“What was that?” Bethesda asked, cupping a hand to her ear. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my children saving your piebald hide.”
“Considering some of those children are mine, I think I have a right to complain,” Arkniss snapped. Then he gave her a smile. “Though I always did like your sharp tongue.”
Julius’s face went scarlet as his mother blew the black dragon a kiss, and Amelia rolled her eyes. “Can we save the inappropriate innuendo until after we get out of mortal peril?” she groaned. “If we have to wait around for all the ‘your mom’ jokes, the Leviathan’s going to eat us before we get off the ground.”
“I agree,” said Marlin Drake, stepping forward, which made Julius step back.
It was a silly reaction. As leader of the clanless dragons, Marlin Drake had no family magic of his own. He was merely the head of a coalition of outcasts, most of whom had only banded together to keep stronger clans from hunting them down. The other dragons in the circle were far more powerful, but while Drake’s pedigree was technically the lowest, he was still the most famous individual Julius had ever met in person.
As the first dragon to go public after the return of magic, Marlin Drake had rocketed to worldwide fame with countless movies and television shows. Sixty years later, he commanded his own media empire, running three major networks in addition to hosting what was still the world’s highest-rated weekly talk show. Bethesda watched religiously and had been a regular guest on the program for decades. Even Julius, who tried his best to stay out of politics—draconic or human—had seen more episodes ofSaturday Night With Marlin Drakethan he liked to admit. But despite his mother’s patronage, he’d never actually met the ludicrously famous First Dragon in Television. That made seeing him now surprisingly intimidating since Drake was even more charismatic in the flesh than he was on his show, a feat that didn’t seem physically possible.
“It’s Julius, right?” the handsome dragon said, holding out his hand with a well-timed toss of his television-perfect blond hair. “With a J?”
“I don’t know what else you’d spell it with,” Julius said nervously. “But I—”
“How wonderful to meet you,” Drake interrupted, grabbing Julius’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “And nice work bagging the first Merlin, by the way. You must have a serious eye for talent.”
Julius’s face began to heat. “I—”
“I’d love to have her on my show when this is over,” Drake went on. “And you as well, since you’re the point man on all this. Speaking of, how long do you think it’ll be before your girl lands her banish? I’ve got a full helicopter camera crew ready to capture the whole thing for my exclusive report, but they’re grounded at the moment due to magical interference, and I’d hate for them to miss the action.”
“There’s nothing for your humans to miss, you vain idiot,” Svena snapped, stabbing her finger up at the towering, shadowy form of Ghost, who was still holding the barrier for them even though Marci was gone. “No onecan fly right now, thanks to this mess. If it doesn’t clear soon, we’ll still be down here clicking our scales when Algonquin’s End kills us all!”
“It’d better hurry up,” Bethesda said irritably. “What’s the good of gathering everyone together if we can’t set a claw outside this dirt pit without getting crushed?” She looked down at the half-frozen mud coating her golden boots before turning her sneer on Julius. “Why did you live here again?”
Because she’d made him, and because it kept him away from her. “It was a good base,” he said instead. “It still is.” He nodded at the crowd of dragons surrounding them, none of whom were even pretending not to be listening. “We have every dragon in the world here now, and the Leviathan still hasn’t noticed us. I think that’s pretty impressive.”
“Or telling,” said She Who Sees, the dark-skinned dragoness whose extended family claimed most of the African continent. “He could be ignoring us because he knows we’re not a threat.” Her sharp black eyes flicked to Julius. “You said that thing was from beyond our plane. Are you sure we can fight it?”
“Actually, the bigger it gets, the more effective we become,” Amelia said authoritatively. “Normally, the Leviathanwouldbe outside of our ability to hurt physically. We’ve all tangled with it before in various scuffles over the DFZ, so I’m sure we all remember just how impossible those shadow tentacles were to fight. Now, though, it’s using Algonquin’s magic to shove itself into our plane. That means the Leviathan is covered in spirit magic, and we all know how well spirits burn.”
The other dragons smirked appreciatively at that, and Julius let out a breath in silent thanks that Marci wasn’t here. “The point is, wecandamage it,” he said. “Maybe not enough to defeat it, but that’s not our job. All we have to do is keep the Nameless End from sucking up the last of Algonquin’s water for the few hours it will take Marci to prepare her banishment.”
“A few hours is a long time to fight something we cannot defeat,” the Qilin said warily. “Especially when we cannot even take off yet.” He lifted his golden head to the hole in the roof where the black tentacles were moving faster than ever. “It’s gorging itself on her magic as we speak. By the time we can fly, it might already be too late.”
“We can make it,” Julius said forcefully. “All the spirits and mages have assured me that the magical fallout is dropping, and there’s alotof Algonquin left to drink. It doesn’t matter if we only stop him from getting one bucket’s worth of her water. So long as we keep that last gallon safe, the Nameless End can’t fully take over Algonquin, and we still have a shot.”
He hoped, anyway. This was Marci’s plan, and he trusted her with his life, but even as he sold her strategy to the others, something about it still didn’t sit right with Julius. No matter which way you cut the problem, Algonquin was always the one at the heart of it, and yet she was the one factor everyone seemed happy to ignore. Even Marci’s solution was only to banish her magic. It didn’t touch on the spirit herself. Considering Algonquin’s despair was the cause of this entire crisis, that felt like a mistake. But while Julius was torn, none of the other dragons suffered his misgivings.
“Well,I’mlooking forward to it,” Svena said with a proud lift of her chin. “Algonquin shot my mothers out of the sky. Vengeance is overdue.”
“Please,” Bethesda said, rolling her green eyes. “You’ve been praying for your mothers to die for centuries so you could take over.”
“That doesn’t mean I can leave their deaths unanswered,” Svena snapped. “Some of us still have honor.”
Bethesda rolled her eyes again, and Julius reached up to rub his temples. “Whatever our reasons, the goal is clear. If Leviathan gets full control of the Great Lakes, everything is done for. Wemustprotect Algonquin’s remaining water at any cost, but the area we have to cover is huge, so communication will be key. We don’t want to accidentally hit any of the UN forces that will be coming to help us.”
“I think you mean getting hitbythe UN,” Arkniss said. “I’ve tangled with Emily Jackson before. The UN’s Phoenix is a dragon slayer to her core. How can we be sure she won’t shoot us down the moment our backs are turned?”
Considering that was exactly what she’d done to Marci, Julius had a hard time answering. But if he’d learned anything about Raven’s construct, it was her steadfast dedication to results over personal feelings. She’d happily kill every dragon in the world to save one human life, but she’d just as happily work with them if that was what was needed to secure humanity’s survival.
“So long as we’re fighting together, I don’t think we have to worry about betrayal from the UN side,” he said. “General Jackson doesn’t like or trust us, but she knows we’re necessary to achieving her goal of protecting humanity. So long as that’s true, I think she’ll be a good ally.”
“What about after?” the black dragon pressed. “The Phoenix can overlook, but she does not forget, nor forgive. She will tolerate our help while she needs us, but the moment the operation is done, those jets she’s sending will turn on us, mark my words.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Julius said grimly. “But right now, we can’t afford to be picky. We don’t even know if we’ve got enough dragons to do our part properly. If we start mistrusting our human allies as well, this fight will be over before it begins.”
No one seemed to like that, but no one argued with him, either. “We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Amelia said at last, shoulders slumping as she looked at Julius. “I’m glad you’re taking point on the UN thing, Baby-J. You’re the only one of us who knows how to play nice.”
