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IN WHICH AUTUMN MEETS AN UNUSUAL MAGICIAN
The dragon wasn’t happy with the roses. No matter how Autumn cajoled and pleaded, Amfidzel refused to leave her garden, declaring that she wasn’t going anywhere until she’d plucked all the aphids off the drooping stems.
Jack’s round face was pale. “What do we do?”
Autumn tapped her foot, surveying the darkening sky. All monsters in Inglenook School’s menagerie had to be stabled by sunset—that was the rule, and there’d be trouble if anyone found out that a dragon had been left to lurk the grounds after dark. Not that Amfidzel was particularly lurky, as dragons went. She’d huff and puff over the dying roses until she huffed and puffed herself out, then she’d fall asleep among the lady’s slippers.
Like all dragons, Amfidzel was obsessed with flowers. She spent her days hovering over her honey-scented hoard, pruning and plucking and weeding.
Jack patted Amfidzel’s flank. “Can’t she stay out a little longer?”
“Oh, Jack.” Autumn drew her softhearted brother out of range of Amfidzel’s horns. Jack was forever making pets out of the monsters, giving them names and fussing over them when they were sick. When he was little, he used to put raincoats on the Hounds of Arawn when he took them down the mountain for walks—as if they were real dogs, not ghostly, coal-eyed beasts that howled at impending death. It was a wonder Jack had made it to thirteen with all his limbs.
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