Nice Dragons Finish Last

Chapter 17

When Julius had fallen through the roof and into the gym, he’d learned two important facts. First, falling is much scarier when you can’t fly, and second, there were things in this world that ate dragons.

On the way down, he hadn’t been able to properly appreciate just how big the thing trying to kill him was. After they’d hit, though, he could see every inch of it thanks to Bixby’s floodlights, and the sight made him wish he couldn’t. Monsters were supposed to be scarier in the dark, but at least up on the roof he hadn’t been able to see just how big the multi-faceted spider eyes staring down at him were, or the how the jagged fangs currently snapping at his throat were perfectly fashioned to puncture and rip. He could see it all now, though, and the sight of teeth flashing right under his chin sent instincts Julius had never known he possessed surging into action.

All at once, his body felt wrong, too small and too weak, his throat empty and cold without a flicker of fire. If his mother’s seal hadn’t been in place, he would have changed spontaneously for the first time in his adult life, but he couldn’t. He was blocked. He had no protections, no flame, just soft human flesh that the creature’s barbed talons cut into like knives through clay.

As the youngest, most bullied member of a violent family, Julius had been through a lot of pain in his life. Even in his worst fights, though, he’d never experienced anything like this. He could actually feel the tips of the creature’s claws inside his chest, holding him down while its teeth snared his neck for the deathblow. The shock of the bite was so intense, he couldn’t even get his hands close to the sword on his belt. But then, just when Julius was sure he was one heartbeat away from being just another stain on the floor, the whole building shook.

Even through the pain, the sudden jolt made him jump. The impact must have startled the monster, too, because it let go of his neck and looked up, raising its head just in time to lose it. The thing didn’t even get a final scream before its body went stiff, and then Julius felt hard hands slide under his arms to yank him to safety as the now-headless monster toppled over.

“You all right?”

Julius had never been so happy to hear his brother’s voice in his life. He was trying to stay as much when the roar of gunfire filled the room, a great deal of which seemed to be focused on Justin. That was wrong. The whole point of the plan was that the goons would waste their shots on Marci’s ward, but the bullets just seemed to be going everywhere. He should probably be concerned about that, but Julius couldn’t work up the energy to care. The moment Justin had yanked the monster off him, all the pain in his chest had vanished. He wasn’t even scared anymore, just empty, like he was floating in a void. He was about to say screw it and go to sleep when Justin shouted in his ear.

“Pull yourself together!”

His eyes shot open to see his brother looming over him with a scowl on his face and the Fang of the Heartstrikers naked in his hand. Bullets were bouncing off his shoulders and chest like hail, and though Justin didn’t actually seem to mind, Julius felt he should probably say something, just in case.

“You’re being shot.”

“Better me than you,” Justin said, dipping his sword down to bounce a stray bullet before it could land in Julius’s head. “Just stay still. That thing almost sucked you dry.”

It took Julius a good five seconds to understand what his brother meant. He’d been so glad for the lack of pain, hadn’t even realized he was missing magic. Now that Justin had pointed it out, though, the gaping hole in his essence was all he could feel. The emptiness in his head was no longer a floating, happy sort, but a sucking wound far more terrifying than the gashes on his chest, and he closed his eyes in panic.

“It’ll come back.”

His eyes popped open again just in time to see Justin flash him a reassuring smile. “I’ve taken much bigger hits to my magic and been perfectly fine five minutes later,” his brother said, turning back to the chaos going on all around them. “You’re just in shock and stuck as a human, which makes everything harder. Focus on breathing. Your power will fix itself.”

Julius nodded and closed his eyes, ignoring the bullets whizzing over his head as he tried to follow his brother’s instructions, because if there was anything Justin had experience with, it was recovering from damage. Sure enough, after a few quiet breaths, his magic began to expand again, creeping back to fill the void the monster had left.

The empty-headed feelings of detachment and weakness faded along with it, bringing back the sharp, immediate pain of his shredded chest. Even that was comforting, though. Pain he could work with, pain he understood, and while the ache was bad enough to bring tears to his eyes, Julius couldn’t help sighing in relief. Exceptionally short-lived relief, it turned out, because when he was finally stable enough to start paying attention to his surroundings again, the first thing he saw was Bixby tasing Marci.

He shot to his feet before he could think. Just rolled right up only to fall right back down again when the dizziness hit. But he was recovering with every breath, and the second time he got to his feet, he stayed there, looking around for Justin, who was no longer beside him.

After a few frantic seconds, he spotted his brother again on the other side of the room, kneeling down to scoop something onto his shoulder, but it wasn’t until he saw her pale hair that Julius realized it was Katya. The sight hit him like all the shots he’d avoided. Justin had Katya, which meant they’d done it. They’d gotten her back. They’d won.

Julius sucked in a victorious breath. Even with all the failures, his plan had worked. They had Katya! He wasn’t going to be eaten! Now all they had to do was save Marci from Bixby and—

His thoughts cut off when Justin turned and charged straight for him. For a moment, it looked like his brother was going to run him over, but Justin stopped just in time. “Good, you’re up,” he said, grabbing his arm. “Come on, we gotta go.”

“What?” Julius cried, eyes going back to Marci’s slumped body, which Bixby was hauling toward the gym’s rear door. “No! You have to rescue her!”

“Can’t,” Justin said, yanking him back toward the main door, which was currently packed with fleeing goons. “Bixby’s rigged Three Sisters here like a suicide bomber, and we’ve got magic eaters coming down our necks.”

Julius glanced up at where Katya was slung over his brother’s shoulders. Sure enough, a homemade bomb of plastic explosives was wrapped around her waist, but that didn’t explain the rest of it. “Magic eaters?”

His brother snorted. “Look up.”

Julius did…and immediately regretted it.

The hole in the roof where he’d fallen was now completely swarmed by more of the giant, winged monsters that had attacked him. They were crawling over the ceiling like roaches, hissing at the lights as they tried to get closer to the dragons in the middle. “What are those things?”

“I just told you,” Justin snapped. “Magic. Eaters.”

“Right,” Julius said, mentally rubbing the place where the chunk had been bitten out of his own magic. “But where did they come from?”

“They’re predators that eat magic, you’re a wounded dragon who’s bleeding all over the place. Do the math. Now let’s get out of here before things get worse.”

He turned to go, but Julius didn’t follow. He was too busy looking for Marci.

What he found wasn’t good. The taser must have been turned to max, because she still wasn’t moving. Bixby had dragged her almost all the way to the rear door by this point, one arm wrapped around her neck in a choke hold while the other clutched the bomb trigger against his chest. The rest of his men were in full retreat, throwing themselves at every available exit in their panic to escape the leathery winged monsters crawling down from the ceiling. A smart move on their part, and a stroke of luck for Julius, because with all his men jumping ship, Bixby was now alone.

“Hey!” Justin said, stomping back over. “Are you deaf? I said let’s go.”

“Not without Marci.”

His brother stared at him for a second like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and this his face got scary. “This isn’t the time to be stupid,” he growled, shifting Katya’s body higher on his shoulder. “We got what we came for. Dragon secure, clan war averted, mission accomplished, now let’s scram before we lose it.”

Julius held his ground. “I’m not leaving her.”

“Oh, come on!” Justin yelled. “She’s a mortal!”

“She’s my friend!” Julius yelled back.

“We don’t have friends!” his brother bellowed. “You want to play nice, you do it on your own time, but this is family business, Julius.”

He stopped, waiting for a response, but Julius had already turned away, and Justin cursed loudly. “Is this really the story you want me to bring back to Mother? That you had a clean escape with the Three Sisters’ girl in your hands, and you threw it away to save a human? There are nine billion of the bastards running around! I’ll get you another one. Now let’s go.”

“No!”

The word came out so loud, even Julius jumped. He didn’t regret it, though. He’d already made up his mind, and he’d had about enough of this. “It doesn’t matter what she is,” he said, staring Justin down. “Human or dragon or anything else. She’s my friend and my teammate, and I will not leave her behind.” He dropped his hand to his sword and turned back to face Bixby. “You don’t have to help me,” he said softly. “You don’t even have to stay if you don’t want, but don’t get in my way.”

Justin snarled in frustration and reached out to grab him, but Julius was already gone, racing across the gym with his hand wrapped tight around Tyrfing’s worn grip.

The sprint wasn’t his fastest. Even though he’d thrown everything he had at it, after the magic eater’s attack and this whole crazy day, there just wasn’t enough left to go around. He was still faster than the human Bixby, though, and that was what mattered.

The mobster swore as Julius appeared right in front of him. This close, he could see the panic in Bixby’s eyes, the absolute, up-against-the-wall, survival-at-all-costs battle going on inside him as he dropped Marci to turn his gun on the new threat. Another time, when he wasn’t so injured or out of practice, Julius could have dodged. Now, though, he didn’t have a prayer, so he ignored the gun and stayed on target, fixing his eyes not on the detonator clutched in Bixby’s hand, but on the hairy stretch of wrist between the mobster’s suit cuff and his gold-plated watch as he yanked Tyrfing out of its sheath.

Like it had been waiting for this moment, the short sword leaped into his hand. It flew up so fast, Julius wasn’t even sure it was flying in the right direction, but he didn’t try to correct its momentum. He simply kept his eyes on the mark, swinging his arm as hard as he could and trusting the cursed blade to do the rest.

A well-placed trust, it turned out. The moment the short blade was free of its sheath, it flashed and turned in Julius’s palm, jerking his swing up and sideways to land a perfect strike on Bixby’s exposed wrist. The ancient sword cut through bone and flesh without a whisper of resistance, slicing Bixby’s hand—and the detonator clutched in it—clean off.

The strike was barely finished before Julius lunged forward, catching the trigger as it tumbled from Bixby’s now lifeless hand just like he’d caught the falling water this morning. The moment his fingers made contact, he stabbed his own thumb down on the detonator button, pressing it back into place before the bomb could go off. It was such a marvelous save, such a perfect catch, he didn’t even realize he’d been shot until he heard the bang.

Julius dropped like a stone. His chest, already ripped to ribbons by the magic eater, was on fire all over again, though this time the pain was focused just below his left lung. He supposed he should be grateful that the shot hadn’t gone through his lung, but he was in too much pain to think about anything except holding on to the detonator. That he clung to for dear life. He was trying to roll over and curl himself into a protective ball around it when someone grabbed him unmercifully by the shoulders and laid him flat again with a snap.

“Of all the—” Justin growled, snatching Tyrfing out of Julius’s hand before the exposed blade could stab anyone. “It was one bullet, Julius!”

His brother’s bedside manner left much to be desired, but at least Justin’s scathing appraisal helped to remind Julius’s panicked body that it wasn’t actually dying. He was, however, in a great deal of pain, not to mention bleeding like a hose. But neither of these things would kill a dragon, even an awful one, and he was certainly doing much better than Bixby.

The mobster had collapsed after Julius sliced his hand off. He was now lying on the floor, gripping the stump at the end of his arm and screaming at the top of his lungs. Marci was down right beside him, coughing on her hands and knees. Any other time, that would have been a sorry sight. Right now, though, the relief of seeing her alive and whole was almost enough to make Julius forget the horrible pain in his chest, especially when she looked over at him and asked, “Are you okay?”

“He’s fine,” Justin snapped before Julius could open his mouth. “He’s just being a baby.” He kicked what was left of Bixby’s severed hand away with practical ambivalence before kneeling down to glare right into Julius’s face. “Honestly, who ever heard of a dragon going down to one bullet? All that big talk about not leaving anyone behind, and then you go down like a leaf at the first shot. You should be ashamed. I’m ashamed for you.”

“If anyone should be ashamed around here, it’s you!” Marci cried, yanking herself up on pure indignation. “What were you thinking, letting your injured brother get shot like that?”

“How was I supposed to know he’d be stupid enough to try and save you?” Justin roared.

Marci sucked in a furious breath, but Julius cut her off. “Can we talk about this later?”

Both of them snapped their heads down toward him, and Julius nodded at the ceiling, which was now crawling with magic eaters. A fact he had an excellent view of, being on his back.

The visual reminder worked as intended. Justin and Marci gave each other a final glare, and then they put their argument on hold as they burst into action. But while Justin leaned down to get Julius, Marci went for Bixby. The mobster made a few feeble attempts to keep her away, but he was too busy going into shock to run any real interference as she plunged her hand into the bag on his belt and pulled out the Kosmolabe.

“Really?” Justin said as he hauled Julius to his feet.

“Waste not, want not,” Marci said, shoving the golden orb into her bag. “Besides, the Kosmolabe is the whole reason Estella did this. I’m not just going to leave it here for her to scoop up.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Well, if you’re done collecting, can we go?”

“One last thing,” she said, reaching down to pick up the gun Bixby had dropped. Before Julius could ask what she meant to do with it, Marci turned the barrel on Bixby and shot him in the heart.

There was no warning, no hesitation. Even Justin jumped when the crack of the shot filled the room. The bang was still echoing when Bixby’s thrashing stopped, and he let out a last, gargling breath before falling still forever.

Marci let out a breath as well, bending over to set the gun back down on the now very bloody gym floor. “There, now we can go.”

Everyone was staring at her when she looked up again. “What?” she cried. “He killed my dad! He tried to kill Julius, and he was going to put me in a coma. He deserved that.”

“No argument here,” Justin said, hoisting Katya’s still-unconscious body back onto his shoulder from where he’d put her down to tend to Julius. “You’re a better dragon than he is.”

Marci didn’t seem to know quite how to take that. Julius wasn’t sure either, but he was very, very glad when she stepped in to support his other side. “Thank you,” he whispered, leaning on her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That’s my line,” she grumbled, sliding her arm around his waist to support his back. “You’re the one who got shot.”

“It was just one bullet.”

Marci shook her head and leaned closer, supporting more of his weight as the four of them—Justin carrying Katya on one shoulder and supporting Julius with the other—half ran, half hobbled to the gym’s main doors.

“All right,” Justin said when they got close. “This whole situation is FUBAR, and if you don’t want it getting more so, do exactly what I say. The magic eaters are predators. They’ll go for the wounded first, so we’re going to stay close and move fast. Marci, you keep Julius up. I’ll get everything else.”

“Right,” Marci said, pulling Tyrfing back out of the sheath on Julius’s belt.

Justin arched an eyebrow. “Can you even use a sword?”

“Nope,” she replied. “But that’s kind of the point of a sword that never misses, and it’s not like I can use magic at the moment.”

Now that she’d mentioned it, Julius realized he couldn’t feel any magic in the air at all. The dark, heavy aura of the Pit had vanished completely, leaving only a void that was somehow worse. No wonder his family complained so much about the days before the magic returned. The unnatural emptiness felt terrible. It also brought to mind a pertinent question.

“How many magic eaters do you think are here?” he asked as Justin lifted his foot to kick the press bar that opened the gym door.

“Not enough to take me,” his brother said confidently, smashing the exit open. “Just stay close and there won’t be any troub—”

He stopped short, causing Marci to bump into him. This, in turn, bumped Julius between them, jostling his wound hard enough to make him see spots. He was still blinking them away when Justin said, “Okay, this is a bit more than I anticipated.”

‘A bit’ didn’t begin to describe it. Back in the gym, Julius had assumed the magic eaters who’d come in through the ceiling had been the boldest, or at least the hungriest. Now, he was starting to wonder if they hadn’t just been pushed in by the rest. The area outside the gym was a solid carpet of magic eaters. The ground was literally black with their crawling bodies, and the beat of their wings in the air above was so constant, it actually raised a wind. Everywhere Julius looked, the darkness was moving, and he didn’t need his brother’s unusually serious scowl to know that they were in very real trouble.

Marci swallowed. “Should we—”

“No.” Justin swung Katya’s unconscious weight into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders to free his right arm to draw his own sword. “We’re going to do this quick, so keep that kitchen knife up. Julius, you hold tight to that detonator until we can tie it down. And try to stop bleeding so much. You’re only drawing more.”

Julius sighed. “I can’t just stop—”

“I’ll carry the girl and go offense,” Justin went on, rolling over him. “Ready?”

Julius started to say no, but Justin was already out the door. Marci dragged Julius after him a second later, sticking to Justin like glue as he raised his sword to cut a path.

Cut turned out to be the wrong word. Justin’s Fang of the Heartstriker never actually made contact. Apparently, he’d been right about the magic eater’s unwillingness to attack. Despite their exponentially superior numbers, they were clearly not eager to take on an uninjured dragon like Justin. They scrambled to avoid his blade whenever he swung, filling the dark with their horrible screeching as they flew out of reach, but not away. They would always land again a few moments later to rejoin the circling mass, their spider eyes glinting in the dark.

Despite Justin’s orders, it was slow going. Even with Marci’s support, Julius could barely walk. By the time they’d made it to the end of the sidewalk, he was ready to lie down and never get up. The only reason he didn’t was the magic eaters. He could almost feel their eagerness as they watched him limp past, and the memory of those sharp, cold claws digging into his chest was awful enough to overcome his exhaustion. Fortunately, they didn’t have much farther to go. They were already crossing the street to the parking lot where Bob was waiting for them, and none of these overgrown scavengers would dare mess with a dragon like Brohomir.

Holding that promise in his mind like a beacon, Julius made himself keep moving. One step at a time, he forced his feet up and down, ignoring the pain in his chest, ignoring the monsters snapping their teeth right behind him, ignoring how they seemed to be walking forever. He put all of it out of his head and pushed forward, keeping his eyes firmly on the dirty, broken ground in front of him, which was how he almost ran into his brother when Justin suddenly stopped.

“What?” he panted, slumping into Marci.

Justin shook his head. “He’s not here.”

Julius blinked, uncomprehending. “Who’s not here?”

“Bob!” Justin snarled, swinging his sword at the circle of magic eaters around them. “We’ve walked over the whole damn the lot now, and the car isn’t here.” He bared his teeth. “Bastard left us.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t do that,” Marci began, but she went quiet again when Julius and Justin shot her matching looks of disbelief.

“You had to stop and save the human, didn’t you?” Justin muttered, adjusting Katya on his shoulder. “Fine. Doesn’t matter. We can get out on our own, it’ll just be a walk.”

Julius couldn’t stop his grimace at the idea of more walking. “Isn’t there another—oof!”

His surprised gasp turned into a pained one as Justin was thrust into him, nearly sending them both to the ground. His brother recovered instantly, whirling around with his sword up, but the magic eater who’d shoved him had already scurried away. But one success leads to others, and a few seconds later, another magic eater worked up the courage to take a snap at Katya, actually cutting off some of her hair before Justin drove it back.

“We have to keep moving,” he growled. “The longer we stop, the bolder they’ll get. Now go.”

“Go where?” Marci said, bracing against Julius’s weight. “We can’t walk ten blocks like this.”

“We have to,” Justin said. “Just—”

His words transformed into a roar as a long, barbed claw shot out of the dark to hook his leg and yank it out from under him. Justin went down with a crash, taking Marci and Julius with him. For a second, he lay prone on the cracked asphalt, and then he came up swinging, lopping off the barbed claw—and the leg it was attached to—in one smooth strike. But the damage was already done.

The monster had barely scratched him, but the small stain of blood on Justin’s jeans sent the magic eaters into a frenzy. It didn’t help that the fall had reopened Julius’s wound, either. The double dose of fresh scent combined with the fact that all the dragons were now injured drove the creatures insane. Within seconds, their screeching had gotten so loud it was physically painful, and then, as though a signal had been given, the whole mass attacked.

Justin attacked back, dumping Katya on Julius as he swung his sword in a huge arc in front of them. The Fang of the Heartstriker sang through the air, cutting the magic eaters like paper wherever it touched them, and it wasn’t alone. In the confusion, Marci had thrown up Tyrfing with a squeak, closing her eyes as she waved the enchanted sword wildly.

The blade took things from there. Lighting up like a flare in the dark, Tyrfing turned expertly in Marci’s clumsy grip, slicing straight through a magic eater above her to cut it in two. It took out the one on her left next, sending that half of the attacking mob skittering back in terror, and Julius felt a rush of relief. Finally, something was going right.

“It’s not even dulled,” Marci said breathlessly, examining Tyrfing’s glowing edge. “They must not be able to consume imbued magic locked in through the enchanting process! I wonder if we could—”

A roar cut her off. While Marci had been fighting, a second rush of magic eaters had tried to swarm Justin. He’d broken free immediately, but not without cost. His shirt, already full of holes from the bullets, was now gone completely, and his bare chest was riddled with tiny cuts. He was breathing heavily, blowing out puffs of smoke with every pant, and Julius felt a fresh surge of dread rise up to join the ocean already roiling in his stomach.

“Justin,” he said softly, trying to go to his brother only to realize he couldn’t. He was still on the ground from his first fall with Katya in his lap where Justin had dumped her. He couldn’t even grab her to roll her over because his right hand was still wrapped around Bixby’s stupid detonator and he needed his left to keep his wound together. The situation was so ridiculous, he would have laughed if it hadn’t been happening to him. But it was, and if he didn’t want things to get even worse, he had to calm his brother down. Right now.

“Justin,” he said again, biting the name out with a snarl. The challenge got his brother’s attention at last, and he whirled around, eyes flashing dangerously. Julius dropped his own in reply, lowering his head in an attempt to look as meek and nonthreatening as possible, but that didn’t stop him from reminding his brother, “You can’t change here. This is the DFZ.”

Justin wiped the blood off his neck, flinging it away in a savage gesture. “I don’t give a—”

The rest of his words were drowned out by a scream Julius would never be able to forget for the rest of his immortal life. He didn’t know what had caused it, his own show of submission or Justin’s careless blood-flinging, but all at once, the magic eaters rose up with a high-pitched wail that echoed to the skyways and attacked as one.

In the space of a second, the whole world became a confusion of snapping teeth and clawing fangs. Julius didn’t even try to defend himself. It was all he could do to keep a hold on both Katya and the detonator trigger as the magic eaters began sucking his magic right out of him. The only good part was that the magic eaters didn’t seem to care about Marci. Julius was trying to figure out how he could get to her and his sword when the ground began to shake.

His first thought was an earthquake, followed by an explosion, and then a foolish hope that it was Bob coming to help them at last. The truth, however, was none of these. It was much worse, because by the time Julius realized the shaking was connected to his brother’s deep, bellowing roar, it was too late to do anything about it.

Flames burst through the darkness, and the magic eaters screamed, scrambling over each other in their panic. But there was no escape. Fire was everywhere, clearing a ring around them as Justin rose from the ashes that had been a pile of magic eaters.

He raised the Fang of the Heartstrikers at the same time, bringing the bloody edge of his sword to his mouth and biting down with a bone-chilling clang. The flash that followed was so bright that even Julius, who knew what to expect, had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, the human Justin was gone, and in his place stood an enormous, and enormously pissed off, dragon.

Something sharp dug into his shoulder, and Julius jumped before he realized it was Marci’s fingers. She’d scrambled to his side during the fire and was now gripping his arm like she meant to rip it off, staring at Justin with eyes so wide, they looked ready to fall out of her head. Julius didn’t blame her. If Justin had been his first dragon, he probably would have had the same reaction.

The Heartstriker clan was known for its beauty, not its size. Justin, however, was the exception to the rule. Even at twenty-four, he was already nearly forty feet from nose to tail, a heavy, winding snake of a dragon with a viper’s head crowned by a feathered crest. A pair of enormous, gloriously colored wings in blue, green, and gold extended from his feathered back, and his tail was a long whip of trailing plumage. All of this was supported by four thin, scaly, but enormously strong legs that ended in raptor-like feet tipped with curving talons, which were currently digging into the scorched parking lot like the asphalt was freshly turned dirt. But while his claws were definitely not to be messed with, it was his brother’s fangs that made Julius shiver.

Now that Justin had cast all illusions aside, his sword had followed suit. The Fang of the Heartstriker was a blade no longer, but a bone-like shell encasing Justin’s front fangs. Magic poured off them, filling the empty air with the sharp, biting fury of the Heartstriker’s power. Any wounds Justin inflicted with those teeth would never fully heal, and when the fire spewing out of his mouth passed them, the blaze changed from yellow to the brilliant green flame that had once made their grandfather the most feared dragon in the Americas.

By this point, the magic coming off Justin was so intense it was almost dizzying. But when he turned that green fire on the magic eaters, they did not feast as they had on Julius’s blood. They fled, surging into the air with a chorus of terrified wails.

Justin followed with a roar that cracked the blacktop, launching off the ground with a flap that nearly blew Julius over. By the time he’d righted himself again, Justin was high overhead, burning the magic eaters out of the air with gouts of green flame until the ashes fell like snow over the three remaining figures huddled together in the now-empty parking lot.

“Julius,” Marci whispered, her face lit up by fire and wonder. “He’s a dragon.”

“Yes,” Justin said, looking down to check on Katya, who was still somehow asleep. “We’ve established this.”

“A real dragon,” Marci clarified. “With fire.”

“He’s a dragon flying around and breathing fire inside the Lady of the Lake’s city,” Julius said heatedly, bracing against the pain as he tried and failed to pick Katya up. He tried again anyway, growling in fear and hurt and frustration and a thousand other things. Chelsie was going to kill them all for this. “We have to find some way to wake Katya. There’s no way we can move fast enough with her like this. Can you see if she’s under a spell? That’s the only thing I know of that could keep a dragon unconscious this long.” He paused, listening for a reply. When he heard nothing, he looked over to find her still staring at the sky. “Marci,” he snapped. “This is kind of important.”

She nodded absently, eyes never leaving Justin. “Do you have feathers like that?”

Julius sighed. Clearly, she was going to be no help at all until her curiosity was satisfied. “Yes,” he said quickly. “All Heartstrikers have feathers. It’s why we’re called feathered serpents. I look like Justin, but much smaller and with a different coloration and no green fire. Now, can you please check to see what’s making Katya sleep?”

Marci blinked like she was hearing him for the first time, and then, to his relief, she dropped down to examine Katya. A few seconds later, she pulled up the dragoness’s sleeve to reveal a silver chain wrapped around her bicep. “Here, there’s a spell on this.”

Julius wanted to slap himself. Of course Estella would know about the chain. For all Julius knew, this was the reason Svena had given it to him in the first place. The only question was what kind of a moron was he for not figuring it out earlier? When he grabbed the chain to yank it off, however, a wave of drowsiness swept over him, nearly taking him under as well before he snatched his fingers back. Apparently, the spell was now activated. He was about to ask Marci to give it a try when he heard the squeal of tires in the distance.

He froze, listening. Considering the show Justin was putting on, his guesses were evenly split between bounty hunters, a news crew, or, if they were really unlucky, one of Algonquin’s anti-dragon task forces. When he didn’t hear any shots, sirens, or excited screaming, however, Julius dragged himself up on his knees to try and see what was actually coming, and was subsequently nearly run over when Bob power-slid his Crown Victoria around the corner and into the parking lot.

“Bob!” Julius cried, clutching his chest, which felt in danger of collapsing under the combined weight of injury and shock. “What are you doing?”

“Helping,” Bob said cheerfully, hopping out of his car. “Or didn’t you want help? Because I can go.”

That was enough to nip Julius’s anger in the bud. “I’m always happy to receive any help,” he said humbly. “Yours most of all. Thank you.”

Bob sighed. “So beautifully said, but why isn’t Katya awake yet? She’s supposed to be awake. We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Working on it,” Marci grumbled, ripping off the duct tape Bixby had used to secure the chain to Katya’s arm.

“We need to get the vest off her, too,” Julius said, showing Bob the detonator he was still clutching in his hand. He’d been holding it so tight for so long now, his fingers had started cramping. Before he could explain the bomb to his oldest brother, though, Bob leaned down and yanked out one of the wires seemingly at random.

Julius felt like he was having a heart attack. “What did you just do?” he cried. “That could have—you would have—how did you know that was the right one?!”

“I don’t know!” Bob cried back, slapping his hands to his face in an exaggerated expression of horror. “It’s almost as though I can see the future!”

“Oh,” Julius said quietly, shoulders slumping as he looking down at the detonator in his hand. “Right. So I guess I can let go of this, then?”

“Only if you want to,” Bob said, scooping Katya up and stripping off the bomb vest before tossing her into the Crown Vic’s back seat like a sack of potatoes. “Right, then! Let’s get going, because between you and me, this place is about to get very crowded.”

He looked pointedly at Justin, still flaming in the sky, but Julius didn’t need the hint. He was already turning to tell Marci to get into the car…and found only empty space.

At this point, Julius would have thought it impossible to panic any more than he already was, but the sudden lack of Marci sent his brain into overdrive. “Marci!” he shouted, whirling around. “Marci!”

“Just a second.”

Her voice was like a balm, sending relief running through his body. The feeling was short-lived, though, because when he finally spotted her, she was crouching on her hands and knees all the way back at the edge of the blackened circle where Justin had first shifted.

“What are you doing?” he yelled, running over to grab her by the shoulders. “Come on! We have to go.”

“But it’s gone!” she said frantically, yanking out of his hold. “It was in my bag back in the gym, and now it’s gone.”

He stared down at her, uncomprehending. “What’s gone?”

“My Kosmolabe!” she cried, pressing her cheek against the ground so she could look along the asphalt at foot level. “It must have fallen out when the magic eaters jumped us. Just give me thirty seconds to find it and—”

She cut off as Julius pulled her up, spinning her around to face him. “We don’t have thirty seconds.” he said, forcing his voice to be calm. “We’ll come back later and look together, I promise, but we’re going to be up to our necks in serious trouble if we don’t leave right now. So please, Marci, please let it go. For me. Because I’m not going to leave you here, and if you stay, we’re all in danger.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her whole body shaking with urgency, and then she went limp under his hands. “Okay,” she whispered, sliding her bag back onto her shoulder. “Okay.”

Relief flooded into Julius so fast, he almost fell into Marci in his rush to hug her. He didn’t think it was possible to properly process all the emotions stomping through him like a herd of elephants, so he didn’t take the time to try. He simply squeezed Marci tight before tugging her back toward Bob’s car, almost yanking her over in his rush to get them both inside and out of danger. But then, just when he was starting to believe they might actually all make it out of this alive, Justin’s flaring green fire that had been illuminating the Pit from above suddenly snuffed out.

Julius stumbled, his head snapping up, but he couldn’t see a thing. The Pit was once again as black as its namesake, and there was no sign of his brother at all. Not a flame, not a roar, not a flap of his wings, not even the squeals of the magic eaters as they died. Nothing. It was like he’d just vanished.

He was still staring up at the silent void where Justin had been when something whooshed by in the blackness—something enormous and incredibly fast. The only reason he spotted it at all was because he was already looking up, and even then, he didn’t catch more than an impression of power and speed before the thing was gone, vanishing into the dark like a hunting owl. He was still staring after it when his phone began to ring.

He answered it without really thinking. By this point, the pain and repeated shocks had rendered his brain nearly useless. He barely noticed when Marci grabbed his arm and pulled him into Bob’s back seat between herself and the now-stirring Katya. As luck would have it, the call picked up just as Bob hit the gas, knocking them all backwards and sending Julius’s phone clattering to the floor. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the roar that came through the cell phone’s speaker would have deafened Julius otherwise.

“Do you idiots listen to nothing I tell you?”

The feminine voice was so furious, he almost thought it was his mother, but that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t high-pitched enough, and there was a brutal edge on the words that Bethesda could never manage. It wasn’t until Bob drew a C in the air, though, that Julius was able to put a name to it. Not that that made things any better.

He scooped the phone off the floor with a sinking heart, leaning back into the Crown Vic’s padded cushions for strength as he raised it to his ear. “Hello, Chelsie.”

“I specifically warned you not to do anything that would bring the Lady down on us,” his sister snarled, making him wince. “That includes letting your moron of a brother run rampant breathing fire over a city like some throwback from the dark ages!”

Julius swallowed. “I can’t exactly control what Justin—”

“I know that!” Chelsie shouted. “And it’s the only reason you’re still alive. Justin might not be so lucky.”

Her voice had turned into a growl by the end, and Julius began to sweat. “Is, um, is he okay?”

“At the moment, yes, because I snatched him out of the air before he could get himself killed. But I can’t vouch for his wellbeing from this point forward. I have very little patience for idiots”—there was a sharp crash over the phone, followed by a pained bellow that sounded a lot like Justin’s—“who lose their tempers”— another crash—“and use the power they were given for the defense of the family”— another bellow of pain—“to make a spectacle of themselves in the Algonquin’s front yard!”

Justin’s pained cries went through Julius like spears. “Please don’t be hard on him,” he begged. “It’s my fault. I asked him to help. He would never have—”

“Justin doesn’t need your permission to be a fool,” Chelsie said, her voice wavering back toward human, but only just. “He has been warned numerous times, but his head is like a rock. Now, he’s going to learn the hard way why we do not break the rules, and you are going to keep your snout out of it. The only reason I’m even calling you is to make sure you’re running. The Lady of the Lakes would have to be deaf, dumb, blind, and asleep to miss a display like that, so if you don’t want the family to disavow all knowledge of your existence, you will get your lousy carcass out of the Pit this instant.”

“We’re running,” Julius assured her.

“Good,” Chelsie said, slightly calmer. “Let me talk to Bob.”

Julius looked up to see Bob frantically shaking his head. “Uh…he’s not—”

“I know he’s there,” Chelsie growled. “Put him on now.”

Bob’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and he reached back for Julius to give him the phone. When he got it, he pressed it between his shoulder and his ear, answering in a voice so falsely cheerful, it put Julius’s teeth on edge. “What a delight! A call from my favorite sister. How are you, Chelsie love?”

Julius couldn’t make out Chelsie’s answer from the back seat, but her tone didn’t sound nearly as pissed as he would have expected given Bob’s greeting. Then again, Chelsie had known Bob much longer than he had. Maybe she was too used to his antics to care? He was wondering if he shouldn’t take a page from her playbook when he felt Katya stir beside him.

He turned just in time to see her sit up in a rush. Her blue eyes popped open, looking around the car in frightened confusion, and then in horror when she spotted Bob in the front seat. “What is going on?” she whispered, turning to Julius. “Why are we in a car with the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers?” Her eyes dropped as she spoke, and she recoiled, pressing her back against the door. “What happened to you?”

Between the dark and the constant panic, Julius hadn’t actually had a chance to look at his wounds properly. He did so now, tilting his head down to study the shredded bloody mess that, this morning, had been a brand new shirt. The longer he looked, though, the more he realized that wasn’t quite right. Most of his shirt had been ripped away during the fighting, which meant the torn-up, far-too-bloody thing he was looking down at was actually his chest.

With that awful realization, the world officially became too much. After all the shocks, attacks, and blood loss of the last hour, he simply had nothing left to pull on, and Julius passed out on the spot, slumping back into the seat with Marci’s frightened shout ringing in his ears.