by Rachel Aaron
She looked up just in time for the black bag to slide over her head.
***
By the time Julius landed at the private airport on the Canadian side of the Detroit river, the only place that aircraft registered to dragon clans could touch down near the DFZ, it was almost one in the morning. Thankfully, the auto-cabs ran twenty-four hours a day. Fifteen minutes after leaving the airport, Julius was pulling up to his house.
His dark, obviously empty house.
He ordered the cab to wait and jumped out, racing across the conspicuously empty driveway and up the front stairs. The second he opened the door, though, his nose confirmed what he already knew. Marci wasn’t here, and hadn’t been for some time. Five minutes of searching revealed she hadn’t left a note, either, and her phone was still in ignore mode, which meant Julius still had no idea where she was and no way to contact her.
Julius being Julius, this sent him immediately to the worst-case scenarios: she’d left him forever, she’d been in a wreck, she’d been kidnapped, she was dead. Logically, of course, he knew he was overreacting. Marci was a grown woman and a ridiculously competent mage. Why would she sit at home alone? She was probably out having a night to herself, blowing off steam after the horrible things his mother had said. But even though he knew he was being ridiculous, he couldn’t seem to stop. The idea that Marci was out there and angry with him and he couldn’t talk to her to fix the problem was more than Julius could take on a normal day. After everything else that had happened tonight, it was nearly enough to break him. Marci was his best friend, the spot of sanity in the storm that was his family. If she left, he’d have no one.
Also, he’d been counting on her magic to help find Justin.
Just thinking that made Julius feel like the worst kind of user, but he really did need her help. The DFZ was a massive area, over five hundred square miles, and that wasn’t counting the extra landmass added by the double layer of the skyways. He supposed he could hire his hacker again to trace Justin’s phone like he’d done with Katya, but seeing how Justin hadn’t answered a single one of Julius’s multiple calls, he wasn’t sure his brother even had his phone on him. But even if he found Justin tonight, though, it wouldn’t change the fact that Marci was gone.
That thought was enough to make his knees buckle. He sat down hard on the floor, burying his head in his shaking hands. It wasn’t until he started feeling like he was actually going to throw up, though, that Julius realized he needed to get a grip.
Yes, he’d had a terrible, stressful night, and yes, something was probably horribly wrong with Marci, but freaking out was only making things worse. Now more than ever, he needed to dig down and find the calm, plotting dragon that had to be in him somewhere. It wasn’t impossible. He’d found Katya when all seemed lost, surely he could find his brother and his best friend.
That line of thought didn’t do much to relax the terrible choking panic inside him, but it did get him up off the floor. He was psyching himself up to think of a brilliant plan when he noticed a strange glow coming from the living room.
After everything that had happened tonight, it would be just his luck to find another dragon waiting on his couch. But fate must have finally decided to throw him a bone, because the source of the strange glow wasn’t draconic or monstrous or any of the other horrible things his brain could imagine. It was Marci’s cat.
It said something about your state of mind when discovering a ghost cat sleeping on your couch was the high point of your evening. “Ghost!” Julius cried, rushing over to pet the spirit’s icy fur. “Thank goodness! Where’s Marci?”
The cat didn’t answer. This wasn’t actually a surprise—Ghost never talked to him—but he’d at least hoped the spirit would wake up. No dice. No matter how much he poked or yelled, the cat refused to open his eyes. He just rolled over onto his back, his transparent feet kicking slightly as he dreamed. But while this wasn’t the reaction Julius had hoped for, the spirit’s presence alone was a huge relief. He didn’t know the specifics of Ghost and Marci’s relationship, but there was no way the spirit would be here sleeping if she was dead or in danger, right?
That bit of logic did more to soothe Julius’s panic than anything else. He still wasn’t convinced Marci was okay, but he was reasonably sure she wasn’t hurt or in an emergency. Unfortunately, that was more than Julius could say for his brother, which meant finding Justin was now his first priority. He just hoped he wasn’t already too late. Chelsie hadn’t mentioned how long he’d been in the DFZ, but an angry Justin with something to prove was a recipe for disaster anywhere. With no magic or phone trace to rely on, though, he wasn’t sure where to begin. Even if he limited his search to the Underground, the DFZ was way too big. If he didn’t want this to take weeks, he was going to have to come up with something to narrow the search area. With that in mind, the question became: if he were Justin, where would he go?
Julius sat down on the couch beside Ghost, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as he tried to remember if Justin had ever suffered a blow like this before, and how he’d dealt with it. He couldn’t remember anything specific. In fact, until this point, what he’d seen of his brother’s life had been almost suspiciously serendipitous. Still, given what he knew of his brother, Julius had the feeling that an upset Justin would go somewhere private to lick his wounds. Somewhere with no humans or dragons, but not so far that he couldn’t come back when he inevitably got lonely. Somewhere with food.
The last one gave him an idea. He pulled out his phone and typed in a search for pizza delivery places in the DFZ. This turned up thousands of results, so he shrank his search to only the local chain Justin had ordered from when he’d stayed in the Heartstriker family safehouse. The first four locations had nothing, and the fifth wouldn’t answer his questions, but the clerk working the phones at the sixth shop was all too ready to complain about the strange customer who called five times a day and ordered more pizzas than any one person could possibly eat.
“He’s a machine,” the man groaned. “He calls when we open and then every three hours until we close, and he doesn’t even get the same pizzas! If he was consistent we could bake ahead, but every order’s different, and it’s been going on for three days.”
“I’m sorry,” Julius said with real sincerity. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where the orders are coming from? I wouldn’t normally ask, but he’s my brother, and I’m worried about him.”
The clerk gasped, and then there was a rustling sound as he muffled the phone with his hand to shout, “Hey! This guy knows the bottomless pit!”
A chorus of voices cheered in the background, and then the clerk said, “We’ll give you his address, man, no problem, just make him stop calling. Corporate doesn’t allow us to refuse his orders, but dude lives in the middle of nowhere and orders a hundred pizzas a day, no joke. Plus, he doesn’t tip.”
“I’m very sorry about him,” Julius said again, pulling up his bank account. “How much does he owe you?”
It took a few minutes for all the cooks and drivers to figure out how much Justin had stiffed them in tips over the last three days. The number they ended up with still sounded low to Julius, especially given what they’d put up with, so he doubled it, transferring the money as soon as they told him where to send it.
“Thanks a million, man,” the clerk said, his voice so bright Julius knew he had to be grinning from ear to ear. “You’re, like, our best friend now. Just sent the deets to your number, and if you ever need a pizza on the house, just let us know.”
“I will,” Julius said, grinning when the address for Justin’s pizza pick-up appeared on his phone. “Thank you.”
The clerk thanked him several more times before Julius finally got him off the phone so he could send Justin’s location to his still-waiting cab.
***
The party at Heartstriker Mountain was still in full swing when Conrad, First Blade of Bethesda and Champion of the Heartstrikers, left his mother happily toying with
her more ambitious children and went back to his room. As the highest ranking warrior in the clan, it wasn’t much of a walk. His apartment—a lavish, seven-room setup complete with his own take-off balcony overlooking the mountain’s northern face—was located just below Bethesda’s own. He shut his door and locked it twice before walking into his armaments room to set his Fang on its stand. He was still unhooking the massive blade from his belt when he felt a familiar presence behind him.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked, not even bothering to look as his sister stepped out of the shadows. “I’d have thought you’d be after Justin by now.”
“I was planning to,” Chelsie said, walking over to stand beside him. “But I got some unexpected help in that quarter. Well-timed, too, since it seems that, for once, Justin isn’t our biggest disaster.”
“I assume you’re referring to Estella,” Conrad said, locking his sword into its custom stand.
She nodded. “What do you intend to do about her?”
“At the moment?” He crossed his arms as he turned to face her. “Nothing.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No,” Conrad said calmly. “But you’re overreacting. Estella is not a threat. Bob defeated her long ago. These dramatics are nothing but a final, failing attempt at relevancy.”
Chelsie looked at him like he was crazy. “She’s still a seer.”
“A desperate one.”
“That’s even worse,” she snapped. “This isn’t the time to get cocky. Estella’s always hated us, but she’s never been foolish enough to set foot in Heartstriker Mountain until tonight. Something fundamental has changed.”
“Good,” Conrad said, grinning. “Our clan’s been too long without a war. The younger clutches don’t even know what it means to fight like dragons. They fawn at Bethesda’s feet, playing her games and stabbing each other in the back for a scrap of her favor. We could use a good battle to thin out the ranks, and it’s not like we’re in danger of actually losing. We’re the largest dragon clan in the world, the strongest of the strong. Even if the Three Sisters woke tomorrow, what could they do? Heartstriker is over a hundred dragons strong, and our mountain is a fortress of modern weapons and magic. I’d like to see them try and attack us.”
“They’re not going to charge the mountain,” Chelsie said irritably. “If Estella strikes, she’s going to go for Bethesda.”
“Which means she’ll have to get through both you and me,” Conrad said with a shrug. “Even less likely to work.”
His sister was already opening her mouth for her next argument, but Conrad cut her off. “It doesn’t matter what Estella does,” he growled. “Even if she did manage to actually succeed in killing Mother, that’s not a loss for us.”
Chelsie went very still. “What do you mean?”
He flashed her a knowing look. “Surely you saw who was standing out on the balcony tonight?”
“You can’t be serious,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Amelia’s a drunk.”
“And the top dragon mage in the world,” he reminded her. “That’s the sort of power we should be cultivating here, not sending off to the planes. It’s a waste to go without one of our best just because Bethesda is terrified of having an heir who might actually be able to defeat her.”
Chelsie scowled. “That’s a dangerous thing for a champion to say.”
He shrugged. “It’s because I’m champion that I can say it. My sword and my loyalty belong to Heartstriker. I support whatever brings strength and power to the clan.”
“And to you, of course.”
“Naturally,” Conrad said. “I still don’t believe any plan of Estella’s will succeed, but if it did, there’s no point in pretending we’d be heartbroken over a change of leadership, or have you learned to enjoy being Bethesda’s dog?”
Chelsie’s eyes flashed with a hint of the old fury before she turned away. “You’re my last full brother, so I’m going to forget I heard that. I just came to tell you that Mother’s ordered us to prepare the clan for war.”
“Already done,” Conrad said. “I told you, I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for centuries. Tonight was the last time those ice snakes will leave this mountain alive.”
She nodded and vanished, just disappeared into thin air in front of him. Normally, she saved that trick for when her target’s back was turned, but Conrad knew all of his sister’s secrets, so pretense was unnecessary. He was about to set the wards and head to bed when a breeze blew in from his open balcony, its air heavy with the scent of the frozen northern sea.
Conrad’s lips peeled back into a feral grin. “I knew you ice sisters were desperate,” he growled, grabbing his sword off the rack as he turned to face the White Witch, who was now standing on the edge of his balcony. “But I didn’t know you were stupid.”
He paused there, waiting for her to say the usual rot about how he was dead and so forth, but the dragoness didn’t speak. She just stood there, her striking blue eyes as cold and empty as sea ice. As an intimidation tactic, it worked better than Conrad liked to admit, but he was the Champion of the greatest dragon clan in the world, and it took more than creepy silence to make him flinch.
“What?” he taunted, positioning his sword for the strike that would take off her head. “No final words?”
“She has nothing to say to a son of the broodmare,” growled a voice behind him. “And neither do I.”
Conrad’s eyes went wide. He spun, lashing out with his Fang at the second dragon, the one he’d only now realized was standing behind him. But for all his speed, all his training, Conrad barely managed a half-turn before Estella’s hands shot out to wrap a black chain around his neck.
That was the last thing he saw before the world went dark.
***
Far below, in the backseat of Svena’s sleek, armored sedan, which was currently hidden by magic to look like just another stretch of desert, Katya, youngest and most disappointing daughter of the Three Sisters, sat with her face pressed against the bulletproof window, staring up at the balcony where her sisters were beginning their attack on the Heartstriker Champion.
No, she thought angrily, she had only one sister here. Despite the familiar face, there was no way the silent puppet who obeyed Estella’s orders without question was actually Svena. But while Katya was now certain her sister was not herself, it didn’t change her situation. Whatever that thing beside Estella actually was, it still had Svena’s power and knowledge. Katya, on the other hand, had nothing. No money, no weapons, not even a phone. She couldn’t even get a moment to herself to think up a strategy. Other than the brief chance she’d stolen to run to Julius, Estella hadn’t let her out of her sight.
Unless, of course, you counted right now.
Katya licked her lips. This far down, there was no way Estella could see her, and while the car was locked and sealed with magic, it was nothing compared to the protections she’d slipped through all the times she’d run away from her mothers’ fortress. It would be so simple: a quick kick to break the lock and then freedom. But though Katya could see the whole escape like it had already happened, she didn’t move.
Part of her was mortified. What sort of dragon was she to let a chance like this, perhaps her last chance, slip by? But the rest of her, the parts that valued survival over pride, knew that every time she’d run, Estella had caught her. Every time she’d escaped, the seer had always been waiting at the end. This time, though, Katya didn’t think her sister would be satisfied with simply returning her to her prison in their mothers’ glacier. This time, Estella would kill her.
That was enough to dampen even Katya’s instinct to run. But just as she decided that her odds of surviving were better if she stayed put and played along, something thumped against the car’s rear windshield.
Katya jumped, hand flying to her mouth to stifle her surprised yelp. When she whirled around, though, it was just a bird. A pigeon, to be precise, fluttering against the window like it was trying to get in.
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Shaking her head, Katya slapped her hand against the glass to scare the stupid thing away, but the bird wouldn’t go. It just flapped harder, cooing loudly. She was about to bare her true nature and give it a real scare when she saw the bird had something in its claws.
Before she could see what it was, the bird flew away, abandoning its catch on the trunk of the car. Now that there was no longer a pigeon flapping around on top, Katya could see it wasn’t a mouse or some other garbage, but an elegantly folded piece of paper. With her name on it.
Katya went very still, ears straining. Other than the fading flap of the pigeon’s wings and the ceaseless desert wind, though, she didn’t hear a thing. Both of her sisters were still dealing with Conrad, and the Heartstrikers were all inside their mountain, leaving the desert empty, but not for much longer. If she was going take a risk, it had to be now.
Heart pounding, Katya reached out, transforming her hand just a fraction until she had enough claw to pop the rear door lock. It broke with a soft crack, and then her arm snaked back, her fingers returning to their human shape as she snatched the paper off the trunk where the pigeon had dropped it. The moment the note was in her fingers, she darted back into the car, curling herself into a ball in the far corner of the backseat as she spread the folded paper flat over her knees to read the scribbled handwriting in the bright moonlight.
From a friend, it said. Don’t be late.
Below this, someone had printed out a small map to an address in the DFZ, but that was it. There was no signature, no instructions, no additional information of any kind.
Clutching the note in her hands, Katya glanced up through the window at Conrad’s empty balcony, and then back over her shoulder at the door she’d already broken. Beyond it, the empty desert sky beckoned, and Katya inched closer, breathing the fresh air deep into her lungs as she hovered on the threshold.
At this point, it was no longer a question if she would run. The door was already broken, and there was no way to fix it before Estella and Svena returned. They’d know she’d disobeyed, which meant she was already committed. But there was a world of difference between mere fleeing and a planned escape, and with Estella on a rampage, Katya was going to have to plan this very carefully indeed. Since her enemy was a seer, getting caught was pretty much a foregone conclusion. With that in mind, the challenge wasn’t avoiding her sister, but surviving the confrontation when Estella cornered her.
