Ugh, she thought. “Mathis, stop it—”
Except it had been years since they play-fought like that. Years that slammed into her like a truck, in the split second between waking thinking she was still a cub being ambushed by her fuzzy twin and remembering who she was now.
Not the sort of sister anyone would play-fight with, in case she took their head off in revenge.
She tensed. Then something bit heragain,and Julian murmured something.
Julian.
HerJulian.
She wasn’t a cub any longer. And she wasn’t the Francine she’d spent so long hating and fighting her hatred for, either.
She opened her eyes. Julian leaned over her, love in every line of his face.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“Barely.” She winced. “Something keeps biting me.”
“Ah. I apologize for my niece.” There was no apology in his voice, only fond delight.
“Your niece?”
She pushed herself up on her elbows. A glittering snout peeked up from her blankets, fixing her with golden eyes. “Preep!”
“Her name’s Maggie.”
“Maggie?”
“Short forMagpie.I understand she’s spent most of her time out of the egg thus far stealing as many shiny objects as she can get her claws on.” He smiled. “It’s not a traditional shadow dragon name, but it is a perfectly draconic sentiment. For a perfect draconic child.”
Maggie preened at the attention. She clearly agreed that she was the perfect draconic child.
Looking at her, and watching the anxious wonder with which Julian treated her, Francine had to agree.
Maggie bounded over to the side of the bed and chirruped, drawing her attention to a plate of food. Not the pickled and dried contents of the shadow dragon store rooms, but…
“Pastries?” she asked.
“The kraken took over our kitchens,” Julian said dryly.
“The kraken—” She bit into apain au chocolat. It melted on her tongue. *Is a chef?*
“Apparently so.”
Maggie demanded a tax of half the pastries. The chef must have expected that; there were enough for Francine to eat her fill, and Maggie, and more left over for her to urge Julian to eat.
Francine looked around. She was in the same bed she’d woken in the first day in the fortress. Before … everything.
“What happened?”
She was asking the wrong question, but she didn’t know that until their eyes met.
And the question he answered was the right one.
“We’re alive,” he said softly. “Everything I feared would come to pass has done so.”
“The Soul-Eater escaped.” She winced. “I’m sorry—”
