“What do you think we’re going to do?” she growled, rolling up her sleeves. “We’re a mage and a spirit with nothing to lose on a mountain surrounded by enough magic to blow this whole city sky high. We’re going to escape.”
He had no face to show it, but Marci knew he was grinning.I hoped you’d say that.
“Change ‘hoped’ to ‘knew,’ and I’ll believe you,” Marci said, grinning back as she grabbed her bag off the chair and pulled out her favorite piece of casting chalk. “Let’s break something.”
The Empty Wind threw back his head and laughed, an eerie, terrifying sound that echoed down the mountain, startling the spirit beasts running their eternal circles on the field below.
Chapter 16
Four hours after his confrontation with Chelsie in the dining room, Julius was beginning to think that getting clawed, roasted, and then stabbed was actually the easiest part of putting this vote together.
It had sounded like such a simple idea to start. The whole clan was already in the mountain, and there was only one candidate. In theory, all they had to do was get everyone together into the throne room to physically cast their ballot. Compared to the scramble of yesterday’s vote, with dragons arriving from all over the country, it should have been a snap. But Julius had grossly underestimated his mother’s ability to make her children fall into line, and now that Bethesda was activelynothelping, getting all of Heartstriker together in one place on short notice had turned into a full evening of trying to herd a mountain’s worth of prideful, nervous, fire-breathing cats into a box.
Even the lower-alphabet dragons who’d actively supported Ian during his campaign were being obnoxious, claiming they had something or another to do that night that couldn’t possibly be put off. Julius wasn’t sure if they actually had things to do, or if they were just trying to look busy and important. Either way, the whole situation was impossible. In the end, the only reason it happened at all was because of David.
Julius wasn’t sure if the senator was taking his new life debt seriously, or if he just wanted to get this over with, but David was working like a fiend. While Julius and Ian struggled to get the lower clutches together, David had the upper alphabet in line and ready to vote in a mere two hours, after which he came to help with the rest. Whatever was inspiring David’s new helpful nature, Julius was excessively grateful for it, because despite his determination to see this through, his body was rapidly reaching its physical limit. They were still thirty dragons short when he finally gave out, slinking back to his hospital room to take a nap while Ian and David finished putting everything together.
As he fell into bed, Julius was certain it would all come to nothing. The vote would just have to happen tomorrow morning as planned. But then, shortly before twelve a.m., Fredrick woke him up to tell him that the clan—allof them, except for Justin, who was still stuck, and Amelia, who was blatantly playing hooky—was awaiting his presence in the throne room.
Julius leaped out of bed. There was no bothering with ancient armor this time. He didn’t even take time to look at the suit Fredrick was helping him into before he was out the door. He finished dressing in the elevator, combing his hair with his fingers as he walked into the crowded throne room at the stroke of midnight.
He was the last to arrive. Even Bethesda was out of her rooms, probably thanks to Conrad, given the murderous looks she kept giving him. But while she clearly wasn’t happy about it, she didn’t seem ready to fight that battle again so soon. She didn’t even make a speech this time. She just looked down her nose at her children as though she couldn’t possibly be more disgusted and snarled, “Get on with it.”
And with that, the second Heartstriker Council vote commenced. Given the insanity they’d gone through to get to this point, Julius was braced for something to explode. From the dark look on her face, Chelsie was clearly thinking the same thing, but nothing happened. There were no dramatic interruptions or last-minute challenges. Now that they were all finally in here, everyone seemed to be as ready to get this over with as Julius. Not fifteen minutes after the Fs handed out the slips of paper, all the votes were in.
Unsurprisingly seeing how he was the last candidate standing, Ian won by a landslide. There were a few other names—mostly contrary dragons voting for themselves—but by the time the last vote was counted, Ian’s pile was well above the fifty percent needed to win.
“And I believe that’s that,” Ian said, strutting up onto the stage proud as a peacock. “The votes have been witnessed. I’ve won beyond the shadow of a doubt, which means the Heartstriker Council is finallyofficiallycomplete.” He put out his hand to their mother, who looked like she was trying not to choke on her own bile. “I look forward to working with you.”
Bethesda smacked his hand away. She glared at them all for a moment, and then she turned without a word, stalking back into her rooms and slamming her door so hard, a new crack appeared in the throne room’s battered stone wall.
Julius sighed. “That didn’t go well.”
“Really?” Ian said. “I was waiting for her to go for my throat. By that measure, I’d say it went very well indeed.”
“I’m not expecting her to dance on the rooftops,” he grumbled. “But would it be too much to ask for her to at least not drag her tail? It’s over, she lost.”
“Exactly,” his brother said. “Bethesda isn’t a good loser under the best of circumstances. But don’t worry. She’s in a snit right now, but she’ll come around. For all her faults, Mother’s a survivor. She’s not going to turn her nose up at some power just because she can’t have it all.”
“I hope you’re right,” Julius said tiredly. “We’ll have a hard time making this Council work if one third of it refuses to come out of her room.”
“Well she has until tomorrow to sort it out,” Ian said, checking his phone. “It’s too late to start anything tonight. Also, I have a date.”
Julius gaped at him. “You scheduled adateafter this? It’s nearly one in the morning.”
“Like that matters,” Ian said, turning to smile at Svena, who was sweeping into the newly unsealed throne room while Heartstrikers scrambled to get out of her way. “What’s the point of victory if you don’t stop to enjoy it?”
Julius supposed that was true, but it still bothered him. They’d been pushing as hard as possible on this for what felt like forever. Letting things slide now, even if it was just until tomorrow morning, felt wrong somehow. He was about to push one last time when a familiar hand landed on his shoulder.
“Enough, Julius.”
For the first time ever, Chelsie’s voice behind him didn’t make him jump. “But we’re soclose,”he said, turning around to face her.
His sister looked pointedly at their mother’s door. “Not as close as you think. Just because Bethesda’s backed off doesn’t mean she’s given up.”
“All the more reason to push now, while she’s still defeated.”
Chelsie’s eyebrows shot up. “Why Julius, what a ruthless observation. Are you feeling okay?”
