“My son,” she whispered, reaching up to cup Fredrick’s face. “My oldest, cleverest son. I hate the events that brought you into this world, but I’ve loved every single one of you from the moment you hatched, and I…”
Her voice cracked after that, but Fredrick didn’t say a word. He just stepped forward, wrapping his arms around his mother. Chelsie held out for a few more seconds, and then, like a dam breaking, she threw her arms around him as well, her whole body shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you, Fredrick. All of you. Your suffering was all my fault, and I’m sorry. I’m so, sosorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Fredrick said, hugging her hard. “You were the one who protected us. When the rest of the clan treated us worse than the human servants, you cared for us and taught us and kept us together. Even before we suspected the truth, you were always our mother.”
That last part set Chelsie sobbing all over again, and Julius decided it was time for him to go. This was a private family drama, but it wasn’t his anymore, and he didn’t want to intrude. But while that was a perfectly polite excuse, the truth was that he didn’t want to deal with painful, irrational jealousy that came from seeing Fredrick hugging a mother who honestly and wholeheartedly loved him. He might not envy the F any other part of his life, but Julius would have traded mothers with him in a heartbeat.
He was still brooding over that as he stepped into the dark hallway outside Bob’s room. But as he leaned against the wall to wait, his phone buzzed in his pocket. For an irrational moment, he hoped it was Bob. This was the sort of dramatic timing the seer lived for, and even if the source couldn’t be trusted anymore, Julius would gladly welcome any hint at the future.
When he pulled the phone out of his pocket, though, the ID that popped up wasn’t the Unknown Caller. It was the one that never failed to make his heart sink, and Julius couldn’t even look at it now without feeling like the target of some special brand of universal irony as he raised the phone to his ear.
“Hello, Mother.”
The greeting came out even sourer than usual. But while he was sure Bethesda noticed, she gave no sign that she cared. “Where have you been?”
“With the Qilin,” he answered, which was true enough. “I met his mother first, but then—”
“Never mind that,” she said impatiently. “Get to the main hangar as fast as you can. I’m already on my way down.”
“Why?” he said, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” she said with a mirthless laugh. “But at this particular moment, it’s Ian. He’s coming home.”
“Now?” Julius said, checking the time. “But it’s only six. The surrender’s not until nine a.m. tomorrow. Didn’t you send him the message to stall?”
“Oh, I sent it,” she growled. “But it seems there’s been a change in plans. Considering how badly the rest of the sky is falling, though, there’s a chance this might actually work in our favor.”
Julius didn’t see how that was possible, but he knew better than to ask over the phone. His mother would tell him when she was ready, which would probably be as soon as Ian arrived with whatever undoubtedly bad news he was bearing. “I’ll be right there.”
“Hurry,” she snapped. “Main hangar. Five minutes.Don’tbe late.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “And Mother…”
“What?”
Julius sighed. “Nothing. I’m on my way.”
She hung up before he could finish, leaving him standing alone in the empty hallway, talking to no one.
***
The main hangar was one of Heartstriker Mountain’s many side buildings. Located just off the runway Bethesda had built to keep her remote desert citadel connected to the rest of the world, it was big enough to house both of the clan’s private jets. But since Ian had taken the newer plane to Siberia, and Conrad had made off with the backup last night, the giant metal building was empty when Julius walked in except for Bethesda herself.
“Took you long enough,” she snapped, tapping her alligator-skin stilettos in a nervous rapid fire against the cement. “Did you crawl down here?”
Considering he’d made it all the way from Bob’s cave at the top of the mountain out to the hangar, a total journey of a mile and a half, in six minutes flat, Julius didn’t dignify that with a response. “Where’s Ian?”
Bethesda nodded through the open door at the brightly lit runway. “About to land.”
The words weren’t out of her mouth when Julius heard the low rumble of a jet coming in fast. That was all the warning they got before a plane broke through the low clouds like a rocket. It touched down a few moments later, skidding onto the runway faster than any vehicle should ever hit the ground. If it had been a traditional jet, that would have been the end, but Bethesda spared no expense with her private planes, and the custom AI pilot managed to save the landing by spinning the jet out into the soft dirt at the end of the runway. Proper dragon that he was, Ian had the rear door open before the almost-crashed plane finished moving, jumping the ten feet from the hatch to the ground as easily as a normal person would step off a curb.
“Do you mind?” Bethesda yelled over still-spinning engines. “That’s my custom suborbital Gulfstream you just put in the dirt!”
Ian shot her a murderous look. Everything about him looked murderous, actually, which was even more alarming than the botched landing. If the normally collected and calculating Ian looked this upset, things were a whole new level of bad. Even Bethesda picked up on it, stepping back to give her seething son space as he stalked down the pavement toward the hangar, motioning for them to follow him inside. Nervously, Julius did, ducking under the rolling door along with his mother before Ian slammed it down.
Bethesda eyed the jangling metal warily. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
