Marci and Justin shared a look Julius couldn’t make out. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
Before Julius could ask what she meant by that, his brother grabbed his arm and heaved him to his feet, putting him face to face with the crowd waiting at the other end of the cement platform.
Even seeing it with his own eyes, Julius couldn’t quite believe it. The landing beside the black lake was packed with human men and women in clothes ranging from fashionably distressed to straight-out bizarre. Still more humans were on the water in boats, fishing bits of lamprey out of the bloody lake with large nets. All of them were clearly mages, a fact made obvious both by the hum of human magic that had replaced the deathly aura of the giant lamprey pool and by the bright glow of the light spells hanging from the spillway’s roof like the world’s most elaborate chandeliers.
“Turns out my Kosmolabe was right,” Marci said smugly, patting the bag at her side. “Theywereunder the water. Their base is in an old bomb shelter that goes under the lake. That was why we couldn’t reach them from the pipes. They were never actually part of the water system! The storm drain we saw is a fake they use to disguise their entrance. They actually cut a door into this spillway so they’d have a back exit, but they had to stop using it when the lampreys moved in.”
Happy as Julius was that Marci had solved the mystery of their missing mages, he was only listening with half an ear. The rest of his attention was on his nose as he breathed deeply, sorting through the various horrid sewer stenches for any sign of their prey. But while he did catch a trace of a cold, wintry sea scent that reminded him of Svena, it was old. Katya wasn’t here.
“Justin,” he said softly.
“I know,” his brother whispered back. “I smell it, too. But don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”
That made Julius more worried than ever, but before they could discuss it, his brother yanked him to his feet and half helped, half carried him over to the edge of the platform, as far from the humans as possible. When Marci tried to follow, Justin shot her a full-on “I am predator, you are prey” glare that stopped her in her tracks. Only when she’d turned and scurried back to the mages did he finally return his attention to Julius.
“We need to work quickly,” he said, his voice low and urgent as he propped Julius against the wall. “Our target’s gone, but from the scent, she was with these people up until at least an hour ago, so she can’t have gotten too far. Now, the dragon smell is strongest on the guy who’s acting like their leader, so here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll grab him and be bad cop since you couldn’t pull it off if you tried. You be good cop and tell your mage to run interference on the others. I don’t think they’ll fight since they’re all impressed we killed big-and-slimy, but if they do, we’ll smoke ‘em. Ready?”
“No,” Julius said, resting his weight against the wet cement. “Justin, the only reason I’m even standing right now is because of the wall.”
“Well, how much longer are you going to be?” his brother said. “Because we’re in kind of a hurry.”
“Do you even listen to yourself?” he said, jerking his head at the group around Marci. “There have to be thirty humans here, and that’s not counting the ones in the boats. You can’t actually think we can beat them all.”
Justin didn’t answer, but then, he didn’t need to. His confident look was answer enough.
“They’re mages,” Julius continued, a bit more frantically now. “I’m sealed. Katya’s not even here.”
“She was,” Justin said, adjusting the sword on his hip.
“There’s no way you can do it without revealing your true nature!” he cried, playing his final card.
His brother shrugged. “So what? It’s not like we’ll need them again. Now, are you ready to do this, or do you need to pass out like a pansy again first?”
Julius began to shake. His brother really meant to do it. Of course, Julius had known Justin had no problem killing the humans when he’d suggested they sneak in, but he’d talked himself into believing that was acceptable since Katya would be inside. But she wasn’t, and these people were just standing there. If Justin attacked, they’d defend themselves, and then he’d kill them. Even if he didn’t, there was no way they’d believe he was human past the first fire breath, which meant if Justin didn’t kill them, Chelsie would. Either way, every human in this room was about to be dead, and it would be all Julius’s fault.
“No,” he whispered.
“What did you say?” Justin asked, arching an eyebrow.
“No,” Julius said again, lifting his head. “We’re not going to attack. We’re not going to fight these people.”
“Well, how else are you going to get them to talk?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I thought I’d start by asking.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Julius growled.
His brother stared at him in utter confusion, like he couldn’t believe he was hearing this. Julius couldn’t believe he was saying it. He’d never directly contradicted anyone in his family before, much lessJustin, but he didn’t take it back.
He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d reached his limit—when he’d nearly died fighting that lamprey, or when he’d realized they’d done all of this forno reason. Marci had just told him the storm drain with the ward he’d found earlier led directly into the shaman’s commune, which meant that if he’d followed his instincts instead of letting Justin bully him into a more “draconic” plan, none of this would have happened. They might even have gotten in quick enough to catch Katya before she bolted. They definitely wouldn’t have almost died fighting a stupid lake monster they’d never needed to bother in the first place, and the more Julius thought about that, the angrier he got.
Healwaysdid this. Healwayslet bigger dragons talk him into doing things he didn’t want to do, because they were draconic, and he knew he should want to be like them. But he didn’t. He’d been told his whole life that he was a failure, but how could he be anythingbuta failure when the thought of acting like Justin or Ian or any other successful dragon filled him with loathing? The attempts and subsequent disasters of tonight were like a microcosm for his entire existence, and Julius was sick to death of it. Sick of the expectations, sick of failing them, sick of trying to be what he wasn’t. He was sick ofeverything, and he wasn’t going to do it anymore.
“I’m done,” he said.
Justin scowled at him. “What do you mean? Done with what?”
