The Chrestomanci Series: Entire Collection Books 1-7. Diana Wynne Jones
when the carpet didn’t work, the only thing I could think of was to yell for Chrestomanci. I was right. He came before the words were out of my mouth, even though the door was locked. It was still locked when he opened it, but the lock isn’t broken, because I tried it. So he is an enchanter. And he ruined a suit over you, Cat, and didn’t seem to mind, so I think that when he isn’t being like freezing fog over the Grampians, he’s really very nice. This isn’t for the benefit of the mirror. I mean it. I suppose that mirror is the magic equivalent of—”
Cat thought he had been meaning to say something about freezing fog in the Grampians, but he drifted away to sleep while Janet talked, feeling snug and cared-for.
He woke on Sunday morning, quite the opposite: cold and quivering. This afternoon, he was due to be turned into a frog or face a tiger – and a rather heavy strong tiger Will Suggins would make too, he thought. Beyond the tiger – if there was a beyond – lay the horrors of Monday without magic. Julia and Roger might help there, except that it would be no use when Mr Baslam came on Wednesday and demanded twenty pounds Cat knew he could not get. Mr Nostrum was no help. Mrs Sharp was even less. The only hope seemed to be to take Janet and some dragon’s blood to the forbidden garden and try to get away.
Cat climbed out of bed to go and get some dragon’s blood from Mr Saunders’s workshop. Euphemia came in with his breakfast on a tray, and he had to climb back into bed again. Euphemia was quite as kind as she had been last night. Cat felt bad. And when he had finished breakfast, Millie came. She scooped Cat off his pillows and hugged him.
“You poor silly darling! Thank goodness you’re all right. I was aching to come and see you last night, but someone had to stay with our poor guests. Now, you’re to stay in bed all today, and you must ask for anything you want. What would you like?”
“I couldn’t have some dragon’s blood, could I?” Cat asked hopefully.
Millie laughed. “Good heavens, Eric! You go and have that fearsome accident and then you ask for the most dangerous stuff in the world. No, you may not have dragon’s blood. It’s one of the few things in the Castle that really are forbidden.”
“Like Chrestomanci’s garden?” Cat asked.
“Not quite like that,” Millie answered. “The garden is as old as the hills and stuffed with magic of every kind. That’s dangerous in another way. Everything’s stronger there. You’ll be taken into the garden when you know enough magic to understand it. But dragon’s blood is so harmful that I’m never happy even when Michael uses it. You’re on no account to touch any.”
Julia and Roger came in next, dressed ready for church, with armfuls of books and toys and a great many interested questions. They were so kind that Cat was quite unhappy by the time Janet arrived. He did not want to leave the Castle. He felt he was truly settling in to it.
“That lump of dough is still stuck to your carpet,” Janet said gloomily, which made Cat feel rather less settled. “I’ve just been seeing Chrestomanci, and it is hard to be punished for other people’s sins,” Janet went on, “even though I’ve been rewarded with the sight of a sky-blue dressing-gown with golden lions on it.”
“I’ve not seen that one,” said Cat.
“I think he has one for every day of the week,” said Janet. “All he needed was a flaming sword. He forbade me to go to church. The vicar won’t have me because of what Gwendolen did last Sunday. And I was so cross at being blamed for it that I’d got my mouth open to say I wasn’t Gwendolen, when I remembered that if I went to church I’d have to wear that stupid white hat with little holes in it – can he hear through that mirror, do you think?”
“No,” said Cat. “Just see. Or he’d know all about you. I’m glad you’re staying behind. We can go and get the dragon’s blood while they’re at church.”
Janet kept watch at the window to see when the Family left. After about half an hour, she said, “Here they are at last, walking in a crowd down the avenue. All the men have got toppers, but Chrestomanci looks as if he’s come out of a shop window. Who are they all, Cat? Who’s the old lady in purple mittens, and the young one in green, and the little fellow who’s always talking?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Cat. He scrambled out of bed and scuttled up to his room to find some clothes. He felt perfectly well – marvellously well, in fact. He danced round his room while he put on his shirt. He sang putting on his trousers.
Even the cold lump of dough on the carpet could not damp his spirits. He whistled tying his boots.
Janet came into the room as Cat was shooting out of it, pulling on his jacket and beaming with health. “I don’t know,” Janet said, as Cat shot past her and hammered away down the stairs. “Dying must agree with you, or something.”
“Hurry up!” Cat called from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s on the other side of the Castle from here. Millie says dragon’s blood is dangerous, so don’t you touch it. I can spare a life on it and you can’t.”
Janet wanted to remark that Cat had not spared the last one very easily, but she never caught Cat up sufficiently. Cat whirled through the green corridors and stormed up the winding stairs to Mr Saunders’s room, and Janet only reached him when he was actually inside it. Then there was too much else to take up her attention.
The room was heavy with the scent of stale magic. Though it was much the same as when Cat had seen it before, Mr Saunders had tidied it a little for Sunday. The cresset was out. The torts and limbecks and other vessels were all clean. The books and scrolls had been piled in heaps on the second bench. The five-pointed star was still there, blazoned on the floor, but there was a new set of signs chalked on the third bench, and the mummified animal had been neatly laid at one end of it.
Janet was immensely interested. “It’s like a laboratory,” she said, “except that it isn’t. What weird things! Oh, I see the dragon’s blood. Does he need all that huge jar? He won’t miss a bit out of that lot.”
There was a rustling at the end of the third bench. Janet’s head jerked towards it. The mummified creature was twitching and spreading its filmy little wings.
“It did that before,” said Cat. “I think it’s all right.” He was not so sure, however, when the creature stretched and got to its dog-like feet, yawning. The yawn showed them dozens of small sharp teeth and also let out a cloud of bluish smoke. The creature ran pattering along the bench towards them. The little wings rattled on its back as it came, and two small puffs of smoke streamed behind it from its nostrils. It stopped at the edge of the bench to look up at them inquisitively from a melting glitter of golden eyes. They backed nervously away from it.
“It’s alive!” said Janet. “I think it’s a small dragon.”
“Of course I am,” said the dragon, which made both of them jump violently. Even more alarming, tiny flames played out of its mouth as it spoke, and they could feel the heat from them where they stood.
“I didn’t know you could talk,” said Cat.
“I speak English quite well,” said the dragon, flickering flame. “Why do you want my blood?”
They looked guiltily at the great jar of powder on the shelf. “Is that all yours?” said Cat.
“If Mr Saunders is making it give blood all the time, I think that’s rather cruel,” Janet said.
“Oh, that!” said the dragon. “That’s powdered blood from older dragons. They sell it to people. You can’t have any of that.”
“Why not?” said Cat.
“Because I don’t want you to,” said the dragon, and a regular roll of fire came from its mouth, making them back away again. “How would you like to see me taking human blood and playing games with it?”
Though Cat felt the dragon had a point here, Janet did not. “It doesn’t worry me,” she said. “Where I come from we have blood