Julius frowned. “But why would you recognize him? You’d only had one vision at that point, right?”
Bob’s face grew somber. “Because he’s there. He’s always in that first vision, because the Black Reach is present at the death of every seer. I’ve seen him atmydeath, so when he says, ‘three more times,’ I tend to take him at his word.”
He sounded so sad by the time he finished, Julius’s heart went out to him. “Is there anything I can do?”
Bob laughed. “Yes,” he said, clapping him on the shoulders. “Keep being yourself. You’ve been an absolutely delightful tool, Julius Heartstriker. Without you as my unlikely hero, none of this would have been possible. But now at last, thanks to you, I’ve broken through Estella’s block. Without her constantly nipping at my heels, the future is wide open for the first time in my life, which means the real game can begin.”
Julius didn’t like the way he said ‘real game,’ but before he could ask what that meant, all the white dragons in the room cried out as one.
“And there it goes,” Bob said. “Right on schedule.”
“Bob!” Julius yelled, running across the room to help Katya, who’d collapsed on the ground. “What happened?” he asked, falling to his knees beside her.
She looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “They’re coming,” she whispered. “Oh, Julius, they’reangry.”
“Who’s angry?” he asked, but she’d already curled into a ball, covering her head with her arms like she was bracing for impact. He was trying to get her to at least look at him when he heard it.
OUR STAR!
The magic in the words hit him like a blow across the shoulders, sending him sprawling to the ground beside Katya.
OUR DAUGHTER, TREASURE, GONE! WHO HAS DONE THIS?
Julius reached up frantically, clutching his ears in a desperate attempt to shut out the voice. Voices, he corrected, because though they spoke in perfect unison, there were definitely more than one. It was impossible to say how many exactly, but given the way Katya and her sisters were shaking in terror, Julius’s bet was on three.
“Seems the events of tonight haven’t gone unnoticed,” Bob said, strolling over to squat beside him. “The mommies are awake at last.”
Julius had guessed as much already. “The Three Sisters,” he whispered, his whole body shaking. The three oldest, most magical dragons left alive had finally woken from their thousand-year slumber, and from the sound of it, they were not happy about Estella’s death.
“What should we do?” he asked Bob frantically, scrambling back to his feet. “Aren’t they like gods or something? Should we evacuate?”
“Their anger just knocked us all down from halfway across the world,” Bob reminded him. “I don’t think running a few more feet is going to do us any good.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Julius cried.“I didn’t stick my neck out to reorder our entire clan just to lose it thirty minutes later!”
Rather than answer, his brother pulled a phone out of his pocket. Not his usual one, either, but a new, cheap model that looked like it had come from one of those pre-paid airport vending machines. “Don’t worry,” he said at last, turning on the cheap screen. “They’re not coming for us.”
Julius stopped. “They’re not?”
Rather than explain, Bob turned the phone around to show Julius the glaring emergency broadcast alert on his screen. A few seconds later, the message vanished, and a woman’s face appeared.
At first glance, she looked like a handsome older Native American woman in a navy-blue power suit with braided, steel-gray hair and blue eyes. On the second, it became obvious that her features were too regular to be real, and her flat eyes definitely had an Uncanny Valley quality to them. Most telling of all, though, was that her face refused to be still. Even though she wasn’t moving, her image flickered and rippled on the screen, despite the crystal clear video quality of the rest of the shot. But then again, what else could you expect from the public face of the Lady of the Lakes?
“I don’t understand,” Julius said. “Why are we watching Algonquin’s—”
“Shh!” Bob said, waving at him to be quiet as the spirit began to speak.
“This is a message for the newly awakened Three Sisters,” Algonquin said, her voice as musical and light as falling water. “Simultaneously broadcast on all frequencies, all over the world. To the dragons currently disrupting the flow of magic worldwide, I understand you are upset over the loss of your daughter, the infamous Northern Star, and that you are even now searching for her killer. Well, search no longer.”
She lifted her hand up to the camera, showing off a long, white mass of something clutched in her wavering fingers. A few seconds later, Julius realized it washair. Very familiar, white hair cut to a length that perfectly matched what Estella had been missing earlier this evening.
“That’s right,” Algonquin said proudly, brandishing the tangled hair like a hunting trophy. “Ikilled Estella the Northern Star, just as I kill any dragon who is found trespassing on my property. If you want to do something about that, I invite you to stop wailing and come to my lakes in the Americas, where we will settle this once and for all.”
As soon as she finished, the shot switched to a live, night skyline feed of the DFZ from across the river. It was a classic postcard angle that showed off both the Upper and Lower cities as well as Algonquin’s white tower lit up like a spotlight in the distance. What Julius didn’t understand, though, was,why.
“What is she doing?” he whispered, glancing at his brother. “Is shetryingto get her city burned to the ground?”
“Keep watching,” Bob said, reaching up to pet the pigeon who’d just fluttered down to land on his shoulder. “Here it comes.”
