“This had better be to say you have her.”
“Well I don’t,” Julius snapped, slumping against the pole of a streetlight that probably hadn’t worked since the turn of the century. “We got into the party, but she’d already left with some guy before we arrived, and—”
“We?” Ian interrupted.
“I had to bring in a mage to help,” he explained, suddenly nervous. “A human.”
Julius hadn’t actually considered what Ian would think about Marci’s involvement, mostly because he hadn’t thought this job would take long enough for her to learn anything she shouldn’t. Apparently, though, hiring a human mage to find a missing dragon was nothing out of the ordinary for Ian, because all he said was, “Continue.”
Julius cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the host told me Katya left early with a human shaman, but the address he gave me was bad, and now I have no idea where she is.”
“So find out.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Julius cried. “In case you forgot, I was kicked off a plane into this stupid city not twenty hours ago. Going to a party to pick up a lost dragon is one thing, but it takesmoneyto play detective, which is something I don’t exactly have a lot of at the moment. So unless you’re ready to give me an advance on my payment, we’re going to have to call this a wash for tonight, because I’ve got nothing.”
It wasn’t until ten seconds into the long pause that followed that Julius realized what he’d done. He’d lost his temper and yelled at his brother. Hisolderbrother, who was doing him a huge favor by letting Julius work a job to convince their Mother he deserved not to be eaten.
Before he could apologize for the outburst, though, Ian said, “Why, Julius Heartstriker, youalmostsounded like a creature with a spine just then.”
Julius blinked. “Um, thank you?”
“Unfortunately, I’ve already given you everything I’m willing to,” Ian went on, talking right over him. “I’m not running a charity here. I hired you to fetch Katya, practically handed her to you on a platter, and if your failures have squandered that opportunity, I don’t see how that’s my responsibility.”
Julius closed his eyes with a stifled hiss.Don’t get mad,he reminded himself. Ian was the one who’d be reporting his progress to Mother, and Julius desperately needed him to give her a good one since Chelsie had undoubtedly already told Bethesda about his screw-up with Bixby’s goons. He was a little surprised he hadn’t gotten a call about that yet, actually. Surprised and relieved, because talking to his mother always put him in an abysmal mood, and if there was ever a time he needed to stay positive, it was now.
“I don’t think I’m being unreasonable,” he said when he could trust his voice again. “You’re in business, Ian. You know you can’t get something for nothing. I’m not even asking you to pay me extra, just give me some working capital so I can—”
“No,” Ian said, his voice hard. “The deal stands. I pay you when you get the dragoness. If you need additional resources to complete your task, then I suggest you stop whining to me for handouts and figure out a way to get the money yourself. Go take some from a human or something.”
Julius stared at the phone in horror. “Are you telling me to mug someone?”
“Well, I would hope you could come up with something more elegant than brute force,” his brother said. “But mugging will do in a pinch, yes.”
“No!” Julius cried. “I’m not going to start robbing random humans! That’sterrible!”
“Julius,” Ian said dryly. “That is what our kind has been doing for thousands of years. Where did you think the contents of Mother’s treasury came from? Donation boxes?”
He hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but Ian wasn’t finished. “You see, this is exactly why your life has come to this sorry state of affairs. You are simply unwilling to do what needs to be done.”
Julius was unwilling to believe they were actually having this conversation. “I don’t think my failure to cross the ‘petty crimes against innocent people because your brother is too cheap to give you an advance so you can do your job’ line qualifies as a summation of my existence.”
“Actually, I think it sums it up quite nicely,” Ian said, his voice growing irritated. “When are you going to understand that this isn’t about the money? It’s about you growing some fangs and finally learning that there’s no place in our world fornice. Nice dragons finish last,ifthey finish at all, and we have no room for losers in this family. So stop whining, get yourself straight, and get me some results, or I call Mother, and we cross one more Heartstriker off the roster. Do you understand me, little brother?”
Julius closed his eyes with a ragged breath.
“I’m waiting.”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Good,” Ian said, his voice smooth as silk again in an instant. “I’ll be expecting word of your success by tomorrow.”
Julius almost choked.“Tomorrow?But—”
“You’re a dragon,” Ian said. “Figure it out.” And then he hung up.
Julius lowered the phone with a muffled curse, kicking the dead street lamp as hard as he could. The metal pole rang like a gong, startling a small colony of bats that had taken up residence in the broken light fixture. It also startled the pigeon perched on top of the ancient NO PARKING sign directly above Julius’s head.
The bird took flight with a frantic spate of flapping, sweeping so low its tiny talons almost caught Julius’s hair before it found its wings and flew straight up into the dark, vanishing through a crack in the skyways high, high overhead.
