The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World by Chris D'Lacey Read Free Book Online

my auma is flawed?”
    Aunt Gwyneth turned. Her eyes were glowing violet. “No, quite the opposite. There is a purity in you that I rarely observe in other applicants. As such, I am prepared to offer you an arrangement. You will have the daughter you desire, but first you will come away with me – for training.”
    “Training?” said Eliza. “Training? In

    what?”
    “In   this , of course,” Aunt Gwyneth said. She ran a hand down her body. “I have chosen you as an aspirant. You are to become an Aunt.”

    10

    In the librarium, time seemed non-existent. True, there were always days and nights. The windows darkened and lightenedagain. The daisies closed and the daisiesopened. A moon rose occasionally. A softrain fell. Co:pern:ica span around itsyawning fire star. But to David and Rosa,this changing scenery was just somethingthat occurred outside their frame of
    reference. All that mattered, to them, was
    books.
    Now that there were two putting thelibrarium in order, the building hummedwith the spirit of competition. And yet itrarely observed David and Rosa in thesame room for long. For each child had

    their own ideas of organisation, and what this generally translated to was a frantic crossing of paths, not a selfless joining of forces. Several times a day – nay,   dozens   of times a day – one child would sweep past the other, usually with books stacked up to their chins, en route to whichever shelf was occupying them. Their snippets of conversation would go something like this:
    “I’ve   done   forty-seven   ‘L’s   this
    morning.”
    “I bet you didn’t know there are twentyfour books about cushions.” (Thirty-eight, as it happened; David still had a way to go with that subject.)
    “My shelves are so tidy you’d faint   if you saw them.”
    “My archaeology collection is going to

fill   two rooms.”
    On top of this there were the reading exchanges. For when the pair of them were finally too exhausted to sort or stack, they would sit down as Mr Henry had suggested and actually   read   a text (usually with food in their hands, for their days had no timetable and there was no insistence on formal meals). Rosa was quicker at reading than David and could whip through as many as two hundred pages in a single afternoon. But what David lacked in speed he made up for in depth. He also liked to walk as he read, mainly because Mr Henry did it. Many a time David had poked his head into a room and seen the old man sailing through it with a book in his hand, spouting the words (sometimes he followed him, just for fun, though the

    building seemed to know it and would eventually steer him off course). Once in a while, the curator would call both children to his study and enquire of their progress. And it was usually David who gained the most credit when the darts of factual information were flying.
    This was Rosa, for instance: “In our history, there were these things called pi:anos that were, like, polished wooden boxes on legs. They had these parts called keys – which sort of looked like teeth – and when you hit the keys with your fingers they made a sound. People used to play them and make music come out of them, which is weird, but there you go.”
    “And what made you read about pi:anos?” asked Mr Henry.
    “I was doing some ‘S’s,” Rosa said. “I

    found a book written by this man called Steinerway.   I   thought   they   looked interesting.”
    “Excellent,” Mr Henry said. “You might also look out for Petrov, Graveau, Beckstein and Frazioli. All of them famous for making these instruments. And how about you, David? What have you been reading lately?”
    “I know about the music pi:anos made,” he answered.
    “Typical,”   said   Rosa,   sounding trumped. She flicked a piece of her sandwich at him.
    “I’ve been gathering books about composers,” said the boy.
    “What’s a