That sounded like some sketchy math to Julius, but he wasn’t about to try and argue his sister out of helping. Ian, on the other hand, looked ready to pop.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “There’s only two places Algonquin would keep something as valuable as this Merlin sounds: her tower or Reclamation Land, both of which are currently decorated with freshly severeddragon heads. We’re talking about the spirit who shot the Three Sisters out of the sky! What hope do you possibly have of getting through this alive?”
“And that’s just Algonquin herself,” Svena chimed in. “We haven’t even touched on her soldiers, her spirits, or the Leviathan. There’s a reason no dragon has ever been inside Reclamation Land or Algonquin’s Tower and come out alive.”
“Actually,” Julius said with a smile. “That’s not true. There’s at least one dragon who’s survived both, and he should be waking up any minute now. He might be able to tell us something.”
“Then let’s go,” General Jackson said, standing up. “Every moment we waste here is one more Marci is under Algonquin’s control.”
“Follow me,” Julius said, heading out the door with Chelsie on his heels. Fredrick went next, followed by Raven and, more slowly, Sir Myron, who didn’t seem to be in nearly as much of a hurry as his partners. When it was clear Julius wasn’t going to stop, Ian left as well. Svena followed last of all, rubbing her now visibly pregnant stomach and muttering under her breath about genetic inheritance and the suicidal insanity streak all Heartstrikers seemed to share.
***
For the first time ever, going to Justin for advice actually turned out to be a good idea.
As he’d hoped, Justin had been awake and eating his weight in pizza when they’d arrived at the infirmary. He listened to the explanation of what had happened with uncharacteristic patience, and then, just as Julius was bracing for the demands that he be allowed to go on the attack with them, Justin had picked up his phone and started sketching a map in the drawing app of their shared AR.
“Wait,” Julius said, flabbergasted. “You don’t want to go with us? You’re just going to stay here? Just like that?”
“I’m not an idiot,” Justin growled, glaring at him as he traced his finger through the glowing display. “I might be awake, but I’m still missing half my blood, and my legs are being held together with tape. If you could wait until tomorrow, I’d be ready, but right now I’d just slow you down. A knight should be a strength, not a burden.”
Julius still couldn’t believe it. “Really?”
“It’s not like you’ll be on your own,” Justin said, turning his attention back to the glowing map hanging in the air between them. “You’ll haveherthere.”
Julius glanced at Chelsie, who was leaning on the wall beside the door. Justin had pointedly avoiding looking at the enforcer since they’d walked in, but in the current context, there was only one her he could have meant.
“She’ll keep you safe,” Justin went on, green eyes focused on his drawing. “Unless Mother orders her otherwise, of course. You might want to watch your back.”
Given how his brother had ended up in that hospital bed, Julius couldn’t fault him for feeling that way. He wished Chelsie would speak up for once and tell him it wasn’t her fault, that she was their mother’s slave and had had no choice. As always, though, his sister said nothing, and Julius decided to just let it go. There’d be plenty of time later for mending fences when Marci wasn’t in mortal peril, and anyway, he didn’t want to distract Justin from the amazing piece of cartography he was currently drawing from memory in the air.
In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Justin had always had an amazing memory for detail when it came to combat-important information like terrain and landmarks. He’d also spent the last several weeks sitting on a collapsed roof staring at Reclamation Land before Julius had made him get down. Of course he’d know every in and out to the place, but what really amazed Julius was the map Justin produced for Reclamation Land’s interior.
It looked too bizarre to be real. If Justin had been a more imaginative dragon, Julius would have thought he was making it up. Even knowing they were going into the heart of Algonquin’s land, his descriptions of endless old-growth forest, massive spirit circles, gigantic trees, and wolves the size of Buicks sounded too fantastical to be real. But Justin was as prosaic as their kind came. No matter how spectacular a picture he painted, Justin’s description focused purely on strategic importance. He even listed all the relative heights for each landmark as seen from the air so Julius and Chelsie would be able to pre-plan their escape flight course if it came to that. The whole thing was so practical and technically proficient that even though Julius was certain the landscape his brother was drawing was too big to fit inside Reclamation Land’s official borders, he still believed every bit of it.
“There,” Justin said when he’d finished. “That’s Rec Land. You want the Tower, too? I only saw the bottom of it, but I can probably give you a good idea of scale for the sub-lake levels.”
“No, this should be more than sufficient,” Raven said, peering down at General Jackson’s phone, where she’d accessed Justin’s map as well. “I’m certain Marci is being held in Reclamation Land.”
Julius frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Because Reclamation Land is where Algonquin likes to keep her magical projects,” the spirit said authoritatively. “And because, if sheisin the Tower, we’re screwed. Even if we could sneak inside, which we couldn’t, the Tower’s in the middle of Algonquin’s lake. She can flood the whole thing at a moment’s notice, which is all the time we’d have since she’d be able to feel us the moment we set foot inside her domain. But Reclamation Land is different. Algonquin might own it through and through, but it’s stillland.That puts it outside of her actual waters, which means we actually stand a chance at getting inside and moving around without being spotted. It’ll still be nearly impossible, but if our choices are between nearly impossible and totally impossible, I’m going to go with that.”
“Reasonable enough,” General Jackson said, saving the map. “Myron, what do you think?”
“Ithink this is insane,” the mage said, studying Justin’s map with fear in his eyes. “Even if we’re not going in the water, it’s still spirit land. Once we cross the border, all bets are off. Even time’s supposed to move differently in there. If we’re not careful, Algonquin could trap us for centuries.”
“She wouldn’t bother,” the general said confidently. “It would be far more efficient to kill or ransom us. Either way, we’re going in.”
“How?” Julius asked. “Are we just going to sneak in through the city and hop the fence?”
“Actually, I was thinking of taking a more circumspect approach,” Raven said, fluffing his feathers. “Your sister is the Planeswalker. Surely that comes with certain perks.”
“You want to portal there?” Julius asked, scratching the last of his still-healing burns thoughtfully. “That’s…not a bad idea, actually. It would certainly save time.”
“Assuming Amelia’s up for it,” Svena said from the doorway, where she and Ian had been hovering this whole time.
“She told me once that she’d have to be at death’s door before she was too weak to make a portal,” Julius replied. “It can’t hurt to ask.”
