Spit Fyre had done it! The Dragon House had disappeared as though it had never existed. Once again it was Sealed behind the Castle wall as it had been ever since the time of Hotep-Ra.
Jenna threw her arms around the dragon's neck. It was hot, almost too hot to touch, but she did not care. “Thank you, Spit Fyre, thank you. I will never, ever complain about cutting your toenails again. I promise.” Spit Fyre snorted, coughed out more superheated gas, and another great plume of Fyre sent the RatStranglers diving for cover. It also set fire to a pile of paddleboats that Rupert Cringe had brought in for repair.
Jenna and Spit Fyre flew back to the collapsed trawler. Jenna guided Spit Fyre down beside the smashed-up remains of the boat, and keeping his wings outstretched for a quick takeoff, the dragon waited for Wolf Boy to take his place behind Jenna.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” came a familiar voice beside Jenna's left foot, “could you budge up a bit? Then Dawnie and I can squeeze in behind you.”
Jenna knew that voice. It always seemed to turn up when she least expected it. She looked down and there, as she had guessed, was Stanley—ex-Message Rat, one-time Secret Rat. Current position: fugitive from the RatStranglers.
“Come on then, Stanley, quickly, before the RatStranglers see you.” Jenna leaned down to help Stanley up.
“I'm not getting back on that—that thing,” said the small fat rat who was with Stanley.
“But, Dawnie dear, it's our only hope.”
Suddenly the clamor of the RatStranglers changed.
“She's over there,” said the shrill voice of the spiky woman. “ She did this. She should answer for it. Now. ”
“Now, now, now!” the chant began. “Now, now, now! ”
“They're coming this way,” said Wolf Boy. “Quick, Jenna. Leave the rats if they don't want to come. We've gotta go.”
Jenna reached down to grab Stanley's paw.
“Don't leave me, Stanley!” wailed Dawnie. She launched into a superb tackle and brought Stanley down by the ankles.
“Dawnie, let go! ”
Jenna hauled up the two squabbling rats, one in each hand, and placed them firmly between two large spines behind her, one behind the other. A moment later Spit Fyre was airborne, followed by a hail of trash can lids and a nasty-looking plank with nails stuck in it.
Two hundred feet above the Castle, the squabbling continued. “I hope you realize you nearly had us both killed, Stanley.”
“Me? I nearly had us both killed? That's rich, that is, coming from you. If you'd had your way, Dawnie, which may I say you usually do, we'd have both been strangled by now and hung up on the tally board.”
“Sometimes you say the crudest things, Stanley. My mother was right.”
“There's no need to bring your mother into it, Dawnie. No need at all.”
“Well, it's nice to see that you got back together,” said Jenna cheerily, trying to change the subject.
Both rats were unusually silent.
Taking advantage of the silence, Jenna passed the Navigator's tin back to Wolf Boy.
“Can you fish out the green piece of, er ... stuff?” she asked. “It's got Seek written on it. That's the one I need to get Spit Fyre to find Sep.”
“ Seek?” asked Wolf Boy in a panic. “What does Seek look like?”
“S-E-E-K,” Jenna spelled out, shouting above the whoosh of the dragon's wings.
“Big black letters. Can't miss it.”
“I can,” Wolf Boy muttered to himself. “What's the ... S thing look like?” he yelled back.
“Like a snake! S for snake, see?”
Jenna was guiding Spit Fyre so that the dragon kept following the Castle walls. She had decided to take him around in circles until she could do the Seek properly. It was also an excuse to look at the Castle, which, spread out far below like a map with ants moving slowly across it, fascinated her. It reminded her of a much-treasured map that Simon had given her one MidWinter Feast Day. It had shown every rooftop, tree, roof garden, alleyway and secret hideaway in the Castle. In fact, as Spit Fyre flew leisurely toward the old Message Rat headquarters, the East Gate Lookout Tower, Jenna wondered if the mapmaker had not had his own dragon, so like the map was the vista spread below her.