Free The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire by Chris D'Lacey Page A

a beautiful creature that wouldn’t
    harm a fly.”
    “That’s what makes it so dangerous,” he said. “Innocence, turned on its head. That is a spark of dark fire, Liz, the most destructive force in the universe. If the Ix
    got hold of it, they’d harm a lot more than
    flies.”
    Even so, she caressed it softly. “All Iwant is peace – and Gwillan back. Is thereany hope for him, David? Can this… thingbe reversed? Can his life be restored?”
    David returned the block safely to hispocket. “I’ll need to seek advice on that.” He quickly changed the subject. “How’s

    the baby?”
    “Baby?” Liz looked down at herself as if she was surprised to remember she was pregnant. “How did you know?”
    He pointed at her tummy and made the shape of a curve with his hand.
    “Oh, yes. Silly me.” She tossed her mane of hair. “He’s fine.”
    “Him?”
    “It’s a boy – according to Gwilanna.”
    “Interesting. Got a name for him yet?”
    “We’re working on it,” she said.
    He laughed at her secrecy and nodding past her said, “I’m surprised his sister hasn’t winkled it out of you.” Lucy had just stepped out of the kitchen. She came walking towards them with her arms tightly crossed and her mouth puckered

inward, as if trying to work out what she should do. How did you greet someone you loved when everyone around you had been saying for the past five years that they were dead? Two yards from him she cast all that aside and launched herself
    forward. He caught her and lifted her clean off the porch.
    “Oh,” was all she could say.
    He said, “Wow,   you’ve   grown.”
    He smiled at Liz. Her bright green eyes were glistening again. She patted his arm. “Come to dinner.” She made it sound like
    a hopeful question.
    With a puff, David set Lucy down. She put her fingers underneath her nose, embarrassed by the drip that was forming there. She threw up her hands, briefly lost

    for words. “We went to Cambridge,” she blurted, as if it was  an alternative form of hello. “Why did you send Gadzooks to that professor?”
    His gaze shifted sideways and he shrugged. “I didn’t.”
    “But… there was a dragon in his room that wrote things down.”
    “The description Professor Steiner gave us sounded very much like Zookie,” said Liz.
    “Oh, I’m sure it was him,” said David, moving his toe against the ground. “But he wasn’t sent to Cambridge on my orders. For the moment, he’s in the service of a dragon called G’Oreal.”
    “Who’s G’Oreal?” Liz and Lucy spoke together.

    David smiled and looked at them in
    turn. Give or take a few wrinkles, they could have been twins. “He’s an ice
    dragon, the leader of a colony that’s settling in the Arctic. What message did Gadzooks leave?”
    “Scuffenbury,” said Lucy, in a quiet voice. “Do you know where it is?”
    David looked inside himself, recalling something distant. “Yes. There’s a dragon hidden there.”
    “Oh?” said Liz.
    “Hidden? Not dead?” asked Lucy.
    “In stasis,” David said. “It’s one of the
    last twelve.”
    Liz and Lucy exchanged a glance. Theyknew the legend of the last twelve dragonsvery well, but to be  suddenly confronted

    with evidence of it…
    “Are the others in stasis as well?” Liz
    asked, massaging her arms with the tips of her fingers.
    “And why has Gadzooks told us about this one?” added Lucy.
    A green light pulsed from David’s waistcoat pocket. “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” he said.
    “What’s that light?” Lucy couldn’t help herself.
    “A message,” he said.
    Lucy bent forward to peek. “From your   watch   ?” She could see the light glowing round the rim of the casing.
    Liz intervened then and took her arm.
    “Come on, Lucy. It’s none of your business.” She turned the girl away and

    said over her shoulder, “Dinner. Tonight.
    Seven-thirty.”
    He watched them back to the house.
    When