“Freezing,” Chelsie said.
Julius, who remembered all too well how awful he’d felt after Marci had taken all of his magic, ran upstairs to get her a blanket that wasn’t covered in blood. When he came back down, Chelsie was eating an entire bag of frozen chicken wings.
“It’s all we had left,” Marci said before Julius could even ask. “I offered to order food, or at least put the wings in the oven, but—”
“No time,” Chelsie said, eating the raw, frozen wings bones and all. “We have to move fast.”
Amelia crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest. “Not before someone tells me what happened.”
“We distracted Vann Jeger,” Chelsie said in a clipped voice. “Marci’s spirit defeated him, after which I helped her bind him again, and then I took Vann Jeger’s head.”
Amelia’s eyes were huge by the time she finished. “You used your Mortal Spirit?” she cried, turning to Marci. “That’s amazing! What’s his name? How did he do it? TELL ME EVERYTHING!”
“Later,” Chelsie growled, baring her teeth when Amelia shot her a furious look. “There’s more to life than your curiosity. Estella attacked me just like she did you. The last thing I remember is chopping off Vann Jeger’s head. After that, there’s nothing until I woke up as a dragon with Julius in my face and Algonquin’s task force on my tail.”
Amelia’s look turned smug. “Nice Dragon saves the day again, huh?” She turned to Julius. “Is bailing us out of disasters your new hobby or something?”
Julius’s ears began to burn at that. But while it was nice to finally get some appreciation, he couldn’t claim credit for this one. “It was Bob,” he said quickly. “I just did what I was told. But while we managed to get Chelsie out safely, none of us saw the attack, so we still have no idea what Estella did. We can’t even go back and investigate since the whole place is overrun with dragon hunters.”
“We don’t need to go back,” Chelsie said, holding up her phone.
Julius frowned in confusion, and his sister sighed. “Estella hasn’t been targeting Heartstrikers at random,” she explained. “First Conrad, then Amelia, and, assuming Vann Jeger was telling the truth, Justin. I’m not sure if she’s specifically attacking Fangs and just went after Amelia because she could, or if she’s been systematically taking out any Heartstriker who could pose a threat, but either way, I was next. That’s why, after what happened to Amelia, I went ahead and rigged my phone’s camera and mic to record at all times.”
“You bugged yourself?” Julius said, impressed. “That’s clever.”
“Clever is Chelsie’s middle name,” Amelia said proudly, ruffling her younger sister’s short hair before Chelsie could smack her hand away. “So what are you waiting for? Play it!”
Chelsie glared and tapped her phone, turning it around so they could all see the video on the screen since her obviously disposable phone was too cheap to have public AR. Fortunately, the video quality was reasonably good even with the dark, though oddly, the first thing they saw was the phone falling out onto the ground as Chelsie collapsed against a tree.
“Never mind that,” Chelsie muttered, skipping ahead several seconds. “Here.”
After all that buildup, Julius was braced for something epic, but the exchange was actually astonishingly short. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds before Chelsie’s fire whited out the camera.
“What happened to Estella’s hair?” Amelia asked. “Cancer patient is not a good look for her. Was it like that when she attacked me?”
“Who cares about her hair?” Marci cried. “Is she freaking serious? Did she seriouslyset up all that Vann Jeger nonsense—me getting interrogated and having a curse put on my neck and all that stuff with Ghost—just so she could get the drop onChelsie?”
“Actually, I thought that part was pretty clever,” Amelia said. “How else could you bait Bethesda’s Shade out into the open? Chelsie’s always had a soft spot for the babies.”
“Excuse me for not condoning child murder,” Chelsie growled, skipping the video back to replay the attack. “But I still don’t see how she knocked me out. She barely even touched me.”
Marci leaned over the phone. “I think she put something on you,” she said, backing the video up again and pausing it on the second when Estella’s hand shot out toward Chelsie’s neck. “See? Right there. She has something in her hands.”
Julius squinted at the barely visible black line. “What is that? A rope?”
“I think it’s some kind of chain,” Marci said, tilting her head sideways.
Amelia’s whole body jerked. “Say that again,” she demanded.
“What?” Marci asked, frowning. “Chain?”
The dragon mage’s face collapsed into a scowl Julius didn’t like one bit. “Is that bad?” he asked.
“Potentially apocalyptic,” Amelia replied, her voice deadly serious. “We need to call Bob.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t called us,” Julius said, suddenly worried. “He said he’d call when we got home.”
“Maybe he’s busy?” Marci said.
