Emmy lay on the street whimpering, her scales seared black where Malachite had blasted her.
Jesse and Daisy didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t the wounds to her flesh that worried them so much as the damage to her spirit. Not since she was a tiny dragon coiled up in the sock drawer had they seen her in such a state of despair. Their party clothes had vanished, replaced by their jeans and T-shirts, which seemed appropriate. The Fire Ball was over. There would be no more dancing or bubbly tonight.
“We never should have let her stay here,” Jesse said as they followed Opal and Galena, who bore Emmy’s body between them, back to the cottage.
“It’s not that simple,” Daisy said. “She’s older now, Jess. We can’t just boss her around. She has a mind of her own.”
“Yeah, and look where it got her!” Jesse said. “We should have done a better job of protecting her from herself. Isn’t that what our parents do for us?”
“Only if we let them,” Daisy said with a grim smile.
When they got back to the cottage, they tucked Emmy into her crate. At first, she was too shocked to do anything but lie there. But after a while, she began to weep. She tossed about, flinging lava socks everywhere. Tears dripped from her eyes, rolled down her nose, and fell on her chest wounds with a sound like cold rain hitting a hot sidewalk. Daisy ran to the backpack to get a bandanna and the small first aid kit they kept in the side pouch.
“There’s no need to blot the tears,” Galena said softly when she saw what Daisy was up to. “Dragon tears heal wounds.”
“Oh!” said Daisy, staring at Jesse.
Jesse’s eyes were round with wonder. It was good to know that Emmy had the power to heal herself, since there probably wasn’t enough first aid cream in the whole tube to cover even one of the angry red scratches striping her chest and her shoulders, not to mention the burns.
“If she cries enough—and who could blame her?—she’ll be fine by the morning. The tears will work their healing magic. It’s her heart that will be slower to mend,” said Opal.
Opal and Galena, seeing Emmy settled in, took their leave.
“We’re going to look in on Jasper,” they said. “Poor fellow.”
“Jasper!” Daisy said, flaring up. “That two-timing galoot doesn’t deserve your sympathy.”
“Everyone deserves sympathy,” Opal said, “even Jasper.”
“Do you think it’s easy being the mote of Malachite?” Galena said.
The very mention of Malachite sent Emmy into renewed fits of grief and shame.
“Please don’t feel bad,” Daisy said gently, stroking Emmy.
“You’re a beautiful green,” Jesse said. “Not insipid at all.”
“What’s more,” Daisy added, “there are plenty more dragons just as nice as Jasper.”
“Well,” said Jesse, remembering the four-to-one ratio, “one or two, probably, at least.”
“There will never be anyone but Jasper for me!” Emmy wailed.
The cousins took turns watching over Emmy until she fell into a shuddering slumber. They dabbed the surplus tears on the shoulder wounds the tears had missed. Then they dragged themselves to their beds and fell into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning, Jesse woke up with Daisy shaking him.
“Where’s the canteen?” she asked.
Jesse blinked and looked around. “It’s in the backpack, where I left it yesterday morning,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“No, it’s not,” said Daisy. She closed her eyes. “I’m trying to remember whether it was in the backpack when I went to get the bandanna and first aid kit.”
“Well, it’s not there now,” Jesse said, after he checked for himself. “Who could have taken it?”
“Someone who wanted us to die a horrible death,” Daisy suggested.
“Maybe not. Maybe Emmy took it to keep it safe,” Jesse said.
They both went next door to Emmy’s room. The crate was empty and socks were scattered everywhere. They searched the cottage. There was no sign of Emmy or the canteen. They stumbled out onto the front porch and looked around in the everlasting dimness. Just then, Spark, Flicker, and Fiero came flitting up the path.
“Good day, Keepers! You missed all the excitement!” Fiero said, bouncing up and down like a red rubber ball.
“After you left the Fire Ball last night, Jasper and Malachite butted horns,” Spark said.
“Jasper told Malachite she was no longer the fiery mote of his heart,” Flicker said tremulously.
“You mean they’re splitsville?” Jesse said.
Fiero said, “Afterward, we followed Jasper when he stormed off. He was headed here. But on the way, the Grand Beacons’ guard caught him and marched him off to the hole.”
“To the hole?” Jesse and Daisy echoed.
“The Grand Beacons have accused him of high treason!” Spark said, his little yellow flame coming to a sharp point.
“They say he is the leader of a group out to overthrow the Beacons and the Aura,” Flicker said.
“Personally,” Fiero said, “I don’t think the big galoot has it in him. Jasper’s nice, a boon to the entire realm. Not a rebel.”
“So we came here right away to tell Emmy the news,” said Flicker. “You two were fast asleep, so we went with her to the hole. She spoke with Jasper and, after that, she stormed off.”
“All in all, there’s been a great deal of storming off going on,” Fiero said.
“We tried to tag along, but she shook us off her tail and told us to beat it,” Spark said.
“Oh, she was on fire with rage,” Fiero said.
“Out for revenge, she was,” said Spark.
“We have to find out where she went,” Flicker said. “She might need our help.”
“But meanwhile, we’re going to have to stick with you two,” Fiero said. “Without Emmy’s protection, we might get fairy-napped!”
“Well, we’re in no shape to help anyone,” Daisy said. “Someone stole our canteen of Fiery Elixir.”
“Oh, that!” said Fiero, going round and rosy as a ripe apple. “You don’t need that stuff now. You’ve been here long enough. You’re runching on air and living in lava. You’re one of us as long as you want to stay here. Lady Flamina just said that to get you going.”
“Oh, believe me, we’d love to get going if we could,” Daisy said. “But not without our dragon.”
“Let’s go see if we can pay Jasper a visit in the clink,” said Jesse.
“The clink?” said Daisy.
“Yeah, you know, from the gangster movies,” said Jesse. Uncle Joe watched a lot of old black-and-white gangster movies, and sometimes Jesse sat in. “The pokey. The prison. The slammer. The big house. The can. The hoosegow?”
“Follow us,” said Fiero, chuckling, “and we’ll show you the way to the rusty hoosegow.”
The fire fairies seemed incapable of being anything but cheery regardless of the situation, which Daisy found a comfort. As they were making their way to the Great Hall, she noticed that she had no headache. Considering the disturbing news, she felt remarkably good. Tingling all over, in fact. She looked over at Jesse. He looked good, too. His hair was shining and his cheeks were glowing. She noticed that her skin felt hot, but in a good way. She lifted her arm and pulled up the sleeve.
“Holy moly! Look, Jesse!” Daisy held out her arm.
The nearly invisible, pale-blond hairs on her arm looked like miniature candles with tiny flames on the tips. Jesse pushed up his sleeve and held his arm out next to hers. His arm hairs looked much the same way.
“Whoa!” he said.
Daisy said, “We’re on fire, Jesse!”
“Well, fire or no fire, we still have to get back home before the weekend’s over,” Jesse said.
Daisy nodded. Only their second day here and already Goldmine City seemed like a place from another life. They arrived at the Great Hall of the Grand Beacons, where they rattled the pink quartz gate until the towering fire fairy guard with the golden staff marched down the stairs.
“We need to pay Jasper a visit in the hoosegow,” Jesse said.
The guard looked perplexed. “The hoosegow?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Daisy, leaning on the gate, “the pokey, the slammer, the big house, the can, the pen, the prison! See where I’m going with this, buster?”
“Ah, the hole, you mean!” said the guard. “Well, you can’t, by order of the Grand Beacons.” He swung around and marched back up the stairs.
Jesse hollered after him, “In that case, we want to see the Beacons!”
The guard hesitated, spun around, and came marching back. “Very well. The court is in session, and all are welcome to an audience with Their Beneficent Beaconships.”
The cousins and the fire fairies trooped down the long hallway that reminded Daisy of the gullet of a long-necked monster. In the great chamber, they found Lady Flamina and Lord Feldspar enthroned, as before. With Jasper not there to speak on their behalf, Daisy decided to get right down to cases and skip the dithering details, as Lady Flamina herself might say.
“We understand Jasper is being held prisoner here,” Daisy said.
“We’d like to speak with him,” Jesse said.
Lady Flamina flared up bright orange. “Jasper is a traitor being held in the hole. He is allowed no visitors until his trial.”
“Well, apparently you let our dragon, Emerald of Leandra, visit him late last night,” Jesse said.
“Afterward, she stormed off someplace,” Daisy added. “We’re hoping Jasper can tell us where she went.”
“We realize this might be beyond your feeble powers of perception,” said Jesse, “but we just want our dragon.”
“Your upstart dragon must have connived her way past the night guards,” Lord Feldspar grumbled.
“Had we known the upstart was on the premises, we would have detained her,” said Lady Flamina. “She has been named a co-conspirator in the plot to overthrow the Grand Beacons.”
“That’s just ridiculous!” said Jesse.
Daisy’s blood boiled. “Who says our dragon’s a traitor?”
“A most reliable source,” Lady Flamina said, simmering back down to a cool, calm blue.
“Who?” Jesse pressed.
“Yeah,” Daisy said. “Jasper—and Emmy—are entitled to know the name of their accuser. That’s the law in our realm, at least.”
“Their accuser is my daughter!” Lord Feldspar thundered.
“The one who patrols the Outer Reaches and keeps us secure,” Lady Flamina said.
It dawned on Daisy who the accuser was. “If you’re talking about Malachite, then I wouldn’t believe a word she said.”
“Malachite? Trustworthy?” Jesse piped up. “I wouldn’t trust her to babysit my parakeet long enough for me to clean the cage.”
The Grand Beacons conferred in low voices. When they pulled apart, Lady Flamina delivered their decision in her coolest, bluest tones: “Very well, the Grand Beaconship of the Fiery Realm has revised its thinking. We will grant you visitation rights, briefly.”
“Thanks!” the cousins said together.
“I wonder why the Beaconship changed their minds so quickly,” Daisy said as a guard escorted them from the throne room.
“If you want,” Fiero whispered, “we can lick back and spy for you.”
“Please don’t do that,” said Jesse. “There’s no use you winding up in the hoosegow, too.”
The guard stopped when they came to a large black hole in the floor. “The prisoner is down there,” he said, pointing.
Jesse leaned over and peered into the shaft. A rusty spiral staircase wound its way down into pitch darkness.
“Go on down,” the guard said. “Jasper is the only prisoner down there. You can’t miss him.”
“Do we get to take a torch or something with us?” Daisy asked.
The guard shook his head. “Visitors are responsible for providing their own illumination.”
Jesse looked at Daisy. She had that queasy look she got before entering dark, enclosed spaces. He wasn’t crazy about them himself, but he hated them a little less than she did. The fire fairies spilled down the stairway and disappeared into the blackness. Jesse squared his shoulders and stepped down into the hole. Soon after, he heard Daisy’s feet on the rusty stairs above his head.
“You okay?” he called up to her.
“I’ll be fine,” she said bravely. “My arms are glowing. Are yours?”
Jesse looked at his wrist. He didn’t wear a watch these days, except to school, but his arm was shining as if he were wearing a glow-in-the-dark wristband. He rolled up the cuffs of his jeans and his ankles glowed, lighting his way to the next step.
“I wonder how Emmy got down these stairs,” Daisy said.
“Or any dragon,” Jesse said. “They’re small … and they’re iron.”
Down and down the spiral staircase wound, around and around, an endless corkscrew. At the bottom, it felt hot and airless and silent, like the engine room of a giant ship with its power switched off. Jesse stood aside and waited for Daisy to join him. The fire fairies flitted ahead down the hot, narrow stone corridor.
“They seem to know their way around the hole,” Jesse commented.
They followed the fire fairies and made their way past a long, gloomy procession of empty cells. Finally, they came upon Jasper. He lay on a bed of ashes, next to a feeble lantern, behind a stout, rusty grate.
“Pssst, Jasper!” Jesse called out to him through the grate.
Jasper got up and lumbered over. His proud shoulders were slumped, and his great golden eyes were sad. Jesse noticed he stood well back from the iron grate that separated them.
Jasper spoke in a low voice. “I’m sorry, Keepers. When Malachite told me to make a mote of Emmy, I never realized—”
“Malachite told you to?” Daisy said.
“She ordered me,” Jasper said. “She has won so many trouncings over time, I have allowed her to dominate me.”
“Poor Emmy,” Jesse said under his breath. “She was set up.”
“I don’t get it. If it was Malachite’s idea, why did she challenge Emmy to a trouncing?” Daisy said.
Jasper shrugged. “To weaken her, perhaps. Or just for fun.”
“Some fun,” Daisy said glumly.
“After the fight, I told Malachite it was over between us. I think that’s when she went to the Grand Beacons. If I wasn’t going to participate in her plot, she wanted me out of the way.”
“What plot?” Jesse asked.
Jasper looked from left to right and moved a little closer to the grate, still without touching it. “Malachite is in league with dark forces,” he whispered.
“Who?” Jesse and Daisy whispered back through the grate.
“I have never met them myself. All I know is that they are not of this realm. Malachite made a pact with them. In exchange for Emerald and a mother lode of precious gems, they said they would help her seize the Ruby Throne. She needed my help to get Emmy to stay here in the Fiery Realm. If I made Emmy claim me as her fiery mote, Malachite promised that she and I would share the Ruby Throne.”
“Then I hate to say it,” Daisy said, taking one step backward, “but the Beacons are right. You are a traitor.”
“That’s just it!” Jasper said. “I don’t want the Ruby Throne! I no longer even want Malachite. I really like Emerald! For the first time, I know what it’s like to have a she-boon.”
“So how did Malachite meet up with these dark forces?” Jesse wanted to know.
“She met them while patrolling the Outer Reaches,” Jasper said. “She must have penetrated the membrane where it is thinnest, near the Great Grotto.”
“What membrane?” Jesse asked.
“One of the membranes that lies between our realm and yours,” Jasper said.
Jesse’s eyes darted about. His mind was racing. “Daisy,” he said, his voice charged, “do you think that membrane might be anywhere near where Queen Hap imprisoned St. George?”
“St. George!” Jasper burst out, his golden eyes gleaming in the dimness. “That was what she called him! The first time she heard his voice, it was coming from inside a block of amber.”
Daisy said, “Tell us, would Malachite’s flame be hot enough to melt the amber?”
Jasper nodded. “Malachite has one of the most powerful flames in the realm,” he said.
“So St. George got Malachite to melt the amber and set him free!” Jesse said. “That’s what Queen Hap meant by ‘things heating up.’ ”
“And rumblings and tumblings,” Daisy said. Her eyes met Jesse’s. “Do you think the treasure St. George was searching for when he was digging in the hobgoblins’ mine was actually in the Fiery Realm?” she asked.
“It makes sense,” Jesse said. “I mean, the gems in this place would be worth gajillions to someone in the Earthly Realm.”
“Plus it explains how Sadra escaped from the Toilet Glass,” Daisy said. “St. George broke the spell and freed her! Who knows what powerful magic they can unleash together!”
“And now Emmy’s gone looking for them both!” Jesse said. He pressed his face to the grate. “How do we get there, Jasper? Which way to the Outer Reaches? You’ve got to tell us. Emmy may be in great danger!”
Jasper wagged his head. “Sorry, Keepers. I’ve never been there myself. The fact is, I’m a bit of a homebody. I’m afraid I am worse than useless. Poor Emerald!”
Daisy said gently, “You’ve actually been a big help. At least we know what’s going on. Now all we need is a plan!”
“Let’s not make it here,” Jesse said, standing back from the grate and brushing the flakes of rust from his forehead.
“Why not here?” Daisy said. “Maybe Jasper can help us.”
Jesse leaned over and whispered in Daisy’s ear, “Not here.” He reached out and lightly tapped the rusty grate holding Jasper prisoner. “I’ll tell you why as soon as we’re out.”
They bid Jasper a hasty farewell and followed the fire fairies out of the hole and back up the rusty winding stairs. Every time Daisy started to speak, Jesse shushed her.
Finally, when they had cleared the pink quartz gates of the Grand Hall, Jesse broke their silence. “Remember Lady Flamina said she could hear us coming on Old Bub because of the rusty horseshoes?”
Daisy nodded slowly as they walked.
“That’s why she and Lord Feldspar allowed us to visit Jasper in the rusty hoosegow,” Jesse said.
“I get it!” Daisy said, her eyes lighting up. “The rust helped them overhear everything we said!”
“Exactly!” Jesse said.
Daisy hesitated. “But that’s good, isn’t it?” she said. “Because Jasper’s innocent, and now they’ve heard it for themselves and will set him free.”
“Maybe,” said Jesse. “But I don’t think we can stick around to find out. We need to track down Emmy.” Jesse looked at the fire fairies. “We’re going to the Great Grotto, guys,” he told them.
The fire fairies sputtered.
“We have no idea how to get there,” said Flicker.
“But we want to go with you,” said Fiero.
“How can we help?” said Spark.
“Fiero and Flicker,” said Daisy, “you go fetch Opal and Galena, and anyone who knows the way to the Great Grotto.”
“Spark,” Jesse said, “can you go to the stables to get Clipper and Speedy? We’re going to need our trusty mounts.”
The fire fairies dispersed to carry out their assignments.
When the Keepers got back to the cottage, Daisy said, “Let’s check the Fire Screen. Who knows? Maybe Miss Alodie is sitting by the fire.” Daisy waved her hand over the wall in their bedroom.
Sadie Huffington, otherwise known as Sadra the Witch of Uffington, appeared on the screen. The cousins yelped and jumped behind the computer table.