by Rachel Aaron
“I don’t care,” Marci said immediately. “So long as I don’t wake up as a zombie, I don’t care what you do. Just, please, take me back.”
“I already offered, but your begging is noted,” he said happily. “Now, let’s get this—”
“Wait!” Amelia cried, jumping off the seal to dig her claws into Marci’s arm. “You can’t go yet!”
“Why not?” Marci cried, staring at her friend in betrayal. “You brought him here to do this.”
“Yeah, but not yet. Remember how I said this was all part of Bob’s plan? Well, he warned me about this. No one is allowed to leave the Heart of the World until we get the signal.”
Marci couldn’t believe this. “What signal?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia admitted. “But he said I’d know it when I saw it.”
“That’s it?” she cried. “That’s our reassurance? You’ll ‘know it when you see it?’”
“That’s all I need,” Amelia said firmly, letting go of Marci’s arm. “I trust Brohomir with my life and my death. If he says something is important, I listen, especially since this was the only specific information he gave me about this entire trip. He said that if I got to the Heart of the World, I shouldn’t let anyone leave until I got his signal, and that I’d know it when I saw it.”
“And you believed that?” Raven said skeptically.
Amelia gave him a burning look. “Why do you think I haven’t flown off to find the vessel for the Spirit of Dragons yet?”
Raven sighed. “Good enough for me,” he said, settling down on the seal. “Looks like we wait.”
“You can’t be serious,” Myron said. “What happened to ‘we have to move now’ and ‘let’s hope there’s still time?’”
“Oh, that’s all still there,” the bird spirit said. “But when a dragon seer says you should do something, it’s generally a good idea to follow instructions. They see the future, you know.”
“But how long can we wait?” Marci asked, glancing at the scrying circle. “The DFZ will break out at any moment.”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said. “But it’ll be worth it. You’ve seen Bob in action. You know what he can do. Trust him.”
Marci covered her face with her hands. She was so close, so close to going home, and now this. As much as she hated it, though, Amelia was right. She had seen Bob in action, and while she didn’t always like where his plans led, she’d yet to see the seer be wrong. If he said there would be a signal, then there would be a signal. The only question left was would it come in time for their plans, or his?
There was no way to know. With so many power players pushing their own agendas, picking out what was actually right felt like trying to catch a single snowflake in a storm, though it did give her renewed sympathy for Julius’s position. He had to deal with stuff like this all the time. If he’d been here, Marci was sure he’d already have a brilliant compromise that pleased everyone. But Julius wasn’t here, and if she ever wanted to see him again—ever wanted to be alive again—she was going to have to make a decision.
“Okay,” she said, letting out a long breath. “We’ll wait.”
Are you sure? Ghost whispered.
“No,” she said. “But while I’m certain Bob would have no problem discarding us all as pawns in his game, he wouldn’t do that to Amelia. If he says she needs to wait, then that’s how she’s getting out of this alive, and since that’s what I want, too, we’re playing along.”
And if we get played?
Marci laughed. “Little late for that. According to Amelia, Bob’s hand’s been in my life since before we met. But other than the dying part, I like where he’s taken me, so I’m going to stay on the ride. If nothing else, it’s nice to have someone on our side who knows what he’s doing.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Myron said, giving Amelia a dirty look. “Isn’t Bob the crazy one who nearly ran you over with his car at the diner outside Heartstriker Mountain?”
“He’s not so bad,” Marci said with a shrug. “And he’s never wrong.” She sat down on the ground beside the scrying circle. “We’ll wait for his signal.”
“You won’t be sorry,” Amelia promised, hopping into her lap. “My brother put a lot of work into this. Trust me. It’s going to be awesome.”
Myron rolled his eyes at that. Raven didn’t look particularly happy, either, and Shiro seemed ready to throw them back out into the dark. For all the mixed reactions, though, they must have respected Marci’s authority as Merlin at last, because no one challenged her further, not even Myron. They all just stood there in silence, watching the empty shell of the evacuated DFZ through the scrying circle as the spirit’s groaning grew worse and worse and worse.
Chapter 13
Chelsie appeared in the empty darkness of Julius’s old house, the only place she was certain no one would be. Sure enough, it was deserted. There weren’t even signs of squatters, despite the fact that the entire front wall was still hanging open from where Conrad had cut it in half.
That was to be expected, though. Even if they didn’t know what they were looking at, humans instinctively avoided dragon lairs. Not that Julius had made much of a lair here, but it must have been enough, because Chelsie couldn’t so much as smell a human.
Her eldest brother was another matter.
After chasing his shadow for so long, Bob’s scent hit her like a punch. He was here, and he was close. So close, she didn’t even have to search. She just followed her nose, following his scent out of the house and through the dark of the rumbling DFZ Underground like the predator she was.
Not surprisingly, the scent led her straight to the empty lot from the picture: a flat, desolate stretch of mud wedged between the road and the river. The steep drop to the water was lined with rocks to prevent erosion, and the stretch of mud above it still bore the marks of a sunken foundation where some idiot developer had learned the hard way not to build on a flood plain. Beyond the shore, the Detroit River ran wide and silent, its night-black water glittering in the colored lights from the Skyway promenade that jutted out above the water like a cement boardwalk. Other than that, the only light came from the single orange streetlight that marked the end of the road, and beneath it, leaning against the battered wooden pole like a juvenile delinquent, was the dragon she’d come to find.
“You’re early,” Bob said, looking up from the glowing screen of his ancient brick of a phone. “Did I lay the trail too well?”
He smiled at her like he always did, but Chelsie wasn’t playing. “Give it back.”
“‘Give it back?’” he repeated, eyebrows shooting up in faux astonishment. “That’s it? No trademark Chelsie ‘Hello, brother,’ or ‘Why did you do it, Bob?’”
“You taught me long ago that asking you for explanations was useless,” she snarled. “But things are different now. I’m free, which means I don’t have to care about you or your plans anymore. I’m just here for what’s mine.” She thrust out her hand. “Give me my egg, Brohomir, or we’ll see how good your knowledge of the future really is.”
Bob heaved a long sigh. “There you go,” he said, pushing off the pole. “Straight to threats. No attempt at reasoning or to discover my motivation.” He shook his head with a tsk. “We really need to work on your conflict-resolution skills.”
“There’s nothing to resolve,” Chelsie said, looking around the lot for some sign of what she’d come for, but there was nothing. No bags or boxes, nothing that could contain a dragon egg. Bob wasn’t carrying anything, either. Not even his Magician’s Fang, not that he ever wore it. Still, his lack of a weapon or anything that could serve as a hostage made Chelsie nervous. She’d known this was a trap from the moment Julius had gotten the call. Everything was with Bob. But traps could be broken, and thanks to Julius, she was off the seer’s script. She just had to stay on target, and speaking of targets…
“Last chance,” she growled, looking him in the eyes again. “I’m prepared to do whatever I have to, but this does
n’t need to end in violence. Just tell me where my egg is, and we can both go our separate ways.”
“I didn’t go through all the trouble of getting you out here just so we could leave,” Bob said, exasperated. “Don’t you want to know why I stole your Precious? Because I’ll tell you. I’m dying to, actually. Do you know how hard it’s been to keep all of this brilliance to myself? It’s killing me. So go ahead. Ask, and I’ll tell you everything.”
He finished with his most charming smile, but Chelsie had seen this ploy go down too many times to fall for it herself. Bob might have fooled the rest of the clan into thinking he was an unpredictable mad genius, but Chelsie had watched him just as she’d watched every other Heartstriker. His motives were inscrutable to anyone who didn’t also know the future, but his habits were as ingrained as any other old dragon’s, and the only time he ever offered to explain himself was when he was stalling.
Whatever plot he’d called her out here for must not be ready yet, she realized. That meant if Chelsie was going to get her egg and escape before the trap closed, she needed to do it now. So she did, pushing off the dirt with her bare feet as she lunged at his throat.
As expected of a seer, Bob dodged her first strike, but no amount of precognition could save him from the second, which landed her balled fist right in his stomach. As he gasped in pain, Chelsie seized the chance to step in and wrap her arm around his throat, pinning him in a choke hold against her chest.
“That was… uncalled…for,” Bob choked out, gasping for breath as he grabbed at her arm. “Can’t we…talk about it?”
Chelsie’s answer was to squeeze tighter. She was trying to make him pass out when Bob somehow managed to hook his foot behind hers. She was repositioning when he kicked up hard, yanking her off balance just long enough to break free.
He scrambled away into the dark, getting as much distance as possible before whirling around to watch her with a wary expression Chelsie had never seen on her eldest brother’s face before.
“For the record, I did not expect that.” He swallowed against his bruised throat before flashing her a weak smile. “Brava. You’re faster than I anticipated.”
“That’s your fault,” Chelsie said, circling. “Bethesda’s Shade couldn’t afford to let anyone know the full extent of her abilities, even you. And who made me that?”
Bob sighed. “You can’t blame everything on me, you know.”
“Why not?” she growled. “Everything is your fault. You’re the all-knowing seer. You saw my disaster coming—all of it, from the very beginning—and you did nothing.”
“I did a great deal more than nothing,” he said, insulted. “Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to bring us to this point? How delicately and painstakingly I’ve planned every little detail leading up to—”
“You did this to me!” she screamed at him. “I owned my mistakes in China, but everything I’ve suffered since is your fault. You were Bethesda’s seer. One word from you was all it would have taken to free me and my children, but you said nothing.” She bared her teeth. “Nothing! For six hundred years!”
“What could I have said?” Bob asked, his voice tired. “I needed you, Chelsie. Bethesda was useful, but you were the glue that kept everything together. Fear of you is what united Heartstriker, or at least kept us from flinging ourselves apart. You were the one who enabled us to become the largest clan in the world. Larger than even the Golden Empire. Large enough to get us here.” He pointed at the ground between them. “To this moment. This future. Everything I’ve done leads right here, right now, and the only way I did it was you.”
“Save it,” Chelsie snapped, edging closer. “I don’t care if this was the only way to avoid the end of the world. You used me. You used my children. But all that stops today. You want to talk about the future? These are the only words you need: it’s over, Brohomir. You will never use me or my children ever again, and if you don’t give me back my egg right now, you’re not leaving this place alive.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” he said, putting up his hands. “You have every right to be upset. I know certain actions of mine look callous out of context, but there’s a good reason for that. I’d be happy to explain it to you if you’d just stop being such a Chelsie for a minute and just—”
She teleported behind him. The move got her so close, she actually felt the tips of his long hair before Bob leaped out of the way, dancing nimbly across the mud. But not far enough.
The moment he slowed, Chelsie teleported again, burning through her magic to reappear right on top of him. She wasn’t even aiming for a hit this time. She was just recklessly charging forward, pushing with everything she had until she was moving too fast to see, too fast to plan.
It was a terrifying way to fight. Chelsie was normally a careful hunter, the sort who always had a plan. When your enemy was a seer, though, no plan was good enough. Brohomir had already foreseen every possible iteration of every clever idea she could come up with, so Chelsie didn’t bother. She just attacked, going after her oldest brother with nothing but her bare hands, her killer’s instinct, six centuries of pent-up rage, and a roar that echoed to the Skyways as they both went down in the mud.
And below them, unnoticed in the fray, the ground continued to tremble.
***
The moment he stepped through the portal, Julius knew something was deeply wrong. The DFZ had always felt more powerful than other places, but the pea-soup-thick magic he’d grown accustomed to while living here was now more like a boiling pot. He could actually feel it rumbling under his feet when Fredrick’s cut dumped them out into the empty dirt lot from Bob’s selfie, and under any other circumstances, that would have had his full attention. Now, though, the trembling pressure was relegated to the background, just another crisis to add to the list as he, Fredrick, and the Qilin looked up to find themselves in the middle of an assassination in progress.
As promised, the Defender’s Fang had dumped them practically on top of Chelsie, which was how Julius had a perfect view of his deadliest sister’s back as she launched herself at Bob. The seer dodged, of course—this was Bob, after all—but Chelsie didn’t even slow down. She just turned and attacked again, slamming her foot into the dirt to use as a pivot as she spun to grab the seer’s shoulder.
For a terrifying moment, Julius saw Bob’s eyes widen in surprise before Chelsie yanked him backward. She brought her unbraced leg up at the same time, slamming her knee into the small of the seer’s back for a kick that sent him flying into the dilapidated garage across the street like a cannonball, shattering the one remaining unbroken window and collapsing what was left of the roof.
Even for a dragon, that was a serious hit. Julius was already moving to go help his brother when Bob kicked his way out of the debris and rolled back to his feet. He took a second to shake the dust out of his long hair, and then stepped to the left just in time to avoid Chelsie as she teleported behind where he’d just been.
But while the quick move let him dodge her first punch, nothing could save him from the second. Julius hadn’t even seen her arm going up. Her hand was just suddenly there, slamming into Bob’s side as she took him down to the ground with her on top.
Chelsie shifted position the second they hit, turning in a flash so she ended up crouching above Bob’s chest with her knees on his arms and both hands free to go for the seer’s exposed throat. Julius was desperately grabbing his Fang to stop her before she clenched down for the kill when a calm, deep voice beat him to it.
“Chelsie.”
The name sailed through the dark like a warm breeze. Wherever it passed, the world stopped to listen, though none so much as Chelsie herself.
Julius had never seen anything go as utterly still as his sister did in that moment. For five long heartbeats, she was frozen. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even breathe. Then, with painful slowness, she turned her head, tearing her eyes away from her pinned prey to stare in horror at the golden dragon standing on the street
behind her.
“Xian.”
The whisper was a terrified curse. If anyone had said his name that way, Julius would have been haunted, but the Qilin didn’t look upset. He looked relieved, his golden eyes almost hopeful as he watched her watch him. They were both still just staring at each other when Julius caught the scent of Bob’s blood.
With a nervous glance at his sister, Julius darted across the street and into the destroyed garage. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get his brother out from under Chelsie, but the Qilin’s effect must have been even stronger than he realized. His sister didn’t so much as twitch when Julius crept up beside her and grabbed Bob under the arms to ease him out of her hold.
It was still hairy. Chelsie was basically sitting on top of him, but Bob was twisty in more ways than one. With Julius’s help, he managed to wiggle out from under Chelsie’s weight, scooting several feet back into the relative safety of the collapsed garage door.
“Thank you, Julius,” Bob said, falling onto his back with a relieved sigh.
Julius was too angry to answer, so he just focused on removing the six-inch shard of twisted metal from Bob’s shoulder. There was an equally large shard of glass buried in his leg, probably from his crash through the garage door. The scariest wound by far, though, was the one Chelsie had left on his throat: two perfect handprints of bruised skin that wrapped around the column of his neck like a collar.
“Bob,” he said at last, voice shaking. “What were you thinking?”
“I know,” the seer said, looking down in dismay at the blood seeping through his red velvet coat. “I thought if I wore red, it wouldn’t stain as badly, but—”
“Who cares about your coat?” Julius hissed, glancing nervously back at Chelsie, who was still spellbound by the Qilin. “She almost killed you.”
“I’m not that soft,” Bob said, his voice insulted. “Though I admit things did go worse than anticipated.”
“You stole her egg and taunted her into coming after you!” Julius cried. “How did you think it was going to go?”
