As always, the Qilin didn’t move, but when his mother cried his name, the rampaging magic jerked. For a terrifying second, Julius could feel it rising up like a viper readying to strike. Then, just like before, the magic snapped, and the whole world shook.
Julius covered his head instinctively, but it wasn’t the Skyways he had to worry about this time. Those had already fallen, and no amount of bad luck could lift them up again. But though the ground was shaking, the roar in the air wasn’t coming from collapsing buildings or breaking cement. It was coming from the river.
The water had been sinking since they’d first dived into it to avoid the falling Skyways. When Julius looked back now, though, the entire half-mile-wide Detroit River had shrunk to the size of a stream, leaving acres of mud, debris, and flopping fish exposed to the air. Julius had no idea what had caused the dry-up, but the Qilin’s magic must have reversed it, because the missing water was now rushing back down the empty riverbed straight toward them in a wave of violent, muddy water twenty feet tall.
It waswide, too. That was the noise Julius had heard. The wave wasn’t just coming down the river. It was crashing through the riverside Underground like a bulldozer, picking up everything in its path—fallen debris, dumpsters, even whole cars—and sweeping it downstream, straight toward them.
“Chelsie,” Julius gasped, grabbing his sister. “We need to—”
He never got to finish. He barely had time to brace before the building-sized wave was on top of them, crashing over the collapsed bit of Skyway that protected the Qilin and his mother to slam down on Chelsie and Fredrick, but not Julius. By a stroke of luck, he was still standing where he’d been when he’d moved closer to the Empress Mother, which meant he was in the lee of the collapsed hunk of Skyway. The water didn’t even touch him thanks to the perfect angle of the fallen road overhead. It just poured down like a waterfall behind him, hiding Chelsie and Fredrick as they were washed away.
“No!” he cried, lurching forward before he came to his senses. The wave was still crashing. If he walked into it, he’d just be washed off, too. The only reason he hadn’t been swept away already was because he’d happened to be standing in the exact right place. Because ofluck, and the moment he realized that, Julius knew what he had to do.
Ripping himself away from the still-falling wall of water that had eaten his sister and Fredrick, Julius made a break for the kneeling emperor. He moved so fast, he actually made it to Xian’s side before the empress grabbed him.
“Stay away, Heartstriker,” she warned, her red eyes glowing like coals. “I don’t know why his luck spared you, but it’s over. There’s nothing more you can do.”
“There’s always something I can do,” Julius growled back, getting on his knees in the dirt beside the Qilin. “And it starts with talking to him.”
“To what end?” the empress said, moving so that she was physically between Julius and her son. “He’s gone. There’s no one left to hear you.”
“He heard you say his name just now.”
“That’s different,” she snapped. “I’m his mother. You’re no one.”
“Then you won’t mind if I try,” he said, reaching around her. But when he started to pull back the curtain of black hair that hid the Qilin’s face, the Empress Mother grabbed his wrist.
“Stop.”
Julius looked up at her, staring her right in the eyes. “No.”
“Arrogant whelp,” she snarled, digging her nails into his skin. “You think I won’t kill you?”
“Actually?” He shrugged. “I do.”
The empress sneered, but Julius wasn’t finished. “You said it yourself: the Qilin’s luck isn’t a precision tool. It’s an instinct lashing out at cues, as it did for you just now when you cried for help. But unlike you and Chelsie and everyone else here, the Qilin doesn’t care about me. At least, not on the deep, personal level he feels for the rest of you. I’m just another Heartstriker, one who’s done him no harm, and that makes me invisible.”
“And you think that will save you from me?” she growled.
“No, I think that really was luck,” Julius said. “Actualluck, as in I was standing in the right place at the right time. The reason I thinkyouwon’t kill me is simple: you haven’t already.”
“Then I will remedy that,” the empress hissed, letting go of his arm to wrap her hand around his throat. But even when her sharp nails bit into the soft flesh behind his windpipe, Julius didn’t flinch or fight. He just knelt there and took it, staring defiantly up at the empress until she was the one who looked afraid.
“What’s wrong with you?” she cried. “Defend yourself!”
“Iamdefending myself,” Julius said, letting his arms fall slack at his side. “The Qilin’s luck isn’t as uncontrollable as you claim. You’re trying to manipulate it right now. If I attack you, I make myself your enemy and get punished accordingly. But if I do nothing, I won’t be a threat, and his luck won’t care. You do, though, which is why I’msureyou won’t kill me, because if you could, I’d already be dead.”
The wrinkled hand on his throat began to shake. “That’s a dangerous assumption.”
“Not really,” he said. “I mean, I’m taunting you, and you still haven’t done it. I think I know why, too.” He smiled. “You said that Bob was the one who sold us out, and I’m the one dragon Bob can’t kill.”
The moment he saw her face go pale, Julius knew he was right. He still had no idea what game Bob was playing. For all he knew, the seer really had sold them all out. But if the Black Reach’s visit this morning had proved anything, it was that Bob’s investment in Julius was long term, and while his hatred of being a pawn was still very much there, Julius wasn’t above using it when the need was great.
And right now, the need wasverygreat. Two families were on the line, including the little dragoness, who was still in her grandmother’s arms, watching the flood with a child’s fearless interest. She deserved better than to be traded between clans like a war prize. Theyalldeserved better than this, so Julius held firm, trusting in his brother’s manipulations, if not his intentions, until, at last, the empress let him go.
“It seems you’re more of a dragon than you appear,” she said bitterly. “But knowing the rules of the game doesn’t make you safe. Brohomir warned me that ifIkilled you, Xian would die, but he never said anything about you falling victim to bad luck.”
“But I’m not going to have bad luck,” Julius said confidently. “Because I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to hurt him.” He nodded at the motionless Qilin. “I’m going to do what you should have done. I’m going to help your son stop this, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
