“No, she doesn’t,” Julius said, lowering his voice. “Marci knows all about us now. Bob was the one who drove us over.”
He’d expected Justin be impressed by that last bit, but his brother just rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me the Pigeon Whisperer dragged you into one of his stupid schemes.” When Julius nodded, Justin shook his head. “Fine, the girl can come in, but if anyone asks, it was your idea.”
Julius pulled Marci inside before Justin could change his mind, closing the door quickly behind them.
The safe house’s interior was just as nice as its exterior, full of tasteful furniture that managed to look both modern and timeless, a sure sign that someone other than Mother had chosen the decor since Bethesda’s taste in interior design ran more to gilded skulls than designer tables. But while the vestibule and plant-lined back porch were immaculate, the living room was a disaster area of trash and beer bottles. Clearly, Justin had made himself at home.
“How long have you been here?” Marci asked, staring wide-eyed at what had to be fifty empty pizza boxes stacked against the sliding glass door to the back patio.
“About ten hours,” Justin said, walking to the open pizza box currently sitting in the middle of what had once been a pristine ecru couch. “I slept eight of those, though.”
Marci’s eyes went wider still. “You ate all of this in two hours?”
“Please,” Justin said, dropping down on the floor to start a set of one-armed push-ups. “Haven’t you ever seen a dragon eat? This took me ten minutes. I actually thought you were the pizza guy with my second order when I heard the door.”
Marci made a little choking sound and looked at Julius with new understanding. Justin, however, seemed to have written them off entirely. Clearly, it was time to stop making small talk and get to the point.
“Justin,” Julius said solemnly. “I need your help.”
Justin stopped mid-push-up, arching his neck back to stare at his brother. “My help,” he repeated. “You’re askingmeto helpyou?”
“Yes,” Julius said. “Please.”
Justin thought about it for a second, and then he pushed off the ground, popping himself back onto his feet like a cork. “Okay.”
Julius blinked. “That’s it? You don’t even want to know what we’re doing first?”
“I told you I’d help last night,” Justin said, walking into the bathroom. “And anyway, how much trouble can you be in?”
Marci and Julius exchanged a silent look. “I think your brother has a chronically underdeveloped sense of danger,” she whispered.
Julius couldn’t argue with that. “Remember that dragoness I was trying to find?”
“The Three Sisters girl?” Justin said, his voice muffled by the towel he was using to dry the sweat from his hair. “You still haven’t found her?”
“No, we found her. That’s sort of the problem. We were taking her back to Ian’s when Katya’s sister Estella, the seer, arranged for her to be kidnapped by a human named Bixby in exchange for Marci’s Kosmolabe. He’s going to be contacting us in an hour, and if we don’t meet his demands, he’ll kill her.”
“The dragon or the human?” Justin asked, tossing the towel on the floor before walking back out into the living room.
“Both, probably,” Julius replied. “We’ve had one shootout with Bixby’s men today already. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a full—”
Justin nodded. “Got it.”
“How can you get it if I haven’t said it?” Julius snapped.
“What’s to get?” his brother asked, combing his short hair back into order with his fingers. “Kill humans, rescue dragon, done. Do we need to save this Kosmo-whatever, too?”
“Yes,” Marci said before Julius could answer. When he looked at her, she shrugged. “What? If Estella wants it, it must be important. We can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”
By which she clearly meant any hands other than hers. “I don’t want to give anything up that we don’t have to,” Julius said. “But Katya is our first priority.”
Justin was grinning by the time he finished. “Good to see you taking the initiative for once,” he said, smacking Julius on the back. “Never thought I’d see the day. Now, let’s get you a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Julius coughed, trying to get his lungs working again after his brother’s punishing hit.
“Of course,” Justin said, kicking the trash out of his way as he walked across the living room to a maglocked door on the other side. “What, did you think they’d just surrender if you asked politely?”
Julius shot him a dirty look, but his brother was too busy punching a code into the door’s keypad to notice.
