Katya’s hands tightened to fists, and for a moment, Julius thought Estella had pushed her too far. But then, without a word, Katya turned and fled, racing back down the hall toward the party. Julius watched her go with growing dread. He hadn’t wanted her to stay and suffer her sister’s wrath, but now that she was gone, he was alone with Estella.
“Don’t move.”
Julius hadn’t moved since he’d spotted her, but he froze again anyway, not even daring to breathe as he met the eyes of the seer whose plans he, Bob, Justin, and Marci had ruined so thoroughly four weeks ago. He’d never actually seen Estella before tonight, and never up close until now. But while she was every bit as beautiful and terrifying as one would expect from the oldest daughter of the Three Sisters, what struck Julius the most was how sickly she looked.
Even under the heavy white gown that covered her from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers and down to the floor, it was obvious Estella was grossly underweight. Her cheeks were so hollow, the bones stood out like blades, and her eyes were ringed with dark circles. But what would have signaled weakness in a lesser dragon only made Estella look more deadly as she studied him, her ice-blue gaze boring into his until Julius was forced to lower his head.
“So,” she said at last, her voice as cold and distant as a snow-topped mountain. “You’re the one he’s set against me.”
She reached out as she spoke, and Julius couldn’t hide his flinch as her icy fingers landed on his face. Normally, he would have said Estella wouldn’t dare kill him with so many Heartstrikers around, but that was before Katya had told him she might be mad. As her hand dipped down to trace a sharp nail over his windpipe, Julius believed it, but he had no idea what to do. Running from a dragon only made it want to chase you, but staying was feeling like a worse idea every second. Estella wasn’t even looking at his face anymore. She was just staring at his throat like she wanted to rip it out, her fingers spreading to dig into the soft flesh on either side of his windpipe, and Julius squeezed his eyes shut with a whimper. Why couldn’t Chelsie be waiting behind himnow?
But then, just when he’d decided to take his chances and run, he heard whistling in the distance. Someone was coming down the hall, whistling a happy, jaunty tune Julius didn’t recognize. He couldn’t see who it was with Estella blocking him, but even with her back to the hall, the seer must have known, because her face broke into her cruelest smile yet.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”
She turned as she spoke, loosening her grip on Julius’s neck just a fraction as Bob stepped into view.
Julius’s relief was so intense it hurt. He had no idea how or when his oldest brother had arrived, but he’d never been happier to see someone in his life. It didn’t even matter that the seer looked like he’d just rolled out of bed in his ratty, red terrycloth bathrobe, cat-print pajama bottoms, and bare feet. He washere, and that was what counted.
Or, at least, Julius hoped that was what counted. Bob had yet to actually look at them. He was still whistling and staring at his relic of a phone, tapping the worn keys with his thumbs, seemingly oblivious to the near-strangulation happening in front of him.
Finally, after several long, awkward seconds, Bob finished his message and slid his phone into his bathrobe pocket. “Fashionably late, I admit,” he said, tossing his long, sleep-tangled black hair over his shoulder. “But in my defense, I didn’t expect you to be done quite so soon. Formal mating contracts usually take more than ten minutes to draw up.”
“Not if one of the parties says yes to everything,” Estella replied. “But then, your mother always has been eager to please.”
“Insulting my mother’s virtue?” Bob said, eyes going wide. “I haveneverheard that one before. Now,” he put out his hand, “if you’re done with my baby brother, I’d like him back. This is his first party, and I don’t want to put him off the exercise forever.”
Estella gave Julius a shove. A hard one. If he hadn’t spent the last month dodging all kinds of dangerous animals, he would have bounced off the wall and gone sprawling on the dark wooden floor. As it was, he caught himself at the last second, scrambling away from Estella into the shelter of Bob’s shadow. When he looked up again, the seer was staring at his brother with a hard, triumphant smile. “Well?”
Bob stared at her blankly. “Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to ask what I’m doing?”
He shrugged. “Why should I? You’re going to tell me whether I want to know or not. That’s the whole reason we’re here, isn’t it? Unless I’m grossly misreading the situation.” He glanced down at Julius. “Should I not have interrupted?”
Julius shook his head rapidly, and Bob turned back to Estella, who seemed to be nearing the end of her patience.
“I forgot how tiresome you can be when you’re covering up your insecurities,” she said, lifting her chin haughtily. “The game is over, Brohomir. I’ve won.”
Bob’s smile turned into a smirk. “Are we talking about the same game? Because ‘winning’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe your situation.”
“Then you’ve just proven how little you really know,” she snapped. “You might be a prodigy of a seer, little Heartstriker, but I was orchestrating the downfall of empires before your mother was even born. I warned you a lifetime ago not to challenge me, but you never could learn to listen.”
“And you never could learn not to brag,” Bob said. “It’s very poor sportsmanship, and highly susceptible to ironic quotation when we reach your inevitable—”
“Enough!”Estella roared, sending a ripple of frost across the floor. “No more jokes, Brohomir. No more games. The future has been bought and paid for, and you have no place in it.”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Bob’s expression grew serious. “The future is never set, Estella,” he said firmly. “Not until it happens.”
“This is,” she promised. “I know. I’ve seen it. I’m so sure, in fact, I’ll even tell you.”
Bob sighed. “Tell me what?”
“Everything,” Estella said, spreading her arms wide. “I’ll answer all the questions I know are burning a hole in that devious mind of yours—why I offered this mating flight, what I’m going to do to your favorite sister, how I’ll destroy your clan piece by piece. I’ll even tell you your own fate, the parts youhaven’talready seen. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, and all you have to do is ask me the right way.”
Bob arched an eyebrow. “And what way would that be?”
Estella raised her arm, slipping her hand out of her voluminous sleeve to extend one slender finger down toward the ground. “Kneel,” she commanded. “Kneel at my feet andbeg. Beg to know what you are too blind to see, and I will tell you everything.”
