Cimorene gave a sigh of relief and looked at Morwen. “So much for Woraug and the wizards,” she said. “We didn’t even need the fireproofing spell. What did you do?”

“And what happens now?” Alianora added.

“Duck,” said Morwen, and threw herself sideways into the bushes.

“Wha—” said the stone prince, and then he and Cim­orene and Alianora were engulfed by a blast of dragon fire.

The stone prince leaped in front of the two princesses, but he was much too late to protect them. Fortunately the fireproofing spell was still in effect, and neither of them even felt warm, though Alianora lost the ends of her sleeves and Cimorene’s hemline rose six scorched inches.

“I knew I shouldn’t have said that about the fireproofing spell,” Cimorene muttered.

With a wordless snarl and a thunder of wings, Woraug landed just in front of the little group.

“You!” he shouted when he saw Cimorene. “I might have known it would be you!” Flame shot from his mouth once more, but it was just as useless as it had been the first time.

Cimorene glanced up and saw one of the escort dragons spiraling down to see what was going on. “You might as well give up, Woraug,” she said, hoping to distract the angry dragon long enough for help to arrive. “You can’t be King of the Dragons now.”

“I’ll tear you limb from limb!” Woraug raged. “Every last one of you!” One arm shot out as he spoke, and shining silver claws snapped around the stone prince’s waist.

Alianora screamed.

“Hurry up!” Cimorene shouted at the dragon in the sky.

The dragon heard and dove toward them, but he was not fast enough. Woraug shoved the stone prince into his mouth and bit down hard. An instant later he howled in pain and spat out the prince and four teeth.

“What is all this?” said the escort dragon, landing carefully beside Woraug. The clearing was getting rather crowded.

“A plot to cheat on the test to see who the next King of the Dragons will be,” Cimorene said. “Woraug was in it, and a lot of wizards.”

“Are you all right?” Alianora asked the stone prince, who was just picking himself up. His stone was black in places from the dragon fire, but otherwise he seemed unhurt.

“More or less,” the stone prince said. “But just look what that fire did to my clothes! And that dragon’s put a chip in my sleeve. What am I supposed to do about that? It’s not as if I can just change clothes when I get home, you know.”

“That’s ridiculous!” the escort dragon told Cimorene. “No dragon would cooperate with wizards. I don’t see any wizards, either. I think you’re making it up.”

“Of course you don’t see any wizards,” Cimorene said, feeling very cross. “We melted them.”

“Melted them?”