Stop it, I tell myself.
My only goal is to crack the dragon code and go home to Ursa, and I’ll never do that if I let myself get distracted. Or if Wyvernmire’s Guardian relative decides to make my life a living hell. I reach the entrance hall and head for the front door. Ralph said I was needed in the grounds. There’s a Guardian motorcar waiting at the bottom of the steps. The Guardian behind the steering wheel winds the window down.
‘Vivien Featherswallow?’
I nod.
‘We have an unexpected visitor. Get in.’
I slip into the back seat and glance up at the third-floor windows of the house. I can’t see the library from here, but I hope Atlas isn’t in too much trouble. And that Professor Lumens is as diplomatic as he seems.
The car drives through Bletchley Park, past the lake andthen on to a dirt road that runs through an expanse of grassy fields. Who is the unexpected visitor and why are they waiting all the way out here? As the car rolls across the grass, three huge shapes come into view through the windscreen. My heart leaps.
Dragons.
Several Guardians are already parked in the field and the dragons – two juveniles and a larger one – are bleeding from their flanks. The smaller ones are blue and purple, and the third is black with horns protruding from its face. It’s huge, even bigger than Chumana. I feel a flutter of nerves as I look at the thick blood oozing down the dragons’ scales. Something has gone wrong. The car comes to a stop and the Guardian turns round to face me, his face white.
‘Out you get, then.’
Out you get?I peer through the window. The other Guardians are waiting inside their motorcars, too. I open the door slowly and step out. The grass is so long it almost reaches my knees. A low growl vibrates beneath my feet. Everyone, including the dragons, is staring at me. Finally, the Guardians get out of their cars, clutching their guns tightly. Relief floods through me as I see a familiar face through an open helmet. It’s Owen, the Guardian who picked Marquis and me up from the station.
‘Hello,’ he says to me grimly.
I nod at him, my eyes on the dragons. The black one is looking at me through slitted eyes, its mouth slightly open to reveal canines the length of my finger and a red, double-forked tongue. Its talons are crowned with feathers, like Chumana’s.
‘This dragon flew across the Channel several hours ago and circled over Bletchley,’ Owen tells me. ‘Our patrol dragons – Muirgen and Rhydderch – put up a good fight until they realised the guest comes in … peace.’
I glance at the smaller patrol dragons.
‘This Bolgorith seems to have come from Bulgaria,’ the blue dragon – Muirgen – tells me in English.
I freeze. A dragon from Bulgaria? But those dragons don’t have anything to do with humans. Not since they wiped out Mama’s entire country in three days. I exchange a horrified glance with Owen.
‘We have been unable to communicate with him,’ Rhydderch says.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say slowly. ‘You’re dragons. You speak several languages … How can you not have a single one in common?’
‘Bulgarian dragons don’t—’
‘I know,’ I interrupt Owen. ‘Bulgarian dragons haven’t taught their young human languages since the Massacre of Bulgaria.’ I stare up at the Bolgorith. ‘But you were born before that,’ I say in Bulgarian. ‘You must speak Bulgarian, at least.’
The dragon’s lips pull into a grin.
‘The question is,’ he replies, ‘why do you?’
‘My mother is from Bulgaria,’ I say coldly. ‘Her family was murdered there.’
‘How unfortunate,’ he says. ‘I am Borislav.’
‘How can I help you, Borislav?’
I switch to Slavidraneishá, Chumana’s mother tongue.Now Bulgaria’s official language. Borislav lowers his head until it’s level with my face, unable to mask his surprise at me speaking a dragon language, too. His neck is the length of a motorcar, spiked along the top and the bottom.
‘It is unusual for a human to speak multiple tongues,’ he hisses. ‘Where did you learn?’
‘At school,’ I reply. ‘In books.’
‘Of course,’ he snarls. ‘You humans insist on recording our tongues in your inky scrawls.’
