A Dragon's Guide to Making Perfect Wishes Read online

  About a hundred years later, fans of that incredible event had created a club, the Fellowship of the Jewel City, and were traveling through time to a special day there.

  For the trip, the members would all wear clothing suitable to that era, and Clipper had had just the outfits for us at her traveling emporium.

  When I joined Winnie on the porch, I checked my own ensemble. I was wearing a stylish green wool jacket, V-neck silk blouse, and pleated skirt, short enough to show off my dainty ankles. I had finished my outfit with a matching green hat set at a jaunty tilt. My long red hair was fashioned into a smooth bun on my head, the latest chignon style.

  It was a shame that Winnie’s mother, Liza, couldn’t be here. We were becoming more comfortable with one another, so I knew she liked dressing up for Halloween. She would have enjoyed seeing Winnie in her costume and wearing one herself.

  But Liza was on a trail ride, organized by her employer, Rhiannon. A group of horseback riders followed the route of a cattle drive from long ago—though without the cows. Liza would be gone about a week and was without a cell phone just like all the other riders. So I was in loco parentis.

  Winnie’s hand hesitated before pressing the doorbell. “Can we go in now?” she asked.

  I took a breath and then exhaled slowly. “Let’s enjoy the calm before the storm just a moment longer.”

  Winnie looked behind us toward the street. “Storm? What storm?”

  “A storm of very hot air signifying nothing,” I said, and nodded for Winnie to ring the doorbell. “Though the Fellowship was organized by lovers of the Exposition, they’ve developed an obsession with a carved pendant of a golden mongoose. It clutched to its chest the fabled ruby, the Heart of Kubera. Legend says it was created by a great sorcerer and sometimes grants its owner incredible riches like the way Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth, does. Though its last owner, Lady Gravelston, was already so wealthy, she didn’t need magic to make her very, very rich.

  Winnie was curious as most people were when they first heard about it. “Where is it now? Maybe we can fly there to see it on our next adventure.”

  “No one knows where it is,” I said while we waited. “It disappeared in front of hundreds of people during a ball that was held at the Exposition for Lady Gravelston.”

  I heard heavy footsteps, and then a Viking warrior in evening wear opened the door. His blond pigtails hung down all the way to the tails of his dress coat. Like other trolls I knew, when he disguised himself as a natural, Willamar chose the handsomest one he could find. A gathering of disguised trolls was like a beauty contest.

  Willamar leaned over to peer at my disguise. “We’re missing one very important partygoer. Would you be…”

  “Yes, I’m Miss Drake,” I said.

  Willamar engulfed my hand in both of his and bowed several times as he drew me inside. “Thank you for finally honoring the Fellowship of the Jewel City with your presence.”

  “And who’s this?” Willamar drew his eyebrows together and then brightened. “Oh, you must be the great-niece of—”

  I cut him off before he could blurt the word Fluffy, the nickname that I’d given Winnie’s great-aunt. “Yes—Amelia. Willamar, let me introduce you to Winifred Burton.”

  Willamar nodded to Winnie. “Your great-aunt was such a charming and compassionate lady. We all miss her.”

  “Thank you,” she said. I was glad to see she was on her best behavior tonight.

  As Willamar led us down the hallway, I felt I was already journeying through time. The wallpaper could have been from any mansion of the day. Inside the ornate sconces, the electric lightbulbs had the shape of gas-jet flames. Most houses of the period were still using gas to light their interiors. Only the very wealthy would have electrified their homes.

  The large parlor had double sliding doors, and the chandelier above us had additional fake gaslights pouring light down on the costumed crowd.

  “Everybody’s a natural?” Winnie asked, looking around.

  “No, the High Council insisted on a number of conditions for this trip,” Willamar explained. “All magicals must wear human shapes just in case something goes wrong.”

  “Oh, like when my magical friends are outside of Spriggs,” Winnie said.

  Also like Spriggs, the Fellowship was a microcosm of the magical community itself, with members from most of the magical clans. Even with my dull human snout, I caught a whiff of zombie, centaur, sylph, and a dozen others as they crowded around. It was a measure of how popular the Exposition had been with magicals as well as naturals.

  Even so, I couldn’t help marveling. “Time travel always makes the High Council nervous. It’s a miracle they ever agreed.”

  “I thank the mystique that has grown about the Heart of Kubera,” Willamar said. “Several councilors who belong to the Fellowship are as curious as I about what happened to the gem.”

  He waved to a mousy woman I did not recognize. Her white blouse was plain, and so was her brown skirt and heavy coat. Her black hat was unadorned and a bit frumpy

  From ten yards away, I thought she was in her fifties, but as I got closer, I saw the tightness in the skin of her face, contrasting with her deeply veined and wrinkled hands. Hands rarely lie.

  I upped my estimate of her age to seventy-five or perhaps eighty. She was a natural who used a plastic surgeon rather than the nuisance of magical potions every day to keep her looking young.

  “Lorelei, here’s someone I know you’ll want to meet.” Willamar turned to us. “Lorelei was the driving force behind this evening’s trip.”

  She flattered me by placing a palm beneath her throat as if feeling faint. “Not the Miss Drake,” she gushed. “I am such an admirer of yours.”

  “I’m pleased to meet—” I began when a parasol shoved Lorelei to the side.

  “Do not monopolize our gues’ of honor, my dear,” said a woman with a thick accent as she slipped into the space her parasol had produced. She was wearing a rose outfit, complete with matching floral hat and parasol, but I’ve never encountered a magical spell that could completely disguise a werewolf because even the strongest spells can’t mask their musky scent. “Miss Drake, were you at t’e Hall when t’e t’ief took t’e Heart of Kubera?”

  “Lady Luminita,” I said, dipping my head slightly. “My friend Caleb and I had seen it earlier, and on that night he was more interested in buying souvenirs.”

  “Well, who do you think—?” Lorelei began to ask.

  Raising her voice, Silana Voisin spoke over Lorelei. “What a pity you weren’t there, Miss Drake. You might have recognized the thief because only a magical would have the skills and knowledge to steal the Heart of Kubera.”

  She was wearing a long black traveling dress with plum lace and a veiled hat that was the height of fashion…in 1914. Unfortunately, we were traveling to 1915, where people in the know would recognize her outfit as so last year. But then Silana always shot short of the mark just like she always came in second-best at the Magic contest during the Enchanters’ Fair.

  I thought Silana had been rude to Lorelei, especially after she had helped arrange this trip. So I was going to ask Lorelei to finish her thought, but she had hunched her shoulders and bent her head meekly as if she was used to fading into the background, the perpetual wallflower. I felt rather sorry for her.

  “No, no,” Willamar insisted, “the High Council investigated the theft and exonerated all the magicals at the ball. It has to be Senator Bradley, her dance partner.”

  Willamar, Silana, and Lady Luminita each defended their candidate for the thief. Poor Lorelei stood to the side, waiting to express her opinion but never getting a chance.

  “Come,” I whispered to Winnie. “They’ve forgotten all about us.” I guided her through the clumps of other club members, all of whom were arguing about who the thief might be, like dogs chewing on the same bone.

  Winnie pressed herself against me, shouting to make herself heard over the loud debate. “I see what you mea
n about the storm.”

  Finally, we retreated to a quiet corner where Sir Isaac Newton had also taken refuge.

  “Thank you for gracing our little soiree, Miss Drake.” Ever the gentleman, Sir Isaac doffed his red peaked cap to me and then to Winnie. “And the ever-inquisitive Burton.”

  He was Winnie’s immortal science teacher at the Spriggs Academy, and for this occasion, he’d given up his usual coat and knee breeches for blue trousers with a broad yellow stripe, and a scarlet jacket with enough braid to outfit a troop of hussars. Instead of boots, though, he wore an unmilitary pair of shoes with gold buckles and thick high heels.

  But shoes like his had once been all the rage toward the end of Charles II’s reign, when the male courtiers had to race in the audience hall, and bets were made on who would be the first of the tottering competitors to fall.

  So I wouldn’t have chosen Sir Isaac’s shoes as the sensible walking pair suggested by Willamar’s invitation. But when you have lived three centuries, I suppose you can master anything, even what was actually a pair of short stilts.

  “Behold, Burton.” Sir Isaac’s eyes glittered with excitement as he opened one of the two lids of a small wicker basket. Inside was a squarish camera. “I intend to record every moment of the ball for examination in slow motion.”

  I shut the lid quickly before any of the Council members here could see it. “You’ll get in trouble if you bring that into the past,” I whispered in warning.

  “Worry not. No mortal of the time will know. I have permission to solve a century-old mystery.” Sir Isaac patted the basket affectionately.

  “But you have that little machine that lets you open holes into another time,” Winnie said. “Couldn’t you have used that?”

  “I’ve tried, Burton, but could never see the thief,” Sir Isaac said. “So I’ve come to the conclusion that I must be there in person.”

  “How nice to see you, Miss Drake,” Lady Louhi said. She was a witch who taught students about the culture and history of magicals at the Spriggs Academy. “And how lovely you look, Winnie. Oh, dear, but such a sour face. Is your stomach bothering you? I’m sure I have some peppermints.” She searched her handbag, while her belongings clinked and rattled inside.

  “Thank you, but there’s no need,” I said. “It’s wearing 1915 fashion rather than a bad shrimp that’s bothering Winnie.” I added, “I didn’t know you and Sir Isaac were members of the Fellowship.”

  “No, but we love solving puzzles, so Willamar invited us.” Lady Louhi touched her large handbag. “Sir Isaac and I have a wager on whether his science or my magic will solve the theft.”

  Next to her was a boy who looked older than Winnie. He was wearing a knee-length tan leather coat with matching aviator’s cap and a pair of goggles dangling around his neck. He stood so straight, I would have said he was a soldier, and his spindly arms ended in fingers that twisted like the roots of a banyan tree. So I assumed he was some sort of dryad like Paradise, our gardener—and yet his face seemed vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t quite place him.

  The boy was looking around the room, his sky-blue eyes darting, as if putting a price tag on everything and everyone.

  “Winnie, Miss Drake, this is my nephew, Rowan,” said Lady Louhi. “He goes to Powell Prep.”

  “Hi,” Winnie said. “I go to the Spriggs Academy. We’re your sister school.”

  He glanced at her as if she were an annoying fly buzzing around his head. “Since Powell is older, richer, and more famous, Spriggs is more like our poor cousin than a little sister.”

  Since Lady Louhi taught at Spriggs, I waited for her to put the brat in his place, but she simply gripped her nephew’s shoulder. “Rowan, remember what I said about manners?”

  Rowan, though, leaned his head to the side as he studied me curiously. “I heard you’re one of those fire-breathing dragons. Or is that just gossip?”

  “If you’ll stand in front of something inexpensive,” I suggested with a tight smile, “I’ll be happy to demonstrate.”

  Rowan glanced around. “Everything looks way too overpriced here.”

  “How unfortunate,” I observed.

  Hastily, Lady Louhi began to shove him away. “Have I shown you the Novagems?”

  “Yes,” Rowan said.

  “Then I’ll show them to you again,” she insisted.

  When aunt and nephew disappeared among the club members, Winnie muttered, “I heard the boys from Powell were spoiled. Now I know it.”

  “What do you think?” I asked her. “Would carbonizing him spoil everyone’s evening or improve it?”

  “They’d choose charcoal,” Winnie growled. “Definitely charcoal.”

  Bless Winnie’s savage little heart. I could always depend on her to make the right choice.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Past tense and future tense are not just parts of speech. Traveling through time is always tense.

  MISS DRAKE

  Lady Louhi wisely kept her nephew at a distance from us, so he avoided being turned into charcoal briquettes. Instead, Winnie and I enjoyed Willamar’s buffet table and admired his chandelier.

  Winnie stood right under it as she craned her neck to look up high. “I’ve never seen one decorated with gems.”

  I gazed at several hundred multicolored circles of glass sparkling above us. “Those are the jewels from the Jewel City, Winnie,” I told her with a smile. “They were called the Novagems. At the center of the fair was a building that rose to a tall tower—the Tower of Jewels—and more than a hundred thousand faceted glass gems swung in the breeze, sparkling in the day and gleaming at night under special lights. Willamar must have hunted these down and had this chandelier made to showcase them. Just splendid.”

  “I love your costume,” Winnie said to a young woman wearing a striking headdress and carrying a tray of Scottish biscuits called scones and tiny cakes shaped like roses. I remembered they were a favorite treat at the fair.

  “Thank you,” said the girl. “I am supposed to be…like her.” She pointed across the room to one of Willamar’s treasures. The sculpture was ten feet tall. A tall, lovely maiden in a flowing sheer outfit raised her arms to circle her head. A large pointed star framed her face. From each tip dangled a small Novagem.

  “Oh, I like her,” said Winnie. “She looks like a rock star.”

  “She’s a star maiden,” I told her, “not a rock star…and she came first. There were nearly a hundred maidens, but they must be rarer than rare now. We’ll see the lovely ladies later near the Tower of Jewels.”

  “Cool,” Winnie said, looking more like her happy, curious self as she peered at framed newspaper articles on the wall. The theft of the Heart of Kubera had made headlines around the world, so there were front-page articles from London, Paris, Cairo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, as well as New York.

  Winnie studied the pictures of the pendant of the golden mongoose with the ruby in its chest. “The photos are only black and white.”

  “There weren’t color photos yet unless someone tinted them by hand,” I explained.

  Winnie straightened up when she finished examining a photograph. “Even in black and white, it’s still quite a rock.”

  “Once again, your gift for understatement underwhelms me.” I sighed.

  A moment later, Willamar called loudly for attention. “We’ve spent many meetings debating who stole the Heart of Kubera and how it was done, but tonight we finally put the question to rest.” He signed to a servant who unfolded a tall, five-paneled Chinese lacquered screen. Others carried various magical apparatus behind it.

  When the servants were done, they formed a wall on either side of the screen, each holding a long pole with a bright red flag and carrying a bulging pack strapped to their shoulders.

  “My apologies to my thaumaturgical colleagues,” Lady Louhi explained to the rest of the crowd, “but the High Council has insisted that no one see the enchantment.” And she stepped behind the screen.

  “And while
Lady Louhi is preparing the spell, Miss Lorelei will entertain us with songs from the Exposition.” With a bow, Willamar stepped aside, and Miss Lorelei took his place.

  Her outfit looked drab compared to everyone else’s, but for once it was this wallflower’s chance to shine. Clasping her hands in front of her stomach, she began to sing in a pleasant soprano.

  The music carried me back to the heady days while we worked to make the Exposition happen—from the wealthy folk like Winnie’s great-great-grandfather, Sebastian, to the laborers who built the beautiful city within a city. But that was nothing compared to the campaign to get people to visit the incredible place we had created. Every San Franciscan—from children like Caleb to gray-haired grannies—wrote postcards to family and friends around the world, inviting them here. And come they did, arriving by ship and railroad, by buggy and on foot.

  I and other San Franciscans had felt like the hosts of a giant yearlong party for the rest of America and many other countries. While World War I raged in Europe and the Near East, San Francisco had seemed like the one patch of sanity in a world gone insane. People were meant to enjoy life and one another instead of killing strangers by the thousands.

  But even while I was tapping my foot in time to the music, I saw Winnie yawn. Though I was familiar with the music from that era, it was too strange and slow for her.

  “Stop that,” I hissed softly.

  “I can’t help it,” Winnie said. “It’s so warm in here, and I ate too much.” Her jaw stretched in a bone-cracking yawn. I was going to tell her to stop distending her mouth like an anaconda, but her head was already drooping against me. She must really have been tired, so I put an arm around her instead. “Do you want to go home?”

  Her head shot up. “No, no, after putting up with all this, I want to see the Exposition.”