Page 37 of The Teacup Dragon Sanctuary

‘I can’t help with magic, you know that,’ her sister protested.

‘That’s exactly why I need you right now. Look at this page. Make sure Art isn’t hiding anything from me.’

‘Hiding anything?’ Ophelia joined her, staring at the page. ‘Why would he⁠—?’

‘He did with the balm recipe. I don’t know why. Who knows why Uncle Art did anything? He’s like Seb that way. A whim maybe. Or a test. Or just to stop anyone from stealing his ideas. Iris said he never managed to make this work. I can’t afford to mess it up, can I? Read it out. Especially any margin notes.’

Ophelia obeyed, her voice careful and precise, but this time it appeared there was nothing out of place or missing, no extra additions. Or at least not until they reached the end. Ophelia brushed her fingers against the painting.

‘Our mother painted this,’ she murmured, and the sorrow infecting her voice made Portia shiver.

‘She was… she was really talented, wasn’t she?’

‘She didn’t have magic.’

‘You don’t need magic to be talented,’ Portia told her. ‘Her paintings… I could never do anything like that.’ Ophelia had inherited that talent, but all she saw was the lack of magic.

Her sister was frowning slightly.

‘I don’t see anything out of place. I’m sorry.’

Portia rubbed her finger against the bottom of the painting, above the section where Art had written the recipe. As she did so, something appeared, the words bleeding out of the paper.

‘What’s that?’ Portia asked. Art’s writing, she realised, scrawled in a hurry which made it even worse than usual. Another hidden message. She couldn’t make head nor tale of it.

Luckily Ophelia was there.

‘He wrote notes like this in the books in the library as well. He really was a menace.’

‘What does it say?’

Ophelia squinted at it. ‘It’s a poem, I think?

‘Throw all you have into your spell.

Only the strongest will succeed.

You heard the song, touched the thread,

now the time has come to lead.’

Portia let out a gasp. ‘How could he know that?’

‘Know what?’

‘That I touched the thread. I told you. Down in the cave. This message, it’s meant for me. Specifically, for me. Like he knew I’d be here to read it. That we’d… What is going on, Fi?’ She didn’t like the confusion and concern she could hear in her own voice. She didn’t like that a note in a book that must have been made years ago seemed to know what had happened to her in the cavern. And the instruction seemed directed right at her. She couldn’t deny that.

‘It’s Art’s book,’ Ophelia murmured. ‘We always knew that it was magic. Like the emporium. That’s why Seb doesn’t like letting the book out of his sight. He’s placing great trust in you. Perhaps it has a mind of its own as well.’

Perhaps? There didn’t seem to be any perhaps about it.

‘What’s the last bit?’

Ophelia peered closer. ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

Portia sighed. ‘Like the rest of it does? Tell me, Fi.’

‘Find a perfect moment.