Read Online The Equen Queen by Alyssa Brugman - Free Book Online

do?’ Amelia asked.
    Tab sighed. ‘The council believes that when it hatches I'll be able to talk to it, or maybe meld with it to calm it down, but I'm not sure if I can. I only know one dragon, and she isn't like a cow, or a rat, she's …’ Tab trailed off. ‘I can't explain it, but it doesn't work that way.’
    ‘Nice friends you've got – throwing you in here as if you were a crook,’ Philmon observed.
    Tab said nothing. It was not so long ago that she was just a dung brigader. The only reason she was useful to the council was her powers. If she could subdue the hatchling, well and good. If not, she was disposable anyway.
    Better the dragon remain enclosed in a dungeon than out on the city streets causing havoc.
    ‘Maybe it will bond with you? Maybe it will think you are its mother?’ Philmon whispered.
    Amelia thumped her cousin's arm. ‘It's not a chicken, Philmon!’ She turned to Tab. ‘I could stay here with you,’ she offered.
    Tab smiled gratefully. ‘That's really nice of you, but there's no use us both getting scorched. Has anyone seen Fontagu, or Tattoo?’
    ‘Tattoo?’ Philmon asked, frowning.
    ‘The equen qu …’ Tab began, but then she remembered where she was, with all those sky-traders in the cells around her. ‘You know, the pony from the sky-traders,’ she murmured.
    ‘I've been down to see them,’ said Philmon. ‘They're cute aren't they? But the ostler told me they were called Trinket and Talisman. I don't know where you got Tattoo from.’
    Obviously neither of her friends knew about Tattoo. Tab was dying to tell them so that they could start the search, but the whole dungeon was silent, and she realised that all the other prisoners were eavesdropping.
    ‘I don't think we can talk here,’ she whispered.
    Her friends looked around at the other cells.
    ‘This is crazy,’ Amelia tutted. ‘We've got to get you out of here.’ She grabbed Philmon's sleeve. ‘Come on. We're going to find the keys.’
    Tab leaned against the bars in the corner and watched her friends disappear up the stairs. When they were gone she tried to think back over what they had discussed, and cursed herself for her rashness. Now the sky-traders knew everything she knew – well almost everything.
    Suddenly a hand grabbed Tab's and she squealed with fright. Someone in the next cell held her fingers tightly. The light was dim and Tab couldn't see a face.
    ‘I know something you don't know,’ a sing-song voice taunted.
    Tab jerked her hand away. ‘What makes you think I care what you know?’
    A face moved into a shaft of light and Tab recognised the sky-trader Chak. Vrod must have been just teasing when he said he was going to make a meal of the sky-trader. Tab didn't really understand troll humour.
    Chak's eyes darted about, took in the egg and then settled on Tab's face. ‘Got yourself a little problem there,’ she jeered.
    Tab's eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘You've discovered our equens. You want some more, yes? You don't have to steal them from us.’
    Tab waited, not wanting to reveal any more than she already had.
    ‘You and your little games committee have some sway with your council,’ Chak continued. ‘Make the council let me go and I will tell you where they come from. You can get as many as you like. They don't put up much of a fight.’
    ‘You're nothing but filthy slavers. If you tell me, I will go there, but not to steal them, to set them free,’ Tab replied with a scowl.
    Chak laughed and withdrew into the dark. ‘Suit yourself.’
    ‘Where?’ Tab demanded. She tried to rattle the bars between them but they were unyielding.
    ‘You think I'm going to tell you while I'm still in your stinking dungeon? Pfft!’ came Chak's voice from the gloom.
    Tab settled into the corner and waited for her friends. It would gall her to do it, but she probably could talk Verris into setting Chak free – once Tab proved that Tattoo existed in the first place.
    Where was the equen