Was he suggesting that they actually drink this stuff? Because the more he talked about it, the less Gwen wanted to ingest it. Salamander blood? There was no way this vegetarian girl was going to drink the blood of an animal. Plus, why would anybody want to burn another person?

On the other hand, he had just insinuated that anyone who had qualms about drinking it was a sissy. Vegetarian or not, Gwen was no sissy. She steeled her nerves. If he asked them to drink it, she would do it. She would just have to forget about the fact that there was animal blood in it. She shuddered slightly at the thought.

She raised her hand. "Maybe it was invented to scare people off? Like they wouldn't want to get near a fire-breathing person if they didn't know the fire couldn't hurt them?" She certainly wouldn't want to get in the way of flame coming from a person's mouth. "Sort of like how the Celts rode into battle naked. To intimidate the opponent before even having to fight them." Her mother used to tell her stories about the Celts when she was little, and that image had always terrified her, though perhaps it wasn't appropriate to share in school.