“Or maybe he can’t see now that two of our futures are gone,” Amelia said grimly.
That was enough to make everyone look dour, and then Chelsie closed the video to bring up her phone’s number pad. She dialed a long string of numbers and waited, fingers poised over the numbers to dial again when the call suddenly picked up.
“You answered,” Chelsie said, obviously shocked.
“I told you I always pick up when it’s important,” Bob replied. “Put me on speaker. This is a group discussion.”
Chelsie did as he asked, turning the phone so everyone could hear. “I take it you know why we’re calling, then?”
“Yes, but only through Julius,” Bob said. “Can you show him the video again? I want to double check something.”
“How about I just send it to you and you can watch it yourself?” Chelsie said, hitting a button.
“Or that,” Bob replied, falling silent as he watched the short clip. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
“No can do,” Amelia said, taking the phone from her sister. “That’s a chain all right, which explains our memory loss nicely. Though I still don’t understand how Estella got one, let alone multiples.”
“Never underestimate what Estella is willing to put herself through for victory,” Bob said darkly. “Why else do you think she almost killed her sister trying to get a Kosmolabe last month?”
Amelia gasped like this was the vital piece of new information that solved the puzzle, and Marci rolled her eyes. “Okay stop,” she said, putting up her hands. “Can we please get some context for those of us whodon’tknow what’s going on?”
“I can try,” Amelia said. “You know that dragons didn’t originate on this plane, right?”
Marci nodded. “Vann Jeger said something about that. He also said dragons originally came here because they destroyed their own home, but he’s not exactly a reliable source.”
“Unfortunately for us, he was telling the truth,” Amelia said grimly. “We’re what Algonquin would call a ‘non-native invasive species.’ The first dragons came to this world as refugees roughly ten thousand years ago. No one knows anymore if we picked this place for a reason, or if it was just the first one we found, but either way, we’ve never gone back.”
“Wait,” Julius said. “I thought we came as conquerors? That’s how I always heard it.”
“That’s just the spin,” Bob said. “Surely you don’t expect any proper dragon to admit we were forced to flee to this world after cataclysmically failing to manage our own?”
That explanation rang too true to be a lie. “So what happened?”
“Exactly what you’d expect from a place where dragons were the dominant species,” Amelia said bitterly. “We fought amongst ourselves until there was nothing left to fight over, and then we jumped ship.”
Again, that made a horrible sort of sense, but Chelsie looked fed up. “I’ve never heard any of this,” she growled. “How is it that you two know it all?”
“Because we knew grandfather,” Amelia said sadly. “He was one of the last living dragons who actually came through the original portal.”
“Wait,” Julius said, breathless. “You’vemetthe Quetzalcoatl?”
“Of course,” Amelia said. “A-melia, remember? The Quetzalcoatl used to dote on his grandchildren, especially Bob.”
“I’m innately lovable,” Bob said. “But this story has a point other than horrifically dating ourselves. With the exception of trusting Bethesda, our grandfather was a very wise dragon. He was young when he was forced to flee to this world, but he never forgot what happened to his home, and he was determined that his clan would not make the same mistakes as our ancestors. But while Amelia’s version of the story makes for a nice moral tale, the situation that destroyed our original home plane wasn’t entirely due to the natural draconic urge to conquer. What really ruined things for everyone were the seers.”
“Seers?” Julius said. “As in more than the usual three?”
“Exponentially,” his brother replied. “Dragon seers used to be as common as human mages. They were literally everywhere, meddling atrociously, tangling the future into knots.” He shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Julius didn’t, either. Two seers fighting was bad enough, but thousands? “I can see why our ancestors had problems.”
“I still haven’t gotten to the bad part,” Bob said. “With so many seers fighting each other for control of the future, some started pursuing new, more inventive strategies to get a leg up on their enemies. This kicked off an arms race which eventually culminated in the creation of a new weapon unique to seer magic. A tool that, when applied to your enemies, would enforce your single vision of the future over all others, no matter how unlikely.”
Julius’s eyes went wide, but Marci beat him to it. “The chains!”
“Bingo,” Bob said. “Give the girl a prize.”
“Let me get this straight,” Julius said slowly. “You’re saying Estella went to the old home of the dragons and brought back a weapon that will make her version of the future come true over yours?”
