Amelia placed a hand on her chest. “Hey, god here, remember? I see you when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake. I know if you’ve been bad or good, so do what I say, for goodness’ sake!”
Svena clenched her jaw. “First, that doesn’t even work with the song. Second, Santa Claus isnota god, so your comparison isn’t just stupid, it’s also incorrect. Third, this whole thing is invasive and disrespectful. I never gave you permission to read things out of my fire!”
“I can’t control what I see,” Amelia said defensively. “I just looked, and there it was. What was I supposed to do, not see it? Besides, this was your idea.”
“My idea was foryouto do the shuttle service!” Svena roared. “Do you know how much magic teleportation takes? I just laid a full clutch of eggs! You can’t expect me to teleport hundreds of dragons thousands of miles through magical fallout!”
“You’re the one who’s always claiming to be the greatest dragon mage in the world,” Amelia reminded her. “It’s put up or shut up time. Your secret’s already out, so we might as well use it not to die. And speaking of not dying, we need to get on that, because we’re racing against an unknown timer, and we’ve been standing around talking for, like, three days.”
They’d been here for thirty minutes tops, but the point must have been well made because, after several angry huffs of icy smoke, Svena threw up her hands. “Fine. But this isnotover, Planeswalker! I want to know exactly what you’ve seen of my abilities, and then I want to know about everyone else’s.”
Amelia snorted. “What happened to ‘Oh Amelia, how could you? That’s so invasive and disrespectful!’”
“It was,” Svena said. “Tome. I don’t care if you disrespect the operational security of other dragon clans. That’s just good intelligence.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Amelia said, turning to give Julius a wink. “Ice Queen and I will handle the dragon delivery. Can you get Heartstriker here on your own, or should I pull them in too?”
Julius looked at Fredrick, who nodded. “We’ll take care of Heartstriker. You and Svena bring in everyone else.”
“Not my clans,” the Golden Emperor said. “As I said before, they should already be on their way, and I wish to speak to all of them before this begins.”
“Just make it quick,” Amelia said. “I know you’re luck incarnate, but we’re on a schedule here.”
With that, she walked over to join Svena, who was already staking out a large section of dirt in what would have been Marci and Julius’s front yard if they’d had a yard. Or a house anymore.
“I guess that takes care of that,” Julius said nervously as he turned to Marci. “We’ll get everyone together and stall the Leviathan for as long as we can. How long do you think it will take you to line up what you need for the banishment?”
“That depends on how quickly Myron can work and how much help I can wrangle,” Marci said, glancing at General Jackson, who was already back on the phone as Myron whispered frantically into her free ear. “But I promise we’ll go as fast as we can.”
“I know you will,” he said. “You always do your best.” He looked down at her for a long moment after that, his inhumanly green eyes nervous, like he wanted to say something else but couldn’t. She was about to tell him to just spit it out when Julius swooped down and kissed her.
Even after last night, the move took her by surprise. She was so used to walking a narrow line on her feelings for Julius, she didn’t know what to do with herself now that it was all out in the open. But Marci had always been a quick study, and she got with the program in a heartbeat, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him back. She was getting even closer when a cleared throat made them both jump, and Marci whipped her head around to see Myron waiting a few feet away.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, tapping the cracked face of his wristwatch.
Marci felt her face turn beet red, but she didn’t apologize. Instead, she kissed Julius again, holding him close one last time before she reluctantly stepped away. “Good luck.”
“You too,” he said, giving her the thousand-watt smile that only came out when he wasreallyhappy. “We can do this.”
“We can do this,” Marci agreed as Myron pulled her away. She was still staring at him wistfully when the UN mage grabbed her shoulder and yanked her around.
“Ow!” she said, smacking his hand away. “What gives?”
“Everything’s going to give if you don’t pay attention,” he said angrily. “This is the end of the world, not romance time with other species.”
“If I waited until the world wasn’t ending, I’d never see Julius at all,” Marci snapped. Still, Myron had a point. “Okay,” she said, sneaking one last look at Julius before she put on her serious face. “What are we doing?”
“You tell me,” he said. “You’re the one with the plan.”
Again, fair point. “Right,” she said, scrambling to regather the thoughts Julius had just scattered. “The first thing we need to do is get back to the Heart of the World.” She paused, frowning. “Um, howdowe get back to the Heart of the World?”
“I usually just follow my spirit,” Myron said with a shrug. “The DFZ seems to be able to travel freely between both sides. For you, though, I have no idea.”
That made two of them. “Stay right here,” Marci said, backing up toward the house. “I have to have a quick meeting.”
“Make sure it’sveryquick,” Myron said, raising his voice in warning. “You put yourself at the center of this, Novalli. If you can’t pull it off, we’re in trouble.”
They were in a lot more than that if she couldn’t figure this out, but Marci wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t entirely sure of the details yet, but after everything else she’d been through, Marci was positive she could pull this off too. She didn’t have a choice. Failure was not an option, so she shoved the nagging doubts out of her mind and ran up the broken porch steps toward her spirit, who was still valiantly holding up the barrier that kept the rampant magic from cooking them all.
