“You’re his linchpin,” she said, staring at him like a predator in the dark. “I don’t know why, but all of his recent plots have revolved around you. I’m betting this latest one does, too, which is why, until my egg is safely back in my possession, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
He stared at her in horror. “You can’tpossiblythink I’m going to keep being Bob’s tool after this.”
“Your intentions are none of my concern,” she said, standing up. “But youarehis tool, and that makes you mine as well, because for all their knowledge of the future, seers aren’t gods. The only way they make things happen is by manipulating others, and since all of Bob’s strings seem to run through you, that makes you his weakness. Tell him off all you like, but sooner or later, he’s going to appear and shove you in a direction. When that happens, I’ll be there. I willfindhim, and I will take my egg back by whatever means necessary.”
The way she said that sent chills down Julius’s spine. He’d never seen his sister so deadly, and that was saying something. Julius wasn’t sure what had been the final straw—threatening her egg or taking away her hard-won freedom before she’d even tasted it—but Bob had clearly crossed a line, and Chelsie was going to make him pay for it in blood.
“You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
“Not unless he makes me,” Chelsie said coldly. “But I’m done being a pawn on his board. He and Bethesda have had me by the throat for almost my entire life. Now, thanks to you, I’m free, and as a free dragon, I will not tolerate the things I love being put in danger ever again.”
Every word she spoke sent Julius sinking deeper into his chair. And here he’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse. As angry as he was at Bob for all of this, though, he didn’t want his brother todie.Especially not by Chelsie. There’d been too much death already, too many tragedies. The whole point of making a Council in the first place was so family wouldn’t kill family anymore. That said, though, now was not the time to put himself in Chelsie’s way. She had every right to be angry over this, and as much as he wanted to talk her away from the violence he could feel radiating off her like heat, the instincts that had kept Julius alive through many bouts of dragon fury told him his best bet was to just let it go. So that was what he did, lowering his head meekly before his sister.
As always, the submissive play worked like a charm. The moment it was clear he wasn’t going to fight about it, Chelsie’s fury blew over, leaving her…not calm, exactly, but no longer on the edge of bloodshed, which was good enough. “Glad to know we have an understanding,” she said stiffly, sitting down again.
“You’re my sister,” Julius replied with a sincere smile. “I’ll always help you any way I can. That said, I promise I’ll call the moment Bob contacts me, so you don’t have to stay here and keep watch. I appreciate your company, but you’re free now. You should be off enjoying that, not babysitting me.”
It might have been his imagination, but for a moment there, Chelsie actually looked touched. The soft emotion vanished as soon as he spotted it, though, leaving only the usual hard, ruthless dragon glaring down at him as she shook her head. “I can’t. Not until my egg is safe. I appreciate the offer, though, which reminds me. I have a present for you.”
He blinked in confusion, but Chelsie was already navigating her way back through the maze of Bob’s hoarded room to the door. “It’s not much,” she said as she reached down to grab something off the floor of the hallway outside. “Just something I picked up to thank you for sticking it out and setting me free even after I told you not to and…well, everything really.”
Her voice was flawlessly casual, but the words still made Julius’s chest swell. “Thank you” wasn’t something that came easily to any dragon’s lips, especially one as proud and prickly as Chelsie. He was struggling to think up a reply that his jaded sister wouldn’t brush off as a mere platitude when Chelsie turned around to reveal the battered canvas shoulder bag she was holding in her hands. A veryfamiliarcanvas shoulder bag.
Marci’s bag.
“Where did you get that?”
“In the DFZ,” Chelsie said, walking back to him. “I went back there the morning after we ran. I’d hoped to retrieve her body, but Reclamation Land was seething like a kicked-over anthill. In the end, this was all I could grab. I was planning to use it as leverage to make you get out of bed, but you managed that on your own. I thought about not giving it to you at all after that. I wasn’t sure if it would be too painful, but I knew I’d want it if I was in your position, so…”
She trailed off with a shrug, holding out the bag. After almost a minute of staring, Julius took it with shaking hands, closing his eyes as his fingers slid over the familiar beige canvas stained burgundy at the bottom where blood had seeped in. Marci’s blood, filled with Marci’s scent.
After that, all attempts at decorum vanished. He clutched the bag to his chest with a sob, curling himself around it into a ball in Bob’s battered armchair. He was so lost, he didn’t even notice Chelsie moving closer until her hand landed on his back.
“I buried her,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t do much, just a shallow grave. I know that’s cold comfort, but at least you can rest knowing she’s not lying out in the open.”
His sister was right. Itwasn’ta comfort. “Marci deserved better.”
“She did,” Chelsie agreed. “They always do, but…this is how mortals end, Julius. No matter what we do, how hard we try, they always die. All we can do is remember them, and I thought if you had something physical to hold on to, it would help.”
Julius didn’t see how this pain could ever be helped, but he wasn’t about to let the bag go. “Thank you,” he whispered, curling himself tighter.
She pressed her palm down against his back. Then, like the shade she was named for, Chelsie was gone, leaving him alone. This time, though, Julius was glad of it. Awful as it was not to have something to distract him from the pain, he needed to be alone with the bag that smelled of Marci. Needed to be where no one could see him, and he didn’t have to be anything but empty.
That was where he stayed, curled up in Bob’s abandoned armchair in their soon-to-be-abandoned mountain, holding tight to the memory of a person who was never coming back.
Chapter 2
“So let me make sure I’ve got this right,” Marci said slowly. “I’m dead.”
“Correct,” her father said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she muttered, tilting her head back to look up at the endless dark.
She had no idea how long they’d been here. It felt as if she’d been crying forever, but eventually the tears had dried up. Now she and her dad were just standing next to each other in the infinite blackness, which, while not uncomfortable, definitely wasn’t where Marci wanted to be.
“So where are we, exactly?” she asked, arching her neck all around as she tried to find an edge or marker, something that would prove they weren’t actually standing in an endless void. “Is this some kind of limbo or—”
Hellwas her next guess, because she absolutely refused to believe this cold, dark nothing was heaven, but her father beat her to the punch. “We are inside your death.”
