The Firedragon Read Free Page B

library
he’d be, that she’d figure out right away how to find him, and
she’d guessed that he’d leave some kind of sign.
    The book-pig must have been it.
    She crossed her arms and regarded the
enchanted creature. “Very cute, Connor,” she said. “C’mon, pig,
hurry up and show me where he is!”
    The book-pig stopped, grunted at her, and
trotted into the shelves. Knowing it would lead her to Connor, she
darted after it.
    Within moments, they’d reached a classroom
at the back of the library. It was a rectangular room with walls of
gray stone and a wrought-iron lantern, suspended by magic near the
ceiling and giving off a soft white light. In the center stood a
square table with a gleaming stone top and thick wooden legs. The
book-pig grunted and went to curl up in the corner, while Aurelia
scanned the room with her eyes.
    Connor sat in one of the high-backed,
intricately carved wooden chairs, reading a thick book full of
complicated-looking diagrams. He tapped his golden-brown wand
absentmindedly against the page he was reading, and his auburn hair
fell onto his forehead, nearly reaching his eyes. Those pretty,
dark blue peepers, the cherries on top of his classic good looks,
made all the other girls swoon at the sight of him. But not
Aurelia. The idea of anything romantic between Connor and her made
her cringe. It’d be like dating her brother, or worse. And she
couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to. Relationships between
Enchanters and Norms were illegal, and she’d seen her non-magical
schoolmates get banished to the far corners of the Triumvirate for
making goo-goo eyes at Scholars.
    So she crossed her arms and gave him a
disapproving look, instead. “You really need a haircut.”
    He looked up at her with a slight smile.
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “How’d your test with the
Challenge judges go? Think you’ll qualify?”
    “ Of course, silly. But
before we talk about how awesome I did, I need to tell you
something.” She started to describe what had happened during her
test, but Connor held up a hand to stop her.
    “ You can’t tell me this,”
he said. “That’s cheating.”
    “ Who cares? So, the first
thing they asked me –”
    “ Don’t. ” He stood, his expression dead serious. “Cheating’s a crime.
And they’ll do more than just disqualify you if they find out.
Aurie, they’ll send you to jail .”
    Crap, didn’t think of
that. She glanced back at the classroom’s
open door, suddenly tense.
    “ Don’t worry about me,”
Connor said. “Despite what you think, I can actually handle myself
in the arena.”
    “ What if you can’t?” she
demanded, her concern for him overtaking her nervousness. “I don’t
wanna see my best friend get his face ripped off!”
    “ And I don’t want to see
mine get dragged to prison! So keep quiet, or we’ll both find
ourselves in chains.”
    “ They wouldn’t
arrest you . Your
dad would throw a fit!”
    “ Yes, at me .” His expression
darkened. “The Triumvirate’s supposed to be all about rule of law,
and how he treats me is meant to prove that. If we were caught
cheating, my punishment would be even harsher than yours. My
father’s image is more important to him than I am.”
    She pursed her lips. The only thing worse
than going to jail would be taking Connor down with her. “There’ll
be healers waiting by the arena,” she said, more to reassure
herself than him. “They’ll rush in if things get ugly. I’ll grab a
bow and watch from the side, so I can shoot anything that gets too
close to you.”
    “ That would also be
cheating.” He gave her an exasperated look. “You don’t have to
treat me like I’m helpless.”
    “ But you are .” She fidgeted,
already picturing the nasty injuries he could get from those
fangbeast-imitating spheres. “Being good with magic doesn’t make
you a fighter, and let’s face it, if it weren’t for your dad, you’d
never be considered Challenge material!”
    “ You’re