Nice Dragons Finish Last

Chapter 15

“So let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Marci said. “The three great dragon seers are the Black Reach, Estella the Northern Star, and Bob?” When Julius nodded, she arched an eyebrow. “One of these things is not like the others.”

“Bob’s just his family name,” Julius explained. They were hunched together in the enormous back seat of Bob’s Crown Victoria as he drove them away from what he’d termed the ‘Scene of Interest.’ It wasn’t the most private place to have a discussion he really, really shouldn’t be having, but Marci had refused to stay behind, and Julius couldn’t bring himself to let her step into a mess like this without some basic information. “He’s actually Brohomir, Great Seer of the Heartstrikers, but he only answers to that on formal occasions or when he’s booking tables at restaurants.”

“I can’t address an ancient, supposedly future-seeing dragon as Bob,” she said, shooting a look at the back of Bob’s head. “It’s undignified!”

“Trust me, it’s better this way.” He’d seen his brother put aside his goofy, slightly insane Bob persona and become Brohomir only once, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat, especially in front of a mortal. That thought sent his eyes drifting back down to the makeshift bandage on Marci’s neck. The bleeding had stopped, thank goodness, but the smell of blood still lingered, reminding Julius just how close the miss had been.

“Are you even sure he’s really a seer?” she whispered, leaning closer. “Because every paper I’ve seen on the subject concluded that true clairvoyance is a myth.”

“A century ago, your kind considered dragons to be myths,” Bob said, making them both jump. “Why are mortals always so eager to declare things impossible, anyway? It’s not like things do or don’t exist just because you say so.”

She straightened up again. “So you’re saying you actually see the future?”

Marci’s question sent Julius into a panic. You did not just ask elder dragons to spill their secrets. But before he could think of a way to cover for her before his brother took offense, Bob did the unthinkable. He answered.

“Only very occasionally,” he said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Mostly, I see what will probably happen based on decisions people make: whether you eat lunch now or later, whether you decide to fake being sick or go to work, whether you kill a man or spare his life, that sort of thing. Every decision made creates a fork in the future, and a seer’s power is the ability to read ahead down those forks to find the path that leads to the outcome we want. Once we find it, we simply nudge the players as needed to make sure all the critical decisions come out in our favor.” He paused, frowning. “This isn’t to say I don’t also have true visions of things that cannot be changed, but they’re not my bread and butter.”

By the time he finished, Julius’s jaw was on the floor. He’d never heard Bob talk about his seer powers like this to anyone. Of course, he’d never heard Bob talk much at all since he’d always made it a point to avoid the upper alphabet members of his family. Marci, however, didn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of what she was learning. She just asked another question.

“What’s the difference between things you nudge and things you can’t change?” she said, leaning as far forward as her seatbelt would allow. “From your explanation, it sounds like the future is made from our decisions, which suggests it’s all free will. But if there are also things that can’t be changed no matter what, that sounds like destiny. So which is it?”

“Is light a wave or a particle?” Bob replied with an elegant shrug. “Really, Miss Mage, you need to keep a more open mind to the inherent dualities of nature if you ever want to understand the higher workings of magic.”

That was clearly not an answer that held water with Marci. Before she could object, though, Bob turned around to look at Julius. “Where to?”

Julius blinked. “You’re asking me?”

“It’s your future,” Bob reminded him. “And in case you missed the point of that impromptu lecture, your decisions are kind of a vital element in all this. Now, where do we go?”

Julius bit his lip. He hated making snap decisions. He especially hated making them when Bob was looking at him instead of the road while operating a manually driven car. He especially especially hated making decisions under the implication that whatever choice he made would influence his entire future. “Can I think about it?”

Bob rolled his eyes. “See, this is exactly why I don’t normally tell people how the game works. You start overthinking and double-guessing and everything gets tangled in knots. Just pretend I’m not here and do whatever you think is best.”

That was kind of hard to pull off with Bob staring straight at him, so Julius turned to the window and set about working things through logically. “The last time Bixby attacked, he went big. I doubt he’ll do any less this time, especially if he thinks Marci might bring help even after he told her not to, which I’m sure he does.” He glanced back at Marci. “Do you think he could put together another army like the one at the house?”

She pursed her lips, thinking. “Not of his own men, but he’s rich and apparently dead set on making this happen. And he knows he’s dealing with dragons now, so yeah, he’s probably going to roll something pretty big.”

“Which means we’re going to need help,” Julius finished, because there was no way he could play magic battery again today. When he looked hopefully at Bob, though, the seer shook his head.

“I’m here on a strictly observational basis. Pick again.”

Julius blew out a long breath. He hadn’t been too keen on the idea of relying on Bob, but without him, their options were limited. Singular, really, but as much as he hated the idea, he couldn’t think of anyone else, and he dropped his head with a sigh. “I’m going to have to ask Justin.”

“Excellent choice,” Bob said, turning back to the road at last. “And where is Justin at the moment?”

Julius snapped his head up again. “You mean you don’t know?”

“I’m a seer, not a directory,” Bob replied testily. “Though if I had to guess, I’d say the family safe house.”

“We have a safe house in the DFZ?”

“Of course we have a safe house here,” Bob said, smiling in the rear view mirror. “Mother keeps safe houses in all the major cities as protection for those she feels deserve protecting.”

Which would explain why Julius had never heard of it. “That’s probably where he is, then. Unless he got a hotel?”

Bob shook his head. “Justin’s not allowed in hotels anymore. Too many incidents.”

Marci snorted. “I can totally see that.”

Both dragons looked at her, but she just looked back totally unrepentant, and Julius sighed. “Fine,” he said, dragging his hands through his hair, which was already standing on end after a full day of such abuse. “Safe house it is.”

“Heartstriker Safe House, coming up,” Bob said cheerfully. “Hold on.”

Before Julius could ask why, or to what, his brother floored the gas, sending the car shooting forward. Marci grabbed Julius with a yelp as the momentum launched Ghost, who’d spent the impromptu car trip hiding in Marci’s bag, straight through her chest and into the trunk. But if Bob noticed the chaos in his back seat, he paid it no mind. He just leaned over the wheel, dodging the late afternoon traffic like he was playing a racing game while his pigeon clung to his shoulder, flapping her wings for balance whenever he took a particularly sharp turn.

Svena stood in front of the mirrored vanity in the white dressing room of the penthouse suite she’d secured for her stay in the DFZ, ignoring her sister as she put on the diamond earrings Ian had sent over this morning. As bribes went, jewelry was unsubtle and a clear sign of his youth, which might have been why Svena found it thrilling. Estella, on the other hand, thought it was tacky, and she said so. Repeatedly.

“He treats you like a human,” Estella spat, not even looking up from her phone, which she’d been typing on frantically all afternoon. “Like some mortal paramour. It’s insulting and vulgar, but what more could you expect from the children of Bethesda the Broodmare? She is trash, and trash breeds true.”

“So you keep saying,” Svena replied, turning her head side to side to set the strings of diamonds glittering in the brightly lit mirror. “But if you would look beyond your superiority for a moment, you might notice that the world has changed. The Heartstrikers are no longer a minor power we can ignore. And besides”—she smiled at her reflection—“I am the elder dragon. That means Ian is my paramour, and if he wishes to shower me with gifts, who am I to stop him?”

“Your paramour,” Estella scoffed, glaring at her phone as she slid deeper into the cushions of the dressing room’s silk sofa. “The whelp son of an upstart whore whose only talents are luring more powerful dragons into her bed and breeding like a barnyard animal.”

“And yet with those two talents, Bethesda the Heartstriker has made herself the undisputed matriarch of the largest dragon clan on Earth,” Svena said, calmly adjusting the bust of her strapless dress before turning to face her sister at last. “You are a fool if you ignore that simply because you don’t approve of her lifestyle.”

“It is you who is being a fool!” Estella shouted, dropping her phone at last as she shot up from the couch. “Defending our enemies and primping in the mirror like an idiot girl for a dragon so far beneath you, I cannot even acknowledge his presence without debasing myself!”

“Who else could I choose?” Svena said, staring her sister down. “To hear you tell it, everyone is beneath the daughters of the Three Sisters. Has it never occurred to you that I might be tired of being all-powerful, dreadful, and alone?”

“Better alone than to roll about in the mud with pigs!” Estella snarled, drawing herself up to her full height. “At least I remember the fear and respect our bloodline demands. Our mothers were worshiped as gods!”

Svena turned away with a growl, snatching her hairbrush off the marble counter. This was an old argument, and it was no more likely to be settled tonight than the hundreds of other times they’d clashed over the years. “You’re overreacting,” she said, dragging the brush through her already perfect hair. “Ian is nothing but an amusement. Something to pass the time while I wait for his idiot brother to find Katya, which, I might remind you, was your idea to begin with.”

“Yes,” Estella said. “To set up the Heartstrikers! If I’d foreseen you behaving like such a tasteless harlot, I would have scrapped the entire venture and returned Katya to the mountain myself.”

“Then I guess you don’t see as much as you claim,” Svena said, slamming the brush down again. “Enough. I’ve got better things to do than stand here and listen to this. I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”

“Svena.”

Svena had already decided to ignore her, but there was an edge on Estella’s voice that made her look back. When she did, her sister was standing in front of the dressing room door, imperious as a queen. “You will not go.”

The command was sharp as cracking ice, and it called forth a rage Svena hadn’t felt in many years. “You may be acting head of our clan,” she said slowly, drawing herself up to her full height as well. “But this is not clan business, and you are dangerously close to overstepping your authority.”

“All business is my business,” Estella replied haughtily. “Especially yours. Other than myself, you are the greatest of us. Your actions echo through the entire family, and I cannot stand by while you permit yourself to be used in such a fashion.”

“It is I who am using,” Svena growled. “Ian is my amusement, and I will keep him for however long I like.”

Estella laughed then, a sound as beautiful and cold as the arctic sea they ruled. “Ian? Ian is a tool, a puppet too young and blind to even realize he’s dancing to someone else’s tune. I was referring to the one who pulls his strings. The dragon who plays all the Heartstrikers like a symphony while allowing that shallow peacock Bethesda to take the credit.”

Svena rolled her eyes. If this was about the Seer of the Heartstrikers again, she did not want to hear it. She opened her mouth to tell Estella as much, but before she could say a word, she noticed her sister had that odd gleam in her eye that warned she was no longer in the present, but lost in the hazy maze of possible futures that only seers could see.

“He taunts me,” Estella whispered, her voice shaking with frustrated fury. “He blocks me at every turn and takes what I hold dear purely out of spite. Even you.” She looked up, her blue eyes suddenly focusing as they locked with Svena’s. “Katya was always weak. Her loss is nothing, but you are our prize. I sent you here because I thought you would be untouchable, a mountain too great to even notice his foolish nudging, but no sooner did you arrive in this horrible city than your future began to vanish.” She closed her eyes with a little sob that cut right to Svena’s icy heart. “He is taking you away from me.”

“Oh, sister,” Svena said, her anger forgotten as she hurried to Estella’s side. “You are upset over nothing. I’ve never even met the Heartstriker’s seer.”

“You think that matters?” Estella said, her voice thick with a hatred so old and deep, Svena couldn’t begin to imagine how long it must have been growing. “He cannot defeat me, and so the coward strikes at you, tempting you through his brother’s whispers of power. They are all his pawns, and now he seeks to add you to his game as well. But he shall never have you.” She reached up to grab her sister’s shoulders, digging her nails into Svena’s flesh. “You are my pawn!”

Svena’s sympathy for her sister died in a freezing rush of rage. “I am no one’s pawn!” she roared, ripping out of her sister’s hold with a thrust of power that shattered the mirrors and sent frost spreading across the carpet.

Estella’s eyes widened at the blatant display, and for a moment, it almost looked like she would back down. Instead, she breathed out an icy breath of her own, and as the air left her body, the thin veneer of her humanity vanished along with it.

Svena gasped as the full weight of her sister’s power landed on the room with the force of an avalanche. Estella hadn’t changed completely—the dressing room was much too small for that—but the image of her dragon hovered over her like a specter, a pure white shadow of glistening scales and wings as thin and beautiful as frosted glass. Looking up at the ice-blue eyes she knew so well, Svena realized with a pang that she was no longer speaking to the older sister who’d taught her how to fly over the glacial seas. This was not the Estella she’d burned villages with so many centuries ago, laughing together as the little humans fled before them. This was the Northern Star, Seer of the Three Sisters and acting head of their clan, and the words that fell from her lips were law.

“You will not leave this room.”

The command landed like a blow. It had been years since Svena been ordered so directly, or so forcibly, and the shock was enough to make her consider fighting back. She was larger, her magic stronger. If it had been any other dragon, that would have been enough. But a seer always had the weight of the future on her side, and Svena knew better than to start battles she wasn’t certain she could win. She was proud, yes, but not stupidly so, and in the end, she dropped her eyes. “I will not leave.”

Estella smiled, and the power roaring through the room vanished as quickly as it had come. “Good girl,” she murmured, reaching up to brush Svena’s hair away from her face just as she had when they were young. “You will see, lovely, this is no loss. These Heartstrikers are nothing but grasping fools. They seek to divide us, to topple our clan and make room at the top. But we are ancient magic, as far above them as stars above the sea. We shall remain long after Bethesda’s lust for power has doomed them all, and you will thank me for my wisdom today.”

Svena said nothing. She simply stood and waited while Estella checked her phone again. Whatever she read there, it must have been good news, because her face lit up at once. “I must go. Everything will fall into place soon, you will see. All I need from you is that you stay here. Do that, and I promise I will have Katya back to us before midnight. Then, my dear sister, we will deal with these foolish Heartstrikers together. When we are finished, Bethesda and her horde won’t even be a memory.”

Svena smiled and held her tongue, allowing herself to be kissed before Estella walked out of the room. When the seer’s soft footsteps finally vanished down the hall, Svena walked across the suite to the window that overlooked the hotel’s front entrance. It was nearing sunset, and the glare off the skyway’s white buildings was blinding, but if she squinted, she could see the human doorman escorting Estella to her waiting limo. The moment her sister was safely ensconced in her car, Svena marched back into her dressing room and snatched her phone out of the litter of broken glass on the vanity.

As usual, Ian picked up before the second ring. “Changed your mind about dinner?”

Any other time, Svena would have happily strung him along. Tonight, however, she was in no mood for games. “Be at my hotel in thirty minutes.”

Ian didn’t answer at once, giving Svena time to ponder how he would react. A younger, less secure dragon would object to being commanded to appear, while a more experienced one would expect a trap and proceed with caution. As usual, though, Ian was a pleasant surprise.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” he said with all the confident ambition that had drawn Svena to him in the first place. “See you then.”

Svena ended the call and sank onto the couch Estella had vacated with a smirk. She might have no choice but to obey her eldest sister’s edict not to leave her suite, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do as she pleased inside it, and Svena was suddenly very inspired to do exactly as she pleased. Because no matter what Estella said, the White Witch of the Three Sisters was no one’s pawn, and if her sister could no longer see Svena’s future, that just meant she was free to make of it what she wanted for once.

And as she looked out the bedroom window at the glass and steel towers of the DFZ shining like torches in the evening sunlight, Svena was surprised by how very much she wanted.

Julius wasn’t sure what he’d thought the Heartstriker safe house would look like, but the building Bob stopped in front of definitely wasn’t it. Positioned at the southwestern corner of the Upper City, as far from the water as you could get and still be on the skyways, the modern three-story mansion looked more like an upwardly mobile couple’s urban showcase home than a dragon clan’s emergency lair. It didn’t even seem to have walls, just windows and brushed steel accents. It was, however, very conveniently located right off an exit ramp, and the enormous faux-cedar porch that wrapped around the house’s western face to poke off the edge of the skyway made an excellent emergency landing spot for a dragon.

Bob dropped them off at the front gate, though he refused to actually go inside with them. When Julius asked why, Bob had declared he was the servant of “Great and Important Matters” and driven off, yelling out the window that he’d be back to pick them up “before the fun started.”

Since it was now go inside or hang out on the curb, Julius walked up the stairs to the red-painted front door with Marci right behind him. The house was locked, of course, and when no one responded to the doorbell, he knocked as loudly as he could. He was about to knock again when the door flew open to reveal a sweaty, shirtless, and barefoot Justin with a slice of pizza in one hand and the Fang of the Heartstrikers in the other.

His eyebrows shot up when he saw who was at his door, and he lowered his sword, taking another bite of his pizza before asking, “What happened to her?”

Marci’s hand instantly went to her throat, and Julius sighed. “Car wreck. Can we come in?”

Justin shrugged and stepped aside. “Your safe house, too,” he said, still chewing. “The human has to wait outside, though.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Julius said, lowering his voice. “Marci knows all about us now. Bob was the one who drove us over.”

He’d expected Justin be impressed by that last bit, but his brother just rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me the Pigeon Whisperer dragged you into one of his stupid schemes.” When Julius nodded, Justin shook his head. “Fine, the girl can come in, but if anyone asks, it was your idea.”

Julius pulled Marci inside before Justin could change his mind, closing the door quickly behind them.

The safe house’s interior was just as nice as its exterior, full of tasteful furniture that managed to look both modern and timeless, a sure sign that someone other than Mother had chosen the decor since Bethesda’s taste in interior design ran more to gilded skulls than designer tables. But while the vestibule and plant-lined back porch were immaculate, the living room was a disaster area of trash and beer bottles. Clearly, Justin had made himself at home.

“How long have you been here?” Marci asked, staring wide-eyed at what had to be fifty empty pizza boxes stacked against the sliding glass door to the back patio.

“About ten hours,” Justin said, walking to the open pizza box currently sitting in the middle of what had once been a pristine ecru couch. “I slept eight of those, though.”

Marci’s eyes went wider still. “You ate all of this in two hours?”

“Please,” Justin said, dropping down on the floor to start a set of one-armed push-ups. “Haven’t you ever seen a dragon eat? This took me ten minutes. I actually thought you were the pizza guy with my second order when I heard the door.”

Marci made a little choking sound and looked at Julius with new understanding. Justin, however, seemed to have written them off entirely. Clearly, it was time to stop making small talk and get to the point.

“Justin,” Julius said solemnly. “I need your help.”

Justin stopped mid-push-up, arching his neck back to stare at his brother. “My help,” he repeated. “You’re asking me to help you?”

“Yes,” Julius said. “Please.”

Justin thought about it for a second, and then he pushed off the ground, popping himself back onto his feet like a cork. “Okay.”

Julius blinked. “That’s it? You don’t even want to know what we’re doing first?”

“I told you I’d help last night,” Justin said, walking into the bathroom. “And anyway, how much trouble can you be in?”

Marci and Julius exchanged a silent look. “I think your brother has a chronically underdeveloped sense of danger,” she whispered.

Julius couldn’t argue with that. “Remember that dragoness I was trying to find?”

“The Three Sisters girl?” Justin said, his voice muffled by the towel he was using to dry the sweat from his hair. “You still haven’t found her?”

“No, we found her. That’s sort of the problem. We were taking her back to Ian’s when Katya’s sister Estella, the seer, arranged for her to be kidnapped by a human named Bixby in exchange for Marci’s Kosmolabe. He’s going to be contacting us in an hour, and if we don’t meet his demands, he’ll kill her.”

“The dragon or the human?” Justin asked, tossing the towel on the floor before walking back out into the living room.

“Both, probably,” Julius replied. “We’ve had one shootout with Bixby’s men today already. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a full—”

Justin nodded. “Got it.”

“How can you get it if I haven’t said it?” Julius snapped.

“What’s to get?” his brother asked, combing his short hair back into order with his fingers. “Kill humans, rescue dragon, done. Do we need to save this Kosmo-whatever, too?”

“Yes,” Marci said before Julius could answer. When he looked at her, she shrugged. “What? If Estella wants it, it must be important. We can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

By which she clearly meant any hands other than hers. “I don’t want to give anything up that we don’t have to,” Julius said. “But Katya is our first priority.”

Justin was grinning by the time he finished. “Good to see you taking the initiative for once,” he said, smacking Julius on the back. “Never thought I’d see the day. Now, let’s get you a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Julius coughed, trying to get his lungs working again after his brother’s punishing hit.

“Of course,” Justin said, kicking the trash out his way as he walked across the living room to a maglocked door on the other side. “What, did you think they’d just surrender if you asked politely?”

Julius shot him a dirty look, but his brother was too busy punching a code into the door’s keypad to notice.

“You ask for my help, we do it my way,” Justin said when the door clicked open. “That means assault, and assault means you have to stop being a wuss and come get a sword.”

“No offense, Justin,” Marci said. “But I’m pretty sure Bixby’s men are going to have guns. Last I heard, you don’t bring a sword to a gun fight.”

“Then you haven’t heard of swords like these,” he said, pushing the door open.

Marci gasped, and Julius felt a little overwhelmed himself. Behind the door Justin had just unlocked, a small room glittered like an ancient hoard under tastefully recessed lighting. Though clearly meant to be a bedroom, the walls and windows had been been replaced with reinforced cement slabs lined with metal shelving, and on those shelves was a display of wealth greater than anything Julius had seen outside his mother’s throne room.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he whispered. “That’s not…”

“Of course it is,” Justin said, stepping high over a bag of gold coins stamped with the faces of long-dead kings. “You remember how Chelsie was always going on about how keeping all your treasure in one place was risky and stupid?”

Julius nodded. Even locked up in his room, there was no way he could have missed the fit his mother threw every time anyone suggested moving so much as a coin of her hoard.

“Well,” Justin continued. “Last year, Mother finally gave in and agreed to start redistributing some of her less valuable objects. Most of the safe houses have rooms like this now, alternate treasuries just in case something happens to the main hoard in the mountain, and they are not to be touched.”

This last bit was directed at Marci, who was rushing the door in her hurry to get to all the sparkly, shiny beauty.

“I’m not going to take anything,” she protested as she stepped inside. “I just want to look.”

“So look from there,” Justin snarled, picking her up bodily and setting her firmly back on the other side of the door. “Minor treasury or not, this is all property of Bethesda the Heartstriker, and even a human should know how serious dragons are about their treasure. She’ll know the second you touch so much as a dust bunny, so if you don’t want your mortal life to be even shorter than usual, you’ll keep your sticky fingers to yourself.”

Marci huffed with disappointment, casting Julius a pleading look. When he spread his arms helplessly, she pointed at the far corner of the treasure room where an amber carving of an owl in flight had been propped haphazardly on top of a pile of velvet jewelry boxes. “Can you at least tell me what that one does? I can feel the magic pouring off it from here.”

Justin’s answer was a low growl, and Julius decided it was time to move things along before Marci got herself in real trouble. “What did you want to show me?”

“Not show,” Justin said. “Loan.” He reached up to grab an enormous jeweled sword off the weapon rack on the far wall. “Here, give this a try.”

Julius stared at the six-foot-long bar of sharpened metal and magical ornamentation with a sinking weight in his chest. “Justin, I can’t even lift that.”

“Oh, right,” his brother said. “I forgot you have baby arms.” He returned the large sword to its bracket and took down a pair of ancient looking jade hook swords instead. “What about these?”

“No,” Julius said again. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but I haven’t touched a sword since we were teenagers, and I wasn’t even good then. If you want to give me a weapon, how about a shotgun? Or a taser? You know, something point-and-click I can use without years of training?”

“Like Mother would ever keep anything so mundane in her hoard,” Justin said with a snort. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your training will come back once your life is on the line. Even if it doesn’t, you’re a dragon. We’re naturally good at killing stuff.”

“You’re naturally good at killing stuff,” Julius grumbled, leaning over Marci to look around the room for a weapon that would shut his brother up while still being light enough for him to actually carry. Unfortunately, everything in the corner by Justin was either huge or overly complicated. He was about to tell his brother to forget the whole thing when he spotted a familiar-looking golden hilt sticking out of a vase on the top shelf.

“There,” he said, pointing. “Get me that one.”

Justin looked deeply skeptical, but he got the sword down as requested. The moment the slender red leather scabbard came into view, Julius’s face broke into a huge grin.

“That’s it,” he said, holding out his hand. “That’s the one I want.”

“You can’t be serious,” Justin said, holding the weapon with his fingertips like he thought it might be contagious. “This isn’t even a sword.”

It was a bit short. The golden handle was large enough to fit comfortably even in Justin’s big hands, but the sheathed blade was barely more than a foot long. For Julius, though, that was a mark in its favor, and he opened and closed his palm in a grabby hands motion until his brother relented and handed the sword over.

“What are you going to do with that pocket knife anyway? Chop onions?”

“I could chop you,” Julius said proudly, unsheathing the short, razor sharp blade. “For your information, this is Tyrfing, forged by dwarfs for Odin’s own grandson to never miss its mark.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “You are such a nerd. How do you even know that?”

“Because I looked it up years ago,” Julius said with a sly smile. “Remember those knife tossing competitions when we were kids?”

Justin’s eyes went wide. “That’s how you beat me?” When Julius nodded, his brother's face contorted in fury. “I knew you cheated!”

“There was no rule against using enchanted weapons,” Julius said, smiling at his reflection in the sword’s mirror-bright surface. “I wonder how it ended up here, though? It might not be pretty, but Tyrfing is old. Even if she was redistributing her treasure, I’d have thought Mother would keep all the really good stuff back at the mountain.”

“She did,” Justin said, still scowling. “She just doesn’t consider swords to be ‘good stuff.’ Why else do you think she let us play with them? Jewelry’s another matter. Remember the time Jessica tried to touch one of her diamond tiaras?”

Julius remembered it fondly. “I thought her hair would never grow back.”

They both snickered. Marci, however, was still staring at the sword in Julius’s hands like he’d threatened to kill her with it.

“What I want to know is how a relic like that ended up with you guys at all,” she said, pointing at Tyrfing. “That’s an honest-to-God ancient artifact! A girl in my History of Lore class gave a freaking presentation about how the Tyrfing legend was a prototypical example of a cursed weapon cycle.” Then, like she’d just realized what she’d said, Marci took a quick step away from the naked blade. “Wait, isn’t Tyrfing cursed to kill a man every time it’s drawn?”

“Oh, that was broken ages ago,” Julius said, sheathing the sword again to prove it. “Mother would never let something as valuable as a still-functional cursed weapon out of her private hoard. I’m pretty sure she took it from another dragon during the centuries she spent in Europe preparing to kill her father the Quetzalcoatl and take his lands. Considering how plain it looks, though, I’m pretty sure the only reason she bothered to keep it is because it’s famous.”

“I don’t care if it’s a sharpened stick, so long as you actually use it,” Justin grumped. “You are going to use it, right? Because I’m not risking Mother’s stuff if you’re just going to stand around talking to everyone again.”

“I don’t think talking’s going to be an option this time,” Julius said sadly, undoing his belt and sliding it through the loop on the sword’s red scabbard. “But this should be good enough. Tyrfing might not be as powerful as it used to be, but it still never misses. So long as I know what I’m aiming at, all I have to do is swing and the sword will do the rest.” He grinned. “Sounds about right for my skill level.”

Justin made a disgusted sound and walked out of the small treasury, locking the door behind him, to Marci’s evident dismay. “So,” he said when they were all out in the living room again. “What’s the plan?”

“We haven’t gotten the location yet,” Julius said. “But we know it’s a trap. One for Marci specifically, set by a seer.”

“You pissed off a seer?” Justin gave Marci a scathing look. “That was dumb.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” she cried. “And she’s not pissed at me. She wants the Kosmo—”

“Well, if a seer’s pissed, I don’t know if there’s anything we can do,” Justin said over her, walking across the room to grab his shirt off the back of the couch. “They command the future. We might as well try to beat back the ocean.”

Julius frowned, thinking back to what Bob had told them in the car. “I don’t think that’s right. They don’t command the future any more than we do. They’re just able to see what’s coming.”

“And push you in front of it,” Marci added, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know, as much as I hate to say this, I think I might actually have to agree with Captain Bring Down. If seers really do work like Brohomir says, I can’t see how we’re going to win. If this Estella lady can see all our decisions before we make them, then it doesn’t matter how great a plan we come up with—she’s already seen it and thought up a counter.”

“Unless she knew we’d know she knew,” his brother added, pulling on his shirt. “Then she’ll have counters for both our best plan and the one we’re going to come up after that because we know that she knows the first one.” He stopped, frowning like he’d just confused himself. “This is too complicated. It’s probably best to just assume she has a counter for every contingency and leave it at that.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Julius said gently. “First, even a seer can’t plan for every outcome. There are millions of variables, it’s just not physically possible. Second, Bob said specifically that Estella was rushed, and therefore being sloppy.” And the more he thought about that, the more he realized that Bob’s seemingly random seer crash course in the car wasn’t random at all. He’d been feeding Julius the information he needed to make a decision, a decision a seer could see. And then he’d promptly left, probably so Julius could make his decision where Bob wasn’t blocking him, which meant whatever Julius decided, Bob had wanted Estella to see it, and…and…

And this was where seer plotting got to be too much for him. “Give me a second,” he muttered, pulling out his phone. When the AR flashed on, he pulled up the last message he’d received from Bob and began typing. Can Estella see us right now?

The reply was immediate. No. My brothers = my turf. This decision is purely for my own edification. Just try to forget I’m watching your every move while silently judging you and make the decision as you normally would based on the information provided. Thank You! <3 <3

Julius didn’t think the hearts were strictly necessary. Of course, he didn’t think any of this was necessary. This situation was hard enough without his brother getting all cryptic on him. Doing nothing wasn’t an option, though, and he turned back to Justin and Marci with a heavy sigh.

They’d been bickering about something he hadn’t been listening to while he’d been on the phone. When they saw him looking, though, they both went quiet, turning to him expectantly. That threw Julius for a moment. Marci he could understand—unless the subject was magic, she was generally happy to listen to his ideas—but Justin never looked to him for orders. Then again, the parts of being a dragon that required skills other than smashing had never had been Justin’s forte. He was probably just letting Julius do all the work of planning before he tried to take over. Whatever the reason, though, Justin was listening, and that made Julius more determined than ever not to mess this up.

“Estella’s moving quickly,” he said. “And no one, not even dragons, not even seers, can move fast without sacrificing something. She simply does not have the time to cover every contingency, and if we want to break her trap, our best bet is to take advantage of that. We need to do something she won’t have bothered to prepare for, something completely unexpected.”

His brother frowned. “You mean like crashing in through the roof?”

“Crashing in from any direction is exactly the sort of thing she’ll expect,” Julius said. “So is just going along and giving up Marci for Katya.”

“Does that mean we’re not doing that?” Justin asked, eying Marci, who’d gone very still. “Because trading a human for a dragon sounds like a pretty good—”

“No,” Julius snapped. “We’re absolutely not going to sacrifice Marci. In fact, I don’t plan to sacrifice anything. We’re just going to look like we have.” The first wisps of a plan were already taking shape in his head, and he turned to his mage. “Do you think you can make yourself a full body illusion and a strong ward in”—he checked the time—“twenty minutes?”

“The illusion shouldn’t be a problem if it’s just me and I can find a good source to pull off,” she said. “But what kind of ward are you talking about?”

Julius smiled. “One against bullets.”

Marci pursed her lips in an O and began digging through her bag for her casting chalk, dislodging Ghost in the process.

Justin jumped back with a curse as the see-through cat landed on his feet. “What is going on?” he cried. “Why does she need a ward against bullets? And why does your human have a dead cat in her purse?”

“I’ll explain everything in a second,” Julius said, clapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “But Justin, you’re a strong dragon, right?”

“Fifth strongest in the clan,” Justin said instantly.

Julius had no idea how he’d come up with that number, but it served his purposes nicely. “Wow,” he said. “That’s even better than I thought. Would you mind sparing some of that power, then? Just to speed things up?”

“What are you talking about?”

Marci, who knew exactly what Julius was talking about, looked up from the pizza boxes she was clearing off the floor with a wide smile. “Oh, he’ll do great! Bring him over.”

“Great for what?” Justin asked suspiciously. “What am I doing?”

“Helping Marci,” Julius replied. “I did it earlier today, but I wasn’t strong enough, and she really knocked me for a loop. I still haven’t recovered enough to do it again, so I was hoping you could step up. If you think you can handle it, of course.”

And just like that, an entire childhood’s worth of living with Justin paid off. “Of course I can handle it,” his brother snapped, puffing out his chest. “Anything you can do, I can do better. Now where do I stand?”

Julius stepped back to let Marci take over, grinning as she ordered his brother into the center of the spellworked circle she was drawing on the newly cleared stretch of floor in front of the couch.