from a melting glitter of golden eyes. They backed nervously away from it.
“It’s alive!” said Janet. “I think it’s a small dragon.”
“Of course I am,” said the dragon, which made both of them jump violently. Even more alarming, tiny flames played out of its mouth as it spoke, and they could feel the heat from them where they stood.
“I didn’t know you could talk,” said Cat.
“I speak English quite well,” said the dragon, flickering flame. “Why do you want my blood?”
They looked guiltily at the great jar of powder on the shelf. “Is that all yours?” said Cat.
“If Mr Saunders is making it give blood all the time, I think that’s rather cruel,” Janet said.
“Oh, that!” said the dragon. “That’s powdered blood from older dragons. They sell it to people. You can’t have any of that.”
“Why not?” said Cat.
“Because I don’t want you to,” said the dragon, and a regular roll of fire came from its mouth, making them back away again. “How would you like to see me taking human blood and playing games with it?”
Though Cat felt the dragon had a point here, Janet did not. “It doesn’t worry me,” she said. “Where I come from we have blood transfusions and blood banks. Dad once showed me some of my blood under a microscope.”
“It worries me,” said the dragon, uttering another roll of fire. “My mother was killed by unlawful blood-stealers.” It crept to the very end of the bench and stared up at Janet. The flickers in its golden eyes melted and changed and melted again. It was like being looked at by two small golden kaleidoscopes. “I was too small to hold enough blood,” it flickered softly to Janet, “so they left me. I’d have died if Chrestomanci hadn’t found me. So you see why it worries me?”
“Yes,” said Janet. “What do baby dragons feed on? Milk?”
“Michael tried me with milk, but I didn’t like it,” said the dragon. “I have minced steak now, and I’m growing beautifully. When I’m big enough, he’s going to take me back, but meanwhile I’m helping him with his magic. I’m a great help.”
“Are you?” said Janet. “What do you do?”
“I find old things he can’t find himself.” The dragon fell into a flickering croon. “I fetch him animals from the abyss – old golden creatures, things with wings, pearl-eyed monsters from the deep sea, and whispering plants from long ago.”
It stopped and looked at Janet with its head on one side. “That was easy,” it remarked to Cat. “I’ve always wanted to do that, but no one let me before.” It sighed a long blue fume of smoke. “I wish I was bigger. I could eat her now.”
Cat took an alarmed look at Janet and found her staring like a sleep-walker, with a silly smile on her face. “Of all the mean tricks!” he said.
“I think I’ll just have a nibble,” said the dragon.
Cat realised it was being playful. “I’ll wring your neck if you do,” he said. “Haven’t you got anything else to play with?”
“You sound just like Michael,” said the dragon in a sulky roll of smoke. “I’m bored with mice.”
“Tell him to take you for walks.” Cat took Janet’s arm and shook her. Janet came to herself with a little jump and seemed quite unaware that anything had happened to her. “And I can’t help the way you feel,” said Cat to the dragon. “I need some dragon’s blood.” He pulled Janet well out of range, just to be on the safe side, and picked up a little china crucible from the next bench.
The dragon hunched up irritably and scratched itself like a dog under the chin until its wings rattled. “Michael says dragon’s blood always does harm somewhere,” it said, “even when an adept uses it. If you’re not careful, it costs a life.”
Cat and Janet looked at one another through the smoke it had made with its speech. “Well, I can spare one,” said Cat. He took the glass stopper off the big jar and scooped up some brown powder in the crucible. It had a strong, strange smell.
“I suppose Chrestomanci manages all right with two lives,” Janet said nervously.
“But he’s rather special,” said the dragon. It was standing on the very edge of the bench, rattling with anxiety. Its golden eyes followed Cat’s hands as he wrapped the crucible in his handkerchief and pushed the bundle cautiously into his pocket. It seemed so worried that Cat went over to it and, a little nervously, rubbed it under the chin where it had been scratching. The dragon stretched its neck and pressed against his fingers. The smoke came out of its nostrils in purring puffs.
“Don’t worry,” Cat said. “I’ve got three lives left, you see.”
“That explains why I like you,” said the dragon, and almost fell off the bench in its effort to follow Cat’s fingers. “Don’t go yet!”
“We’ve got to.” Cat pushed the dragon back on the bench and patted its head. Once he was used to it, he found he did not mind touching its warm horny hide a bit. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said the dragon.
They left it staring after them like a dog whose master has gone for a walk without it.
“I think it’s bored,” Cat said when he had shut the door.
“It’s a shame! It’s only a baby,” said Janet. She stopped on the first turn of the stair. “Let’s go back and take it for a walk. It was sweet!”
Cat was sure that if Janet did any such thing, she would come to herself to find the dragon browsing on her legs. “It wasn’t that sweet,” he said. “And we’ll have to go to the garden straight away now. It’s going to tell Mr Saunders we took some dragon’s blood as soon as it sees him.”
“Yes, I suppose it does make a difference that it can talk.” Janet agreed. “We’d better hurry then.”
Cat walked very carefully through the Castle, down and out of doors, and kept a hand on his pocket in case of accidents. He was afraid he might arrive at the forbidden garden with one life less. He seemed to have lost three of his lives so easily.
That kept puzzling him. From the look of those matches, losing life number five ought to have been as much of a disaster as losing the sixth one last night. But he had not noticed it go at all. He could not understand it. His lives did not seem to be properly attached to him, like ordinary people’s. But at least he knew there were no other Cat Chants to be dragged into trouble in this world, when he left it.
It was a glorious start-of-autumn day, with everything green and gold, hot and still. There was not a soul around, and very little sound except the lonely crunch of Cat’s and Janet’s feet as they hurried through the formal garden.
