The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World Read Online Free

sudden, David pointed to awindow about eight levels up. An emeraldgreen firebird had just appeared on thesill. It made the strange   rrrh -ing noise thecreatures often did, popped its eyesslightly and went back into the room. Thelibrarium ‘bell’ stopped.
    For a moment, all the visitors couldhear was the swish of the breeze and the
    gentle rustle of sand falling amongst the flowers. Then a head appeared through the window where the firebird had been. A young girl. No older than David. Her hair was the colour of night. And though a lot

    of it was falling in straggles from her face, half-hiding most of the defining bone structure, it was impossible not to see the wild beauty in her shining eyes.
    “Yes?” she said curtly.
    “We’re here to see Mr Henry,” said Harlan.
    “He’s sleeping,” said the girl.
    “Through that racket?” Eliza muttered.
    The wild eyes immediately picked her out. “Who are you?”
    Eliza tapped her foot. “I don’t think I like   your   impertinence,”   she   said, extending her fain to touch the girl’s auma and register her official displeasure.
    The girl smirked and put a curl of her hair into her mouth. “None of that fain stuff’s welcome here. And Mr Henry doesn’t like people who try it. Who’s he?”

    She tilted her chin at David.
    “He’s our son,” said Harlan. “He hasan appointment. Now go and fetch Mr Henry or I’ll come in there and find himmyself.”
    At this, the girl hooted with laughter. “Yeah?   And   how   many   spins   of Co:pern:ica have you got?”
    “That’s it, we’re leaving,” Eliza said. “Harlan, get a car.” She tapped David’sshoulder.
    But David stayed exactly where he was,staring up at the girl and smiling. Andbefore his mother could speak again, theboy did something quite amazing. Heimagineered a bubble on the palm of hishand and blew it gently into the air. Up itfloated, to the eighth level, where itstopped and hovered right in front of the

    girl.
    “What’s this?” she said, for the first time thrown.
    From the ground, David showed her what she should do with it: prod (gently), with a finger.
    The girl studied the floating sphere, fascinated by the way its flimsy outer surface seemed to change colour if she tilted her head. She frowned at David, then prodded the thing. It immediately burst. The girl gasped and put out a hand to catch what she thought was a glimmer of light. She gasped again when she saw what she’d really caught. “Water,” she said. “You made a raindrop float.”
    “Harlan?”   Eliza   said,   glancing sideways at her husband. “What just happened? How did he do that?”

    “I don’t know,” Harlan whispered, though there was no denying what he had seen. His son had changed the property of a droplet of water and made it lighter than air. Somehow, he’d challenged the force of G:ravity.
    A clatter of feet on stairs made the
    professor look towards the door. The girl heaved it open, cussing as she spilled a whole stack of books into the foyer behind her. She stepped outside wearing a jetblack dress which splayed out in large puffy pleats around her knees and a pair of black and white kicker boots, one of which was unlaced. She went right up to David and looked him in the eye. The two were, as it happened, precisely the same height. “Speak,” she said.
    Eliza tutted at the girl’s arrogance. “He

    doesn’t like to,” she said. “He prefers to commingle.”
    “Not allowed here,” the girl said to David, shaking her head and making her feral hair cascade right across her shoulders. “Mr Henry likes words. Tell me your name.”
    “David,” he said.
    Both parents raised an eyebrow.
    The girl smiled. She looked at her wetted hand and used it to take David by his. “I’m Rosa,” she said. “This is my librarium, and   you   can come in.”

    6

    “   Your   librarium?” Harlan said.
    Rosa bobbed her