“Oh, goody,” Raven said with a sigh. “Our survival depends on a vetting program written by the same humans who thought cutting off the magic was a great idea.”
“It’syourplan,” Marci reminded him. “And speaking of, we’d better get into some kind of position, because if this is going to work, it’ll work fast.”
“So what happens next?” Julius asked as Marci climbed onto his back.
Raven fluffed his feathers. “For us? Hiding. This whole thing depends on making Algonquin believe Myron has the Heart of the World under his sole control, and there’s no chance of that if she spies Little-Miss-Miracle-Merlin-Back-From-The-Dead running around.” He poked his beak at Marci. “I say we all get somewhere high and dry and watch the show.”
“What about my family?” Julius said worriedly. “They’re still fighting Algonquin, or at least they were.”
“Then you’d better tell them to stop,” Raven croaked. “The calmer she is when Myron talks to her, the better. We want her cocky and confident, not in a dragon-induced rage.”
That was a good point, but Julius still hesitated. He needed to warn Chelsie, but that meant leaving Marci behind, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to do that again. If he didn’t go, though, he’d leave his family in trouble, which he absolutely couldn’t do, especially since they’d flown into that trouble for him. He was warring back and forth between these two priorities when Amelia’s hand landed on his wing.
“Go,” she said gently. “I’ll keep an eye on Marci. You go get our sister out of danger. Bob didn’t reunite her with her lost love just so she could get herself killed.”
Julius’s heart clenched. “You really think that’s what Bob was doing?”
Amelia flashed him a smile. “I was never privy to that part of the plan since it happened after my death, so I can’t say for sure, but it fits his style. He might run you over a few times to get there, but Bob’s endgame is always worth playing. Trust me, he’s a good kid.”
Julius didn’t see how anyone who let their sister and her children suffer for six hundred years just to line up a coincidence qualified as a “good kid,” but Amelia’s words were still like water in the desert. All this time, through all the evidence to the contrary, he’d wanted so hard for Bob to be exactly what she said. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to accept someone who thought it was okay to run over you so long as he made it up to you later, but just knowing Bob had killed Amelia at her behest in the pursuit of greater power was alotbetter than what he’d thought for the last twenty-four hours.
It wasn’t perfect, but Julius was so tired of losing people, he was more than ready to take it. Especially since, if he could just keep Chelsie safe now, he wouldn’t actually have lost anyone at all.
“I’ll go get her,” he said, steeling his nerves.
“Atta boy,” Amelia said, helping Marci down off his back again. “Round ’em up and get to a safe distance. We’ll take it from here.”
Julius nodded, but his attention was already back on Marci. “Be safe.”
“I’ll be fine,” she promised. “I’m a Merlin now, and I’m with Amelia and Raven and everyone else. What could happen?”
“You were with a lot of powerful people the first time you died, too,” Julius said. “Including me, and I…I can’t take that again, Marci. I’m sure you can’t, either, but I just…”
He leaned down, resting his head against hers. “Pleasebe safe.”
She smiled warmly at him, rising up on her tiptoes to press a kiss against the short feathers of his nose. “I will,” she whispered. “Now go save your sister.”
He pulled away reluctantly, but as he was spreading his wings to take off, Raven flew in front of him. “One more thing,” the spirit said quickly. “Don’t breathe any fire.”
Julius hadn’t been planning to, but that didn’t make the warning less alarming. “Why not?”
“Because Myron wasn’t wrong. I don’t even need to go back to the Heart of the World to know the seal protecting us from a thousand years of magic under high pressure is hanging by a thread. This wouldn’t normally be a problem for you since dragons make their own magic, but now that you’ve got a spirit of your own, you’re in the drink with the rest of us, and that has consequences.”
He flapped in Julius’s face. “This is a team effort now, so don’t breathe any fire, don’t let anyone else breathe any fire, and whatever you do, donotlet the Qilin drop another one of his giant luck bombs. Good or bad, they’re horribly disruptive, and I don’t know if we can take one now that Amelia’s sunk all of you into the Sea of Magic.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Julius said nervously. “But I don’t know how I’m going to stop—”
“Don’t think,” the bird said, giving him a push with his claws. “Just do. Nowshoo. We don’t have much time left.”
Feeling more nervous than ever, Julius cast one final worried look at Marci and took off, flying as quietly as he could out of the Pit, through the holes in the broken Skyway, and into the smoke of the burning city.
Chapter 17
Algonquin’s millennia-old hatred of dragons was getting a lot of new ammunition.
She rode high over her lake, looking down from on high at the smoking city she’d built. The city thatshouldbe washed off the map again. But though the DFZ was heavily damaged, it had not yet fallen because of the three dragons in front of her. Two black, one gold.
And they wouldn’t die.
