Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day (Starfell #1) - Dominique Valente Page 0,44

and Essential shared a look. Troll Country?

Raine’s eyes grew dark, her brow furrowed. ‘I will not support this madness any longer. I’m taking you home right now …’

Essential leant towards Willow and whispered, ‘The potions, use the potions.’

Then she raised her hands to freeze Willow’s family. Willow opened the bag, took the bottles labelled ‘Wait’ and ‘Forget’, and threw them at the ground by her mother and sisters’ frozen feet.

From outside came a loud crash that blew a cloud of dust into the caravan, making them stagger. Willow could hear bloodcurdling screams and what sounded like a stampede from people running helter-skelter through the market.

‘What is that?’ she asked.

Sometimes peered outside, then grinned. ‘Feathering.’

Willow followed, seeing that the giant blue dragon was indeed roaming the grass just outside the string of tents, where he was peering inside and calling their names.

‘Sorry to disturb … Don’t wish to make a fuss. I’m just looking for my friends. You see, they’ve taken a bit of a long time and we really do need to press on … No need to scream. I am a cloud dragon, you know …’

‘Feathering, we’re here!’ shouted Willow. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

Willow turned back to look at her family, who were oddly calm, due to the potions that had made them wait and forget. She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry – um, please wait until we’ve left on the dragon, and then forget that I was ever here – or that you saw any of us tonight,’ she said. She felt a deep pang of regret seeing them all frozen like that – especially her mother, whose green eyes seemed to be boring into her own – but she couldn’t go back home, not now they were so close to finding Moreg. And Moreg was relying on Willow; she couldn’t let her down.

‘Maybe I should have waited for you in the valley,’ said Feathering, giving her a repentant look as a terrified couple ran past screaming blue murder.

Willow grinned. ‘Your timing was excellent,’ she said. ‘We’ve just found out where Moreg’s house is – it’s in Troll Country.’

‘Troll Country?’ said Feathering, looking taken aback. ‘Oh no.’

‘What?’

‘Well, they smell awful.’

Nolin Sometimes climbed aboard the dragon. ‘They’re also rather deadly with a club,’ he said.

‘Well, hopefully we can just get in and out as quickly as possible,’ said Willow, climbing on after Sometimes and clutching her carpetbag containing Oswin.

‘Come on,’ said Willow to Essential, who was staring up at the dragon with enormous magnified eyes. Willow could see her swallow. ‘Oh yes, sorry, you haven’t yet met. This is Feathering,’ Willow told Essential. ‘Feathering, this is Essential Jones – she helped us escape.’

Essential stood frozen, her mouth open slightly as she took in Feathering’s enormous size. There was a blub-blub sound from her lips.

‘Come on, he won’t bite,’ said Willow, holding out a hand and helping Essential climb on to the dragon’s sleek feathery back.

‘Not something your size anyway,’ agreed the dragon, taking a running leap and then launching off into the air, ‘More of a gulp really.’

Essential gasped.

Willow shook her head. ‘Now, Feathering, it’s comments like that that make humans afraid of dragons.’

There was the sound of tinkly wind-chime chuckling as he beat his wings and took off into the starry sky.

At that very moment, in a dungeon beneath a fortress, a boy laughed as he threatened to kill the witch who stood before him. The potion in his hands was swirling as black as night, as black as death.

‘It’s just you and me now – no one else to interfere. You aren’t so powerful now you’re alone.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she whispered.

‘How’s that?’ said the boy. He flung the potion at her, and it erupted into a spray of dark, swirling fog – a fog that she couldn’t escape even though she tried.

She gasped, struggling for breath. ‘She will come.’

‘Who – that child that was with you? You think that somehow she will save you – from this?’

Moreg closed her eyes as the smoky vapour entered her veins, and the boy’s triumphant grin faltered as death didn’t come. Not for her. He should have known that she would fight, that she would be able to cling on to life long after anyone else would have given up.

16

Calamity Troll

Troll Country lay in a somewhat dented and bruised corner of Starfell few dared visit. Not surprising when its inhabitants saw carrying a weapon studded with nails and spikes as part of their national identity. It certainly wasn’t your top choice for a holiday