Read Moon Rising for Free Online Page A

She could hear the back of his mind ticking through all the things he still needed to do to get the library completely ready.
    But he smiled in the direction of her voice. “Here’s your library stamp,” he said, sliding something out from under the desk. “I thought you might come by today.”
    “Library stamp?” Moon echoed curiously, taking it from him. It was a small rectangle of wood, as long as two claws, with her name carved backward in raised letters on one side.
    “We’re testing out a system,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He brushed his talons over a row of scrolls lined up under the desk. Moon spotted a name carved at the wooden end of each one, arranged alphabetically. Starflight touched them lightly until he felt hers, which he pulled out and partially unrolled. The scroll was completely blank.
    “When you want to borrow a scroll,” he said, “you bring it up to me here. Each one has a unique carved stamp on the end, like these do. I’ll stamp your name scroll with that end to show that you checked it out, and then when you bring it back, we stamp your card over the first image to show that it’s been returned. Does that make sense?”
    “I think so,” Moon said. She turned the stamp over in her claws. She’d never had anything that was really her own before.
    “Can she have a pouch to keep it in?” Kinkajou asked.
    “Of course.” Starflight fumbled under the desk again for a few minutes, then pulled out a soft black leather pouch on a silver chain. Moon slipped the stamp inside the pouch and put the chain over her neck. It felt like her very first treasure.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “Let me know if I can help you find anything,” he said. She heard a flurry of worried what-if s start up in his mind, circling a well-worn track of anxiety about how to be a blind librarian. She also heard him firmly beat those worries back. He smiled in her direction again. “I’ve been practicing to get the whole space memorized.”
    Moon wondered how she could ask for what she really needed. Do you have any scrolls about ominous voices in your head?
    “Sora, are you still here?” Starflight asked, raising his voice a little.
    The MudWing by the windows lifted her head and nodded.
    “He can’t see you,” Kinkajou reminded her in a loud whisper. “Yes, she’s still here.”
    “Sorry,” the brown dragon said softly.
    “It’s all right,” Starflight said. The twinge of sadness in his thoughts didn’t spill into his voice. “Sora, this is Kinkajou and Moon. Sora is one of Clay’s sisters.”
    “Ooooo,” Kinkajou said. “How does it feel to be related to someone famous? Probably a bit like being best friends with a queen,” she answered herself, grinning ridiculously. “Which I am, just incidentally, so, I mean, I totally get it.”
    Sora’s smile was shy, and now Moon could sense tremors of anxiety in her that felt an awful lot like Moon’s own fears. Clay’s sister was as nervous about being here as Moon was.
    It was sort of reassuring, actually, to find someone as scared as she was.
    “Nice to meet you,” Moon said. Maybe she could be my friend, too. Maybe Mother was right … Maybe I will meet dragons I like here.
    “You too,” Sora nearly whispered, rolling her scroll between her talons.
    “Let’s go to the music wing next,” Kinkajou said. “Or, oooooo, I heard there’s an old GHOST living somewhere in Jade Mountain! Maybe we can find him!”
    Moon’s ears twitched. A ghost? Was she hearing the voice of a ghost? That would be … unsettling.
    “You’re talking about Stonemover,” Starflight said, “and he’s not a ghost. He’s Sunny’s father, and he’s a perfectly nice old NightWing who’s lived here for ages. He sleeps a lot and doesn’t need little dragonets sneaking up on him or pouncing on his tail to find out if he’s real. He does like company, though, so if you’re interested in a polite conversation with him, I can tell you how to find