They all raised their hands.
“Motion passes,” Ian said, glaring at their mother as she shot out of her chair. “I trust future Council decisions won’t be this obnoxious.”
“That depends on you,” Bethesda said flippantly. “All of this voting and talking was your idea, not mine. Now, if we’requitefinished, get this cursed thing off me. You wouldn’t believe the ache this seal is putting on my poor wings.”
Seeing how she’d happily left him like that for a month and a half, Julius had little sympathy. But as fitting as it would have been to let her suffer, a promise was a promise. “Let’s go get Amelia.”
Bethesda cringed at the mention of her eldest daughter’s name. “Isn’t there someone else?”
Julius shrugged. “Not unless you want to owe Svena another favor. The seal Amelia put on you is too complicated for anyone else.”
“Assuming Amelia’s sober enough to manage it,” Ian added, glancing at his watch. “Itisnearly five o’clock.”
“It’s always five o’clock for the Planeswalker,” Bethesda said bitterly. “But if there’s one thing Amelia’s always been good at, it’s magic under the influence. So long as she’s not passed out, we should be fine.”
The truth of that made Julius wince. It was on his list to stage an intervention for his oldest sister soon. Right now, though, Amelia’s high-functioning alcoholism was the least of his worries. “I just hope she’s feeling well enough to manage it. Last time I saw her, she didn’t look so good.”
Not since Marci had died and taken half of Amelia’s fire with her.
“That’s nothing,” Bethesda said flippantly. “I cut Amelia in half when she was just a little older than you. It was supposed to serve as an example to the rest of her clutch, but she ruined it by surviving. Anyway, if she could live through that, she can live through anything. I’m more worried about her ‘accidentally’ sealing something else, the spiteful little snake.”
At this point, Julius wouldn’t mind if Amelia ‘accidentally’ turned their mother into a toad. Again, though, done was done, so he stood up and grudgingly motioned for Bethesda to lead the way.
“I can’t believe we have to go and find her ourselves,” she complained as they walked out of the throne room. “How dare Frieda and the others abandon their positions! Now nothing works.”
“I’m sure we’ll survive without the Fs,” Julius said. “We need to learn to run things for ourselves, and they deserve to fly free. All of them.”
He glanced pointedly at Chelsie’s Fang, which was still lying untouched on the balcony where she’d dropped it when she’d gone for their mother’s throat, but Bethesda was too busy rolling her eyes to notice.
“You say thatnow,” she growled as she yanked open the plain wooden doors that had been quickly installed to temporarily replace the ornate ones Bob had broken when he’d smashed his way into the throne room. “But when there’s no breakfast tomorrow, you’ll be singing a different—”
She stopped short. The throne room doors opened into the Hall of Heads, the long tunnel that served as both a display gallery for the taxidermy heads of Bethesda’s enemies and a lobby for the golden elevator that connected the Heartstriker’s peak to the rest of the mountain, including Amelia’s rooms one floor down. But though they were still a good fifty feet away, the elevator doors at the hallway’s opposite end were already rolling open to reveal an extremely nervous-looking Katya.
They must have spotted each other at the same moment, because the moment the white dragoness’s eyes met his, her expression changed to one of relief. “There you are!” she cried, running toward them. “I’ve been looking everywhere! I tried asking, but there was no one working the concierge desk. No one working anywhere, actually.”
Bethesda shot her youngest son an “I told you so” look, which he pointedly ignored. “I’m sorry you had trouble,” he said, stepping forward to greet his friend. “What can we do for—”
“Is it Svena?” Ian interrupted, pushing his way forward. “Is she ready to clutch?”
Katya’s nervous look returned. “Actually, she finished clutching just a few minutes ago.”
Which meant Ian was now a father. “Congratulat—”
“So why am I finding outnow?” Ian said angrily. “She promised she wouldn’t lay without me there.”
“She did,” Katya admitted, dropping her eyes. “But that was before.”
“Before what?”
The youngest daughter of the Three Sisters sighed. Then, like a soldier facing a firing line, she drew herself to her full height. “Council of the Heartstrikers,” she said formally, her blue eyes looking at them each in turn. “Svena the White Witch, Queen of the Frozen Sea, has commanded me to inform you that all treaties, agreements, and other friendly relations between our two clans are hereby dissolved. Furthermore, effective immediately, Ian Heartstriker is removed from his position as consort and banished from our clan. He is also banned from contact with Svena’s offspring, all of whom shall now be raised as members of our clan regardless of gender.”
The room was silent when she finished. Finally, in the scariest voice Julius had ever heard, Ian said, “What?”
“She doesn’t want to see you anymore,” Katya explained.
“I understood that much,” Ian snarled. “But that’s not her decision to make. Those aremychildren. She can’t keep them from me!”
“Forget the whelps!” Bethesda cried, shoving past him. “What about the defense of my mountain? Svena’s supposed to be protecting us from Algonquin. That’s the only reason I let you ice snakes in here in the first place!”
