“I’m sure you’re right,” Antorell said. He looked as if he would have liked to object, but couldn’t think of anything to object to. “Perhaps I could help you?” he said reluctantly.

“Oh, we wouldn’t dream of keeping you,” Cimorene said.

Antorell was clearly reluctant to leave the two girls in the valley, but Cimorene did not give him much choice. After another minute or so of conversation, the wizard was forced to go. He did not use a vanishing spell but trudged away on foot. Cimorene watched him until he was out of sight among the bushes, wondering whether he had some special reason not to use spells in the valley or whether he simply didn’t know the right spells to make himself vanish.

“That’s a relief!” Alianora said. “Why did you insist on staying when it was so obvious that he wanted us to leave? I was afraid he was going to turn us into toads or something.”

“I wanted to see what he was up to,” Cimorene said. “And I don’t think Antorell is a very good wizard. He probably couldn’t manage anything worse than a squirrel.”

Alianora did not appear to find this very reassuring. Cimorene checked to make sure Antorell was out of sight, then went over to the place where he had been standing when she peered around the bush. At first she did not notice anything unusual. Then she saw a purplish plant oozing sap from the places where several of its spiky, saw-toothed leaves had been broken off.

“Look at this.”

“What is it?” Alianora asked.

“I don’t know,” Cimorene said absently. “I saw a couple of other plants like this while we were picking feverfew, but I thought they were just weeds.”

“Maybe it is a weed.”

“A wizard wouldn’t sneak into the dragons’ section of the Mountains of Morning just to pick weeds. They don’t even use herbs to cast spells, so what does Antorell want with this prickly looking thing?”

Alianora shrugged. “Maybe he needs it for something he can’t do with magic.”

“I wonder what that would be?” Cimorene reached out and carefully broke off a spray of leaves. She wrapped them in her handkerchief and put the packet in her pocket. “Let’s see if we can find out whether he picked anything else.”

Antorell had left a dark trail of bent and broken plants to mark the way he had come, so his path was easy to follow. Cimorene and Alianora searched carefully along it for some way, looking for signs that the wizard had picked other herbs, but neither of them saw any.

“I don’t think there’s anything to find,” Alianora said, pushing her apricot-colored hair out of her face. “And it’s getting awfully warm.”

“Have you noticed that there aren’t any of those purple plants along here?” Cimorene said. “I’ll bet that was all he wanted.”