Dragon's Green. Scarlett Thomas

anything,’ she said, talking them off. ‘I thought you said that they were magic, that they gave you some kind of special power or something . . .’

      ‘They do,’ said Maximilian. ‘But like I said before, you have to have the right ability – the innate potentiality – for them to work. Give them to me.’

      Effie hesitated, then passed them over.

      Maximilian put them on. Yes, there was the world, but clearer than ever before. He could see that Effie’s energy level was almost half-full now, which was good. There were other stats that he didn’t quite understand. He’d have to do a lot more research. He would never have told anyone this, but he was secretly pleased that Effie couldn’t see anything through the glasses. He was also pleased that he could see things through them; it meant that he really was a true scholar.

      Maximilian had often read about everyone having some innate magical ability, left over from a time when the world was a lot more magical, and he’d always hoped he’d find out he was a scholar, rather than a warrior or a mage or a healer. He felt special, probably for the first time in his life. Not only that; Effie needed him. She needed him to say what he saw through the glasses.

      ‘Well?’ she said now.

      ‘It’s the same as before. Your energy is looking a lot better, but you should get something to eat soon. Um . . . Right, well, these rooms are even more interesting with these on. I can see which books used to be shelved here – which will be useful when we have to try to get them back. And, well, I don’t know where to begin.’

      ‘Can you see if there’s anything hidden?’

      ‘Hang on.’ Maximilian took off the glasses and gave them a polish with the little cloth from inside the case. ‘That’s better. You got fingerprints all over them when you touched them. Right. Let’s see. There’s nothing hidden behind the shelves or under the shelves or in the ceiling cavity or . . . But, aha. I see. Over there, under the table, there’s a loose floorboard. I think there might be something underneath it.’

      Effie got down on her knees and started pulling up the floorboard. And yes, there was something there. A brown package in the shape of a book. Was she going to get her one book after all? The package felt both soft and hard in her hands. She stood up, not bothering to brush the dust off her knees.

      ‘You’d better unwrap it,’ said Maximilian.

      Again, Effie felt that she’d rather be alone. But she wouldn’t have found the book at all if it hadn’t been for Maximilian, so she started unwrapping it while he watched. There was a layer of bubble wrap, then brown paper, then another layer of bubble wrap, then another layer of brown paper, and then a layer of cloth, and then a layer of silk. It was a bit like a solitary game of pass the parcel.

      Effie unwrapped the last layer very carefully. And there it was. A pale green hardback, with gold lettering on it. Its title was Dragon’s Green. It was about three hundred pages long and looked very old and very new at the same time, like an antique book that no one has ever read. The cover was in perfect condition and the pages were still crisp and white. Effie opened the book and saw that there was an inscription inside, in her grandfather’s handwriting, in his usual blue ink.

       To Euphemia Sixten Truelove, the last reader of this book.

      Something about the inscription made Effie tingle with fear and excitement. So her grandfather had meant her to have this book in particular. Of course he had – he’d told her to find Dragon’s Green, after all. But how would he know she was to be its last reader? And what did that even mean? And why hadn’t he made it a bit easier to find? Why hadn’t he told her where it was? It was surely only luck that she happened to have been in detention with someone who could use the spectacles. This wasn’t even a Magical Thinking problem – it was just completely random.

      Suddenly there was a noise from downstairs. A scratching, metallic sound, which went on for a few seconds, and was then followed by some drilling. Clearly someone had come to change the locks. Effie and Maximilian crept down the stairs until they could hear what was going on.

      ‘Yes, mate,’ she could hear someone saying, in a familiar, gruff voice. ‘House clearance tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock, mate. Locks today, clearance tomorrow.’ It was the charity man again.