“Oh,that.Yes, that was me. Mother needed someone to throw at this Ian nonsense, and I thought Julius would be just the ticket. All it took was a few oblique suggestions at the right time, and Mother thought the whole thing was all her idea.” He beamed at her. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
“It’s terrible!” Marci said. “What kind of brother are you?”
The dragon looked confused by her outburst, and then he spun all the way around again to face her head on. “Why, little human,” he said softly, resting his long arms on his raised knees. “Are you attempting to call me out for being cruel to baby Julius?”
The soft mockery in his voice sent Marci’s fists clenching so tight, the spellmarked bracelets on her wrists began to glow. The dragon’s green eyes glittered in the light, but she didn’t let the magic fade. Shewantedto slam a spell into his smug, beautiful face. She had no idea what game this dragon was playing, but Marci knew exactly what it felt like to be kicked out of your home, and the thought of Julius—sweet, kind, thoughtful Julius who’d never had a harsh word for anybody—being dumped into this crisis by his own brother was more than she could stand.
“I’m not attempting,” she said, stabbing her finger at the dragon’s perfect nose. “Iamcalling you out. I’m sure you’re powerful and ancient and could probably eat me in one bite, but I’ve had a terrible week, and what little I have left to lose, I owe to Julius. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me since I came to this city, and I amnotgoing to stand here and listen to you brag about making his life miserable!”
The dragon’s eyes flashed as she finished, and Marci felt a strange, sharp magic building in the air. She drew her own power in as well, filling the small circles of her bracelets and wishing she’d thought to draw a proper-sized one on the street before she’d started this, but she didn’t try to backpedal. Her father might have had the business sense of a piggy bank with a hole in the bottom, but he’d loved her and supported her in every way he knew how.Thatwas family to Marci, and she didn’t care if it was her business or not. She was not going to stand silently by while this dragon made a mockery of it.
Almost as though he could hear her thoughts, the dragon chose that moment to slide off the hood of her car. Sinuous as a cat, he landed in front of her without a sound, straightening to his full height with a lazy roll of his shoulders.
Now that he was on his feet, Marci saw his remarkable height was no illusion. He was so tall, she had to crane her neck back just to look him in the face. His striking green eyes were waiting when she got there, staring down at her like he was trying to look straight through to her feet, and for a breathless moment, Marci could actually feel the presence of something larger looming over her. Something much,muchlarger.
“You’re a presumptuous little creature,” the dragon said, the words coming out in a deep, cruel rumble that was decidedly not human. “You really think you could attack me, don’t you?”
By this point, every instinct Marci had was screaming at her to run. But her pride had made her bed, and Marci lay in it belligerently, refusing to yield an inch. “I am a mage,” she replied with every ounce of haughtiness three years in a competitive doctoral program had taught her. “We bend the rules of the universe on a daily basis. Presumptuousness is the base line for entry.”
The dragon’s green eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing.
The sound broke the tension so sharply, Marci wavered on her feet. The dragon reached out to steady her at once, slapping his hand on her shoulder so hard she almost fell for real.
“Oh my,” he said, wiping his face with a gold-embroidered handkerchief from somewhere in his pockets. “That was not the reply I expected at all. I’d forgotten how nice it is to be surprised.” He looked her over one more time, and though it didn’t seem possible, his smile got even wider. “For the record, Little Miss Mage, that was a test, too. Whatever Julius’s dooming and glooming might have led you to believe, loyalty is very important in our family. It wasn’t what I picked you for, but I welcome it all the same. You will do marvelously. I only hope my brother can keep up.”
Marci blinked, her anger slipping in the face of her confusion. “Picked?” she said, and then, “Wait, keep up with what?”
“Everything,” the dragon said with a sigh, replacing his handkerchief with one hand while the other pulled an ancient keyboard phone out of his back pocket and began typing a message. “Now, not that this hasn’t been a lovely visit, but I’m afraid I have to go get ready to give someone a ride. Would you be a dear and tell Julius to buckle up for me?”
“Buckle up,” she repeated slowly. “You mean, like, in the car?”
The dragon nodded gravely, returning his phone to his pocket. “The near-complete adoption of self-driving cars over the last quarter century has made road accidents statistically unlikely, but my baby brother has recently developed a dangerous knack for bringing in long shots, and I’d hate to lose him to a variable I don’t control.”
That seemed like pretty innocuous advice, so Marci promised she’d pass it on. The moment he’d secured her cooperation, the dragon gave her a winning smile and set off down the sidewalk, his pigeon riding comfortably on top of his head. He’d nearly reached the end of the block before Marci realized she’d never found out his name. Before she could yell after him, however, he turned on his heel and vanished into an alley. She was still staring at the place where he’d been when a flash of movement through the window brought her eyes back to the diner just in time to see Julius wave for the check.
***
“I will admit, it’s a clever plan,” Katya said as she gathered her things from the booth. “I just don’t think it’s going to work.”
“It doesn’t have to work,” Julius said, paying the check when it popped up on his AR. “It just has tolooklike it’s working long enough for us to get out of our mutual predicaments.”
“But that’s the problem. It’s one thing to dally with a Heartstriker for an evening, but anything more, even the appearance of such, is completely out of the question for a daughter of the Three Sisters.Especiallyfor Svena. Other than Estella herself, she’s the most famous of us by far, and she’s never agreed to a mating flight in her life. She certainly wouldn’t start with a male so far below her, whatever your mother dreams. No offense meant to your brother, of course.”
Julius shrugged. “Offend him all you want, it won’t stop Ian. I don’t doubt you’re right about your sister, but Ian’s ambitious and persistent even for a dragon. Even for aHeartstriker. An elder daughter of the Three Sisters isexactlythe sort of prize he’d risk everything to go after. All we have to do is harness that ambition, and suddenly he’s working for us.”
Katya still looked unconvinced, so Julius laid it out for her again. “Look, you want to stay here in the DFZ with your shaman boyfriend, right?”
She glowered at his word choice, but she nodded all the same.
“But your sisters won’t let you loose on your own, so you keep running away,” he continued. “And it drives your sisters crazy.”
She nodded again, and Julius spread his arms. “So tell me how this doesn’t work? You know Svena best. How badly does she want you to stop running?”
“Bad enough to go to a Heartstriker when she failed to corner me herself,” Katya admitted.
“Exactly,” he said. “You have what she wants, which means you have the power to negotiate. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll go to my brother and let him in on the plan. That way, when Svena arrives, Ian and I will both be there to give you backup while you explain to her that you won’t run from your family again on the condition that, rather than being locked up alone in Siberia, you’re allowed to confine yourself to the DFZ under her watch instead.”
“So you keep saying,” Katya replied with a sigh. “AndIkeep saying she’ll never agree.”
