We turn a corner into a wider passageway. I see the flames of a roaring fire flickering in a chamber further along. Tapestries stitched with blue and emerald-green thread cover the walls, depicting wyverns flying across the sea, wyverns hunting in forests, wyverns lighting fires beneath white, oval eggs. As we walk, we peer into chambers with high ceilings, carpeted with thickly woven rugs. Each has a fire in its centre, the smoke exiting through a small hole in the ceiling, the same one that lets the light in. In one of the chambers, I see a wyvern standing as still as a statue, its white wings folded peacefully on its back as it reads a human-size book by the fire, moving only to turn the pages with a long talon. In another, several wyverns are crowded around what seems to be a metal sculpture of a human boy. To see such gentle domesticity in these feral, screeching creatures is strange, almost unsettling.
Abelio and Cindra say nothing as they lead us further into the maze of tunnels, maintaining their silence even as other curious inhabitants peer out to look at us with blue, glassy eyes.At the entrance to another tunnel to my left, two wyvernlings the size of human toddlers chase after a frog, taking turns to attempt to scald it with small puffs of flame. I stumble, tripping over Cindra’s tail as she halts without warning.
‘Your living quarters,’ she says, gesturing into a large cave with her longest talon.
A small fire is burning in the centre hearth.
There are no tapestries or rugs, but I see several alcoves in the walls containing tweed blankets and books. A small stream trickles around the edge of the room, pooling into a stagnant puddle in the corner.
‘You will wait here until somebody arrives to collect you for the Twilight Meal.’
I nod to show her I’ve understood – at least I think I have – and she backs out of the cave. Abelio gives us a last glare before following her down the passageway.
I turn around to face the others. ‘They want us to dine with them tonight.’
Serena’s hair has doubled in size with the humidity and Gideon’s face is a furious red.
‘Well, shit,’ Marquis says, picking up a book from an alcove before flinging it down again. ‘Are they even dragons?’
‘Of course they’re dragons,’ I say. ‘Have you never seen a dragon read before?’
‘Have I ever seen a dragon readGulliver’s Travels, you mean?’ Marquis says, glancing at the discarded book. ‘I can’t say I have.’
Gideon slurps loudly from the stream, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Why all the tweed? The rugs, the tapestries, the blankets . . .’
‘So they like tweed,’ I say impatiently. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s all a bit tame, isn’t it?’ Serena says, wrapping a tweed blanket around her shoulders. ‘They’re hardly a match for a Bulgarian dragon.’
My heart sinks, perhaps because a small part of me has been thinking the same thing. ‘There’s nothing tame about their talons,’ I argue, as much with myself as with Serena. I give them all a steely look. ‘Chumana told me not to underestimate the Hebridean Wyverns. If we do, we’ll never win their trust, and they’ll never help us.’
‘Make the wyverns who almost ate us, like us,’ Serena jeers. ‘Easy.’
‘I admit that might be hard for you, Serena, seeing how unlikeable you really are,’ I snap.
‘Let’s find out what we can about them at this Twilight Meal, then reconvene afterwards to decide what it is we can offer them,’ Atlas says. He looks around at the others. ‘This is the mission you’ve been given by the Coalition. Did you think it was going to be easy?’
We pull out more tweed blankets to rest on, my legs aching from the many miles of hill-climbing. I wrap one around me despite the heat and think about my own mission: to speak enough Cannair to make these wyverns trust me, and to understand what it is about them that can help us. A while later, another wyvern enters the cave. He’s smaller than Abelio and Cindra, with white rings around his huge eyes. He bows to us in the archway, our clothes clutched in his talons.
‘It is an honour to host you, friends of the great Clawtail,’he says in English. ‘I am utterly delighted that you have invokedfasgadh.’
‘You speak our language?’ Marquis says.
‘Indeed. Only a rare few of us do, although some wyverns have begun learning the human tongue Gaelic. My name is Aodahn – bringer of fire. I have come to escort you to the Twilight Meal.’
I stand up as he sets our clothes down. The wyverns have been outside to collect them, but he hasn’t brought the journal or the loquisonus.
‘Where did you learn it?’ I ask him as I pull on my shirt. ‘I thought the Hebridean Wyverns hadn’t seen any humans in years.’
‘Patrick,’ Aodahn says. ‘And human books. They are the reason many of us are applying ourselves to learning –’ he lowers his voice – ‘human tongues. We like to wander the paths of human literature.’
He beckons us out into the passageway and walks at a leisurely pace, the tip of his wing unfurling to point into more chambers.
‘I call this cave here King’s Cross,’ Aodahn says.
‘Come again?’ says Marquis.
‘King’s Cross,’ the wyvern repeats. ‘It is where we design our travel routes, with several new tunnels built each year. I believe it is a place in London, is it not?’
