormous jeweled map. A sapphire plateau dropped down into a deep forest of emeralds, cut off by an arid stretch of topaz bordering an aquamarine expanse. Flying with Emmy made Jesse feel free, but it also made him braver, even as they flew straight toward the Onyx Castle, which grew out of the side of the grotto like a gleaming carbuncle.

Emmy swooped down low over the castle’s ebony ramparts, close enough to see the flag flying from the highest spire, displaying the bloodred coat of arms of St. George the Dragon Slayer. If there was any doubt that St. George had staked a claim in
the Fiery Realm, this dispelled it. Emmy glided deeper into the neck of the grotto that wrapped around the castle’s base.

Daisy pointed out the line of gondolas below, the kind you see on freight trains carrying loads of coal. The hoppers were brimming with precious gems. A string of fire fairies, looking sad and blue, were loading the gems onto the gondolas. Behind his back, Jesse heard Fiero and Spark and Flicker muttering and sputtering with outrage.

“Hush, little ones,” said Emmy in a low, urgent tone. “Dragon magic makes us invisible, but it doesn’t muffle our sounds.”

Spark, Flicker, and Fiero clung to Jesse and Daisy as Emmy drew near enough for them to see that the fire fairies were yoked together in a great gray web.

“Fire Banking Spell,” Emmy whispered to the cousins. “Asbestos, actually.”

Then there they were, the Forces of Darkness themselves, St. George and Sadra, lording it over the fire fairies. Either of these villains would have been quite frightening all by themselves, but together they nearly stilled the beating of Jesse’s heart. Instead of the dragon skin dusters they usually wore, both St. George and Sadra were wearing long purple coats with hoods, high purple boots,
and long purple gloves. Jesse guessed that these items had been made from the skin of a slain fire serpent, and he found himself wondering whether the serpent’s skin was protecting them the way the serpent’s Fiery Elixir had protected him and Daisy on their first day here, before their bodies had adapted.

Emmy stopped and hovered about five feet above and to the left of the hooded heads of St. George and Sadra. Jesse held his breath as St. George’s head dropped back and he looked directly up at Jesse. St. George’s eyes were golden, like his hair. St. George lifted an arm and pointed his gloved finger directly at Jesse, whose mouth went dry. Had Emmy’s dragon magic been trumped by the power of the Slayer?

Then, in a voice as golden as his hair and eyes, St. George said, “There’s some lapis lazuli up on that bluff. I want it.”

“Then you shall have it, my prince,” Sadra said, her voice taut with excitement and greed. “This grotto is all yours now.”

Jesse looked where St. George had pointed. Sure enough, high above and behind him was a crag of blue stone. St. George had been looking
through
him at the stone. Emmy’s magic had held. Against Emmy’s back, Jesse sagged with relief.

Then Jesse noticed something very peculiar. George was holding something in his hand. Lime-green and shaped like an alligator, it was the kind of cheap water pistol you would find in a dime store. Sadra held one just like it, only hers was a hot-pink dolphin. The alligator and the dolphin were each attached by plastic tubing to white plastic cylinders strapped to St. George’s and Sadra’s backs.

This is nuts
, Jesse thought. Just then, one of the fire fairies in the work crew stumbled and fell, scattering an armload of gems.

“Pick up your burden and keep moving!” Sadra snarled at it.

The fire fairy, obviously at the end of its strength, lay on the ground and moaned and thrashed.

Sadra pointed the plastic dolphin at the fire fairy. She squeezed the trigger and liquid shot out of the dolphin’s mouth. Jesse almost laughed out loud. What were St. George and Sadra expecting to do? Soak the fire fairies into submission? But the laugh died in his throat, for the little fire fairy shuddered once and disappeared in a puff of steam.

A chorus of shrill screams erupted from the other fire fairies, but when Sadra aimed the pink dolphin at them, they shut up and started working at double time, picking gems off the grotto
floor and loading them into the gondola bins.

Jesse held Spark, Flicker, and Fiero to his chest to keep them from throwing themselves at Sadra in a fit of white-hot fury.

Daisy hurtled forward and whispered in Emmy’s ear, “Go! Go! Go!”

Emmy wheeled around and flew away over the grotto. The flight back was silent except for the steady
whoosh
of Emmy’s wings. But no sooner had Emmy’s feet set down on the grotto rim than the fire fairies hopped off her back to run and tell the others what they had seen.

In their absence, the other dragons had dragged large rough boulders into a circle. Over the boulders they had laid a row of long black fronds cut from the nearby jungle. It had the feel of a fortress more than a nest, which was just as well, considering what they had just witnessed. Zircon welcomed Emmy and showed her that he had situated their nest out of sight of the Onyx Castle and over a rift in the stones where there was an air fountain. That way, if someone got peckish in the middle of the night, he or she wouldn’t have to wander from the nest to satisfy the need for a runch.

“Why did you use boulders?” Jesse asked. “Why not conjure up something more comfortable?”

“Safety is sometimes more important than comfort,” Zircon explained. “The boulders are cordierite, which wards off evil spells as well as the wild fire beasts of the jungle.”

Emmy and the Keepers needed some time to themselves, so they went for a walk along the grotto rim.

“Zircon is a very practical sort,” Daisy said. “I like that in a dragon, don’t you, Emmy?”

“Zircon is very nice,” Emmy agreed.

“He’s kind of dashing, too, don’t you think?” Jesse said, taking his cue from Daisy. “He’d make someone’s heart one great fiery mote.”

“I like the dark-gray color of his scales. It’s very distinguished, don’t you think?” Daisy said.

Emmy narrowed her eyes, first at Daisy and then at Jesse. “I know what you two are up to,” she told them. “Zircon is terrific, but Jasper is still the mote of my heart. The two of us are anything but splitsville.”

Daisy exploded. “That big bronze galoot betrayed you!” she said. “He violated your trust!”

“That’s true,” Emmy said evenly.

“And broke your heart,” Daisy added.

“It’s mended now,” Emmy said, making little stitching motions with her talons across her chest.

“How can you still love him?” Jesse said. “As far
as I’m concerned, he doesn’t deserve your love.”

“Keepers, I am touched by your concern. I know that Jasper lied to me at first,” said Emmy carefully, “but in the end, he came clear.”

“Came
clean
, you mean,” said Jesse sullenly.

“No, Jesse Tiger,” said Emmy. “It became crystal clear that he had undergone a change of heart about me.”

“When did he change his heart?” said Jesse.

Emmy hesitated; then she said in a softer voice, “When he saw me with my Keepers and realized how we loved each other so.”

Daisy felt a large lump forming in her throat.

Jesse’s face colored bright pink.

Emmy went on. “You see, he had never felt anything like that love. He longed to experience it. I love you, Keepers, and I always will. The more love you give to me, and the more love I give to you, the more love I have inside me to give. There is plenty of love left in my heart to give to Jasper. And Jasper really needs it. It wasn’t easy being Malachite’s mote, you know. Once I have cleared Jasper’s good name, he and I will find true happiness together.”

“Just like Chamanda,” said Jesse, looking all starry-eyed.

Daisy shoved him with one hand. “Jesse Tiger, what are you
talking
about?”

“Why, America’s sweethearts, who else? Chad and Amanda!” Emmy said. “Otherwise known as Chamanda. Jasper and I are like that. What shall we call me and Jasper?”