Page 79 of Spark of Sorcery
As I swing my gaze around the room, I realize I’m the only commoner who has succeeded, which means Dray probably helped me out.
For once, I don’t care. This means no detention with Madame Bardin.
Which, as well as being really freaking satisfying, is also a massive relief, because I have what I expect is one truly hungry baby dragon waiting for me in my room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Briony
“I need to head back to my room for a bit before I grab some lunch,” I tell Fly as we walk away from Madame Bardin’s classroom.
“I’ll come with you. I need to fetch something from my room too,” Fly says.
“You don’t have to,” I say, probably a little too quickly, because he eyes me with suspicion.
“You’re acting really weirdly today,” he says, “well, you’re always weird, you’re just being even more weird.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It’s a compliment, Cupcake.” He shrugs. “I like weird. It makes things more interesting. I was just making an observation and pondering what could have caused this additional weirdness.”
“Probably just tiredness,” I half lie. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
When we reach the top of our tower, we find Thorne waiting outside my room.
“Didn’t sleep well, huh?” Fly mutters with a raised eyebrow.
I wait for him to disappear inside his room, muttering something about enjoying our lunch break. Then I turn to Thorne.
“I came to see how the little one is doing,” he says.
I press my finger urgently to my lips and peer towards Fly’s door. The outer walls in this tower may be formed from thick stone, but the inner ones are paper thin.
I signal to him to move to one side and open my door. As soon as I do something comes streaking towards me. I shriek and duck as it skims over my head, and soars up towards the ceiling.
“What the hell was that?” I mutter, peering up towards the rafters and the thatched roof.
“Shit,” Thorne says behind me as the door clicks shut.
“What?” I say, dragging my gaze from the shape up above and down to my room. “Oh!”
My room is once again trashed. The cage Thorne created is smashed. My bedding is all messed up. And most disturbing, the entrails of something that was once alive are strewn across the floor.
“Blaze!” I cry, rushing forward.
Did someone find out about him? Did someone–
“Briony!” Thorne barks, pointing upwards.
I lift my gaze to find something hurtling towards me from above. I screech again, lifting my hands to cover my head.
“Briony!” Thorne repeats. “It’s the dragon!”
I peek through my fingers to find Blaze hovering in the air in front of me, his little baby wings flapping like crazy. He gives me a toothless grin and zooms straight into my chest.
“Oofff,” I grunt, catching him in my arms. He snuggles up against me and licks at my neck. I stare up at Thorne in disbelief. “He could barely crawl first thing this morning,” I point out.
“Dragons must develop quickly.” He goes to inspect the damage to the cage. “It looks like he burned right through the wooden bars.” He turns to look at the dead thing on the floor, nudging it with the toe of his boot. “Rat.”
