Julius swallowed. “That doesn’t sound like much of an advantage.”
“It’s our only advantage,” Bob said grimly. “As much as I hate to admit it, Estella’s been steadily backing us into a corner. From the moment Svena vanished from my sight yesterday morning, carefully orchestrated plans years in the making have been dropping like flies. Given everything I’ve learned over centuries of being a seer, that should be impossible. But even if Estella has somehow managed to get access to a higher level of control over the future than I can reach, she still has to understand what she’s looking at to use it. That’s the one factor she can’t cheat her way around, and so long as you are you, I’m gambling that even the Northern Star won’t be able to make heads or tails of what you’re doing until it’s too late.” He grinned. “Or, at least, that’s the plan. Even I can’t say for sure what will happen with so much in the air, but I know you’ll find a way. You have to, or we’re all toast!”
“That’s hardly a motivational speech,” Julius said, feeling a little shell-shocked. “And why do you seem so happy about it?”
“Personal eccentricity,” Bob said, grinning even wider. “It’s not often a seer doesn’t know the ending ahead of time. Can you blame me for enjoying the forbidden thrill of the unknown?”
That didnotmake Julius feel better. “Are you sure you can’t tell me something more useful?”
“But Ihave,” Bob said. “You didn’t think I said all that just to boost your ego, did you? This is why I picked you.Thisis your purpose. Because when I saw these disasters coming, I knew I’d have to play my most unexpected card. The only thing Estella—who knows me better than anyone—wouldn’t see coming.You.” He grabbed Julius’s hands, clutching them together. “Help us, Juli-wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope.”
For a moment, that almost,almostmade Julius feel like a hero. And then he remembered. “Doesn’t Obi-Wan die in that movie?”
Bob dropped his hands with a cryptic smile and started for the door. “I must be off,” he said as his pigeon flapped after him. “Make sure you have food and booze on hand for when Amelia wakes up. She’s not exactly a morning dragon.”
“Wait!” Julius cried, running after him. “Bob!”
But the seer was already gone, jogging down the stairs toward his antique of a car. Julius would have run after him, but there didn’t seem to be much of a point. Bob had clearly already said all he was going to say, so Julius just shut the door and put his back against it with a pained sigh. When he opened his eyes again, Marci was standing in front of him.
“Thanks for what you said earlier.”
His ears began to burn. “It was the truth.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “That’s why I’m saying thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, looking pointedly at Amelia. “I guess we’d better get some food.”
“I’ll go,” Marci volunteered. “You should stay here in case Justin comes back so he doesn’t freak when he sees Amelia.”
Julius didn’t think Justin was coming back, but he wasn’t exactly keen to disobey his sister by leaving the house, and besides, he was tired. He’d been tired when this whole thing started. Now he felt like his legs were going to give out if he didn’t sit down.
“Just be careful,” he said, moving off the door so she could leave. “Fate has it out for us today.”
“Always am,” Marci said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.
He barely had time to register the touch of her lips before she was off, running down the stairs to her stolen wreck of a truck. He would have chased after her, but Amelia was already stirring on the couch, blowing out long lines of angry smoke as she struggled toward consciousness. So, with a final, longing look at Marci, Julius closed the door and went to his sister, standing over her protectively as he pulled out his phone and hit Justin’s number. He was calling more out of thoroughness than any real hope Justin would answer, but that couldn’t keep his heart out of his throat as the call rang… and rang… and rang.
Chapter 12
On the opposite side of the city, Justin Heartstriker stepped out of his cab and into the middle of nowhere.
He paid his fare and sent the cheap little coffin of an automated car away, keeping Julius’s pathetic excuse for a sword loose in his grip as he walked down what was left of the crumbling sidewalk. Down the street, the collapsing church he’d used as his stakeout slumped dejectedly in the morning sunlight, its broken steeple bobbing slightly in the cool breeze. But though it was oddly comforting to see something familiar in this horrible city, the broken-down church was not his destination today.Thatstood in front of him.
He stopped at the sidewalk’s edge, looking up at the two-story tall chain link fence that cut across the landscape like a line on a map, bisecting the flood-ruined ranch homes that stood in its way. Hanging high on the links, well above what few slumping roofs remained, rusted metal signs the size of small billboards proclaimed what everyone already knew in huge, block capitals.
WARNING!
ALGONQUIN CORPORATION RECLAMATION PROJECT IN EFFECT BEYOND THIS POINT
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
The notice was repeated every ten feet in multiple languages. There were no threats to back it up, no listed fines or penalties, not even cameras. But then, none were needed. All the land in this part of the DFZ was saturated with the magic of wild places humans could not tame. It scared away even the most drugged out, desperate humans, which was why, despite the fact that parts of the fence stood within sight of the skyways, no one lived in the ruined houses that lined the cracked streets. Of course, this also meant there was no one to see Justin as he marched into the closest overgrown lot, trampling the tall grass under his boots as he made his way to the fence. But though his mind should have been on his surroundings, all Justin could think about was how his brother had betrayed him.
He’d thought they understood each other. He’d thought—or he’d thought that Julius thought—they werefriends. So how could he have done this? How could Julius have just handed Justin’s fight, the onehe knewmeant earning his Fang back, to another dragon? And not even a proper dragon like Conrad, butAmelia.
It was insulting. It wasshameful. But if Julius thought he could control the Fifth Blade of Bethesda by holding back something as stupid as a duel location, he was even more of a fool than everyone took him for. That, or he’d forgotten that this was the DFZ, and Justin was a dragon who’d spent the last three days planning his incursion into Reclamation Land. It wasn’t like getting Vann Jeger’s attention would be hard.
With that, he lifted his sword and cut a Justin-sized hole in the fence, stepping through the sundered chain link into the place were no other dragon had set foot for over sixty years. But when he stopped to survey Algonquin’s secret base, all he felt was a sharp sense of disappointment.
