Free The Flight of Dragons by Vivian French

the answers,
she told herself.
And then if there is an egg, Marcus and I can go find it. I wonder if we’ll be able to watch it hatch? I’d absolutely love to see a baby dragon.
And she finally closed her eyes.
    It seemed no time at all before she was woken by Gubble banging loudly on her door. The door, offended at such rough treatment so early in the morning, slid swiftly up to the ceiling, and Gracie sighed. “Gubble!” she called. “You’ve upset the door again. Could you go downstairs and put the kettle on? I’ll have to climb out of the window.”
    A loud grunt suggested that the troll had heard her, and Gracie got dressed as quickly as she could. “I do so wish I had my coat up here.” She spoke out loud and did her best to sound plaintive, while keeping a hopeful eye on the ceiling. “It’s going to be horribly wet climbing out of the window after all that rain — I’m going to get absolutely drenched.” At once the door slid back into place with an apologetic
thud.
Gracie looked at it gratefully. “Thank you so much. I’m very sorry about Gubble. He doesn’t know his own strength.” The door opened wide in response, and Gracie hopped through before it could change its mind. She found herself at the top of a flight of stairs and saw Marcus at the bottom, looking baffled.
    “I can’t find the WATER WINGS door anywhere,” he told her. “That is the kitchen, isn’t it? I’ve been searching for ages. I keep finding myself in room seventeen with the looms, and your auntie Elsie’s getting really tired of telling me which way to go.”
    “The whole house is a bit upset at the moment,” Gracie said. “It’s not a good sign. Did Auntie Elsie say how the web was looking?”
    Marcus rubbed his nose. “She was too busy trying to stop your stepsister from messing up her patterns. What does the web of power do, exactly? I mean, I know it’s kind of magic, but what’s it for?”
    Gracie made a quick sideways jump and caught hold of a door handle that was doing its best to sneak past unseen. As she led Marcus into the kitchen, she said, “I don’t think even the crones know quite how the web works. It mustn’t ever break — that I do know. I think it sort of holds good and evil in some kind of balance, if that makes any sense.”
    “Can it tell when something dangerous is about to happen?” Marcus wanted to know.
    He sounded so hopeful that Gracie couldn’t help smiling as she answered. “It changes all the time . . . and yes — it looks different when things are going wrong.”
    Marcus was delighted. “Your auntie Edna said it looked terrible yesterday. Come on! Let’s have breakfast, and then we can get going.”
    Breakfast was soon disposed of, but while Marcus was outside saddling his pony, Gracie was presented with an unexpected problem. Gubble, it seemed, was convinced he was to be one of the party.
    “But Gubble,” Gracie explained, “it’s only a visit to a bat. It’s Marlon’s great-uncle Alvin. We need to talk to him — that’s all.” Gubble grunted disagreement, and Gracie sighed. The last thing she wanted was to hurt his feelings, but he was not a speedy traveler. “Tell you what,” she suggested. “Why don’t you meet us at Wadingburn? We’re going to see the professor after we’ve been to Fracture, and if you went there directly, we’d probably arrive about the same time.” Gubble appeared to be wavering. “If things
do
happen to go wrong,” Gracie went on, “there won’t be any danger at Fracture — it’ll be somewhere inside the Five Kingdoms. And if we need you, I promise we’ll send Alf to find you and tell you. And you know I always keep my promises.”
    There was a long thoughtful silence while Gubble’s very small brain churned its way through Gracie’s suggestions. At last he came to a conclusion. “Gracie still angry.”
    “Why would I be angry with you?” Gracie asked in surprise.
    Gubble sighed. “Ate egg sandwiches.”
    “You ate the