“Oh!” said Alianora, and went off into gales of laughter again. Cimorene gave her a questioning look. “It’s the idea of Keredwel being—oh, my—being rescued by a secondhand knight,” Alianora gasped. “Oh, dear!”

Cimorene’s eyes began to dance. “I could take a good look at them first, to make sure they’re worthy of her before I sent them on,” she suggested.

This was too much for either of them, and they both collapsed in laughter. “You wouldn’t, really, would you?” Alianora said when she began to recover.

“Send the knights to rescue someone else? I certainly would,” Cimorene said emphatically. “I meant it when I said they were a nuisance. I wouldn’t want to upset Keredwel, though. I’ll have to think about the best way of handling it. It’s a good thing there probably won’t be any more of them for a few weeks. I should have plenty of time to figure something out.”

“How do you know that?” Alianora asked. Cim­orene explained about the sign and Therandil and her “sprained ankle.” Alianora was impressed and promised to help if she could. “I’ll tell Hallanna that you’ve twisted your ankle. I know she’ll tell the next knight who comes to rescue her, and then it won’t matter if your Prince Therandil doesn’t tell anybody.”

This settled, the two girls sat down and began looking through the books and scrolls Cimorene had piled on the table. Alianora, having been brought up as a proper princess despite the tiny size of her country, did not read Latin, so Cimorene had to examine those scrolls herself. There was a sizable stack of books left, however, and Alianora waded into them with a will. It was Cim­orene, however, who finally found the spell they were searching for.

“I think this is it!” she said, looking up from an ancient, crumpled scroll. “‘Being a Spell for the Resisting of Heat and Flames of All Kinds, in Particular Those Which Are the Product of Magical Beasts,’” she read. “Yes, there’s a list and it includes dragons.”

“I would think dragons would be at the top,” Alianora said. “Is it difficult?”

“It doesn’t look hard,” Cimorene said, studying the page. “Some of the ingredients are pretty rare, but it says you only need them for the initial casting. After that, you can reactivate the spell just by throwing a pinch of dried feverfew in the air and reciting a couplet.”

“That’s not bad,” Alianora said. She came around the table and peered over Cimorene’s shoulder at the faded ink. “Is it Latin?”

“No, it’s just an ornate style of writing,” Cimorene assured her. “It’s not hard to read, once you get the hang of it. See, there’s the couplet.

“Power of water, wind and earth,

Turn the fire back to its birth.”

“It’s a variation on a dragon spell,” Cimorene added thoughtfully.