Chapter 11
Julius woke to someone pounding on his door.
He sat up groggily, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as he checked his phone. What he saw made him wince. According to the clock, he’d barely been asleep an hour. He needed another seven at least, but whoever it was at the door wasn’t going away. By this point, the knocking was starting to rattle the windows, so Julius hauled himself up. He’d already grabbed the doorknob before it occurred to him he probably should have checked the peephole first. When he yanked the door open, though, it wasn’t one of Algonquin’s anti-dragon units or even a pizza delivery guy. It was Bob, and he didnotlook happy.
“What’s wrong?” Julius asked, instantly awake.
“You’ll see in a second,” Bob said, pushing past him into the house. His pigeon fluttered in after him, landing on the back of the living room couch. “Lock the door, and get some towels.”
“Towels?” Julius asked, clicking the deadbolt back in place. “What do you need—”
Before he could finish his question, a slice appeared in the air in front of him, literally cutting him off. For a heartbeat, a line hung in the air like a silver seam, and then it burst open, dropping Marci, Chelsie, Amelia, and several buckets worth of what smelled like beach sand drenched in burning jet fuel into the middle of his living room.
“What wasthat?” he cried, rushing to help his sisters as the hole closed behind them. “How did you…where did…what just happened?”
“It’s her sword,” Bob said, pushing past him to grab Amelia, whom Julius had only just now realized was naked, bleeding, and apparently unconscious. “Chelsie’s Fang has the ability to cut to any Heartstriker, no matter where they are.”
“DON’T TELL HIM THAT!” Chelsie roared.
“It’s a bit late to try and hide it now,” the seer said, ignoring her as he turned to gently lay Amelia down on the couch. “Julius? Towels?”
The question snapped Julius out of his shock, sending him racing up the stairs. Sothatwas how she did it, he thought as he grabbed their entire stack of clean towels.Thatwas how Chelsie was always behind you. Her sword let her teleport.
He’d never actually heard of the Fangs having powers like that. Then again, given whose Fang it was, he wouldn’t have. If the truth of Chelsie’s blade got out, her reputation as the all-knowing, ever-present Heartstriker boogeyman would be ruined. She certainly looked pissed when he made it back to the living room. Fortunately, her attention, like everyone else’s, was on Amelia.
His oldest sister looked like she’d been hit by a fleet of trucks. The amount of blood that had already seeped into their couch made Julius’s stack of towels feel inadequate as he handed them to Bob. “What happened?”
The question was meant for no one in particularly, but Marci jumped to answer. “We were talking through her portal on her island in the Philippines when Estella and Svena attacked,” she said, racing through the explanation like she’d done this before. “Amelia fought Svena, but it was all a set-up to let Estella hit her with a plane. I got knocked out in the blast. I’d just woken up when Chelsie appeared. She cut her way to the island and found Amelia, but as you can see, she’s pretty messed up, so we decided to bring her here.” She looked at Chelsie. “Why did we do that again?”
“Ask him,” Chelsie said, nodding at Bob. “He’s the one who called and told me to get to Amelia, but couldn’t tell me where she was.”
Everyone turned to stare at the seer, who was kneeling beside his sister with an uncharacteristically serious look on his face. “I was worried something like this might happen,” he said softly, reaching up to pat the blood off Amelia’s face with a towel. “But I didn’t think it would actually work.”
“Why not?” Julius asked. “Didn’t Estella attack Conrad just last night?”
Chelsie’s hand was on his throat before he realized she’d moved. “How do you know about that?”
“Katya told me,” he choked out, putting his hands up in instant surrender. “She ran from her sisters while it was happening and came here.”
For the first time in his life, Chelsie looked surprised. “She came toyou?”
He nodded, and she let him go. “Why?”
Julius was too busy recovering from the near choking to answer immediately, so Bob did it for him. “Because Julius is nice,” he said. “But we knew that. I’m far more concerned about the parts of this we don’t understand. Namely, why Amelia, like Conrad, is still alive.”
“She almost wasn’t,” Marci pointed out, but Chelsie was shaking her head.
“A plane crash, even a big one like this, isn’t enough to kill a dragon like Amelia. Estella would know that. This was clearly an attack to wound, not kill.” She glared at Julius. “Not that I should be telling you this, but since you already know, Conrad was the same. So far as we can tell, Estella and Svena attacked him in his room early this morning. Likewise, I smelled both Estella and Svena at the beach on top of the scent of burning fuel. That means they were both thereafterthe plane crashed, so why did they leave? Svena’s been trying to kill Amelia for years. I don’t believe for a second she’d stand over her unconscious body and not finish the job.”
“I don’t know about that,” Marci said. “Svena was actingreallyweird.”
“Katya said the same thing,” Julius agreed. “What’s going on?”
Once again, everyone looked at Bob. This time, though, the seer just sighed. “I don’t know.”
A cold chill went up Julius’s spine. “You don’t know? How doyounot know?”
“I already explained this to you last night,” Bob said, annoyed. “Ever since Estella returned, the future has been a mess. Threads of possibility are vanishing all over the place. First Svena, then Conrad, and now—”
