That didn’t make a lot of sense considering they were in a dark, empty room, but before Marci could ask her to explain, Amelia pulled back a curtain Marci hadn’t seen in the dark, filling the room with blinding morning sunlight and the unmistakable scent of snow.
***
At the same time, several miles away, a tall, dark-skinned woman with an ageless face was waiting impatiently on the balcony of a tiny desert motel on the edge of Heartstriker territory. She was scanning the bright morning sky, counting under her breath as her oddly precise gray eyes followed the distant shapes of dragons, when a large black bird swooped down to land on the shoulder of her plain but perfectly tailored suit jacket.
“About time,” she growled, turning to face him. “Bethesda’s whole clan must be in there by now. Did you find out what she’s up to?”
“Oh yes,” Raven said, flapping his wings. “But this ismuchbetter.”
The woman looked skeptical. “Better than discovering why the Dragon Queen of the Americas and the White Witch of the Three Sisters have decided to stop trying to kill each other and team up?”
“That one’s obvious,” he said, hopping off her shoulder to perch on the balcony’s metal railing. “Even dragons can put aside their differences in the face of outside threats. But this isnew!What we’ve been looking for. Not even Myron knows.”
“What don’t I know?” a man’s voice called from inside the hotel room.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” the woman said as a handsome man in his mid-fifties wearing enough wards on his clothing to make even magic-deaf people uncomfortable stepped out to join her. “Raven says he’s found something big, Undersecretary.”
The mage arched his eyebrows. “Bigger than the world’s biggest dragon clan panicking like a kicked-over anthill?”
“For certain,” the bird said. “But I’m not playing with you.” He tilted his head to fix his beady eye on the woman. “My riddle’s for Emily.”
“It’s not much of a riddle, then,” she said, crossing her muscular arms over her chest. “There are only two things that could possibly get you this excited right now, and since you’ve already said it’s not the one we came to investigate, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve found our Mortal Spirit.”
The mage beside her did a double take while the raven began to chitter happily. “See? See?” he said, hopping back up onto her shoulder. “That’swhy I stay with you. You’re always so much cleverer than anyone gives you credit for.”
“Thank you for the non-compliment,” she said, glaring up at the dark mountain that rose from the desert like a thorn. “Do the dragons know?”
“I don’t think so,” Raven said. “The Planeswalker might, but she won’t say anything. She and I have an understanding.” He gave her a sly wink. “We used to date, you know.”
“That’s what you said about the Dragon of the Sahara,” Myron said bitterly. “And we all know howthatturned out.”
The raven began to sulk. “That wasn’tmyfault. She has a terrible memory.”
“And you have a flexible relationship with the truth,” Emily replied. “But I think I believe you this time. At least about the Mortal Spirit.”
She looked at the mountain again, her too-sharp gaze focusing in a way no merely human eye should have been able to. “If the Mortal Spirit’s here, it must already be attached to a human, and if there’s a human in Heartstriker Mountain, they’ll have an owner.”
“Right again!” Raven cawed. “You win the prize!”
“If you’ve got time to joke, you’ve got time to work. Get back in there and find out which human we’re looking for and which dragon they belong to.”
Raven turned up his beak. “What’s the magic word?”
Emily gritted her teeth. “Please.”
“Much better,” he said, looking her in the eyes.I’m doing you the favors here, little darling, not the other way around. Don’t forget that.
“I never do,” she said. “But you’re not doing favors for me. This is for all mankind, remember?”
“So relentlessly driven,” the spirit said, shaking his head. “But that’s why I love you.” He gave her another wink before fluttering into the air. “I’m off to snoop. You kids have fun.”
Emily sighed, watching him go. When he was just a speck on the horizon, she turned and walked back into the hotel room to prepare for what was sure to be a very bumpy ride.
Chapter 3
Marci recoiled at the sudden blast of sunlight, turning her head back toward the shadowy chamber—which she could now see was a stone cave. “Wherearewe?”
“My room,” Amelia said, glancing over her shoulder at the giant, empty cavern behind them. “I don’t exactly spend much time at home, so I never bothered decorating. Or installing lights. But as the oldest, I was entitled to my own balcony, and you’d better believe I made Mother cough it up.” She turned back to the sunlight with a grin, fishing a pair of cat-eye sunglasses out of the V-neck of her red tank top. “Well worth the effort, wouldn’t you agree?”
