“You’re awake!” Amelia said, handing Marci a glass of water. “Thank goodness. You had me worried there.”
“Ihad me worried,” Marci croaked, reaching out to take the glass and bring it thirstily to her lips. “You might want to give me a little more warning next—pah!” She spit out the water, which wasn’t water at all. “What is this?”
“A cure-all of my own concoction,” Amelia said proudly. “It’s a tincture made of herbs from multiple planes dissolved in a fifty-fifty mix of whiskey and cherry liqueur.”
“Ugh,” Marci said, wiping her tongue on the back of her hand. “Tastes more like a poison-all than a cure-all.”
“The foul taste is part of the curing,” Amelia assured her. “Finish the whole thing, and I guarantee you won’t care about whatever it was you took it for anymore.”
She offered the glass again, but Marci pushed it away. “I’ll take my chances,” she muttered, lying back on the chair to stare at the sinking sun. “How long was I out?”
“Not sure,” Amelia said, sitting back down herself. “I just woke up not too long ago myself, but going by the sun, I’d say it’s around five in the afternoon.”
Amelia had picked Marci up right before lunch, so that meant—“Svena left us lying out here forfive hours?”
Amelia laughed out loud. “What do you think she is? Nice? At least she put our bodies in chairs. And she moved us under the umbrellas. That was thoughtful.”
Maybe by dragon standards. “Well, I’d say her bedside manner definitely needs work.”
“You can’t argue with the results.” Amelia closed her eyes. “I can feel my fire inside you. It’s weirder than I thought it would be.”
Marci closed her eyes, too. Sure enough, Amelia’s fire was burning in her chest, warm and strong. It was so inviting, she couldn’t resist drawing off just a bit. She’d only meant to take a taste, but the moment her mental touch brushed the flames, power flooded into her, lighting up her bracelets like Christmas. Ghost perked up as well, his longing hitting her like a hunger pang.
“Here you go,” Marci said, releasing the magic down the connection she shared with her spirit. “But not too much.”
But we havesomuch,the spirit said as he gobbled it up.Just think what we could do with this, Marci. How powerful we could become.
“You sound like a comic-book villain,” she told him, locking the magic firmly back in place. “Haven’t you ever heard that with great power comes great responsibility?”
The cold rush in her mind told her what Ghost thought of that, and Amelia chuckled beside her. “Spirit getting grabby, is he?”
“He thinks your fire is his own personal feeding trough,” Marci said, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, though. I’m wise to his ways. I’ll keep your magic safe.”
“I know you will,” Amelia said, her voice so serious, Marci almost didn’t recognize it. “I’m betting it all on you,” she whispered, staring at Marci with glittering, almost feverish eyes. “You’re my winning ticket. You’re going to be the first Merlin, I just know it. We just have to get you there.”
“What are you talking about?” Marci asked. “What’s a Merlin?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” she said, pushing up out of her chair. “For now, though, that was way rougher than I’d thought it’d be, and I need a drink. You want one?”
“Depends,” Marci said. “Does it have those horrid herbs in it?”
“Nope,” Amelia said, rattling around on the table, which someone had apparently cleared off and reset while Marci was out. All the sandwich trays and brunch dishes were gone, replaced by a fresh selection of salads, steak, seafood, desserts, and a bar that would have served an entire wedding, which Amelia was currently digging through for a glass.
“Here,” she said, plunking two ice cubes into a glass before pouring Marci a perfectly normal-looking splash of brandy. “I snitched this from Bethesda’s private stash. If drinking a shot worth more than most houses can’t make you feel better, nothing can.”
Marci was on the verge of saying no, but she must have absorbed more of Amelia than just fire, because she ended up nodding instead, accepting the terrifyingly expensive drink with trembling fingers. When she finally got the courage to take a sip, though, she discovered Amelia was right. Itdidmake her feel better. Good enough to ask the dragon for another one, which Amelia was delighted to provide.
And high overhead, unseen in the long evening shadows, a raven flapped off the peak of the mountain and flew away into the sunset.
Chapter 4
Julius had never felt more ridiculous in his life.
Fredrick hadn’t been messing around when he’d said he was going to get Julius ready to face the clan. He’d brushed and scrubbed and scraped and cleaned and trimmed the younger dragon with ruthless efficiency. Before Julius even knew what was happening, he’d had his hair cut, his face shaved, his teeth whitened, and his eyebrows trimmed, and those were just the procedures he’d agreed to. If Fredrick had had his way, he would have been spray tanned and airbrushed, too.
But the line had to be drawn somewhere, and Julius put his foot down at having his skin painted. Even without the painting, though, a good hour and a half had still passed before he realized it, and by the time it occurred to him that Marci really should have called by now, it was far too late.
“Oh no,” he muttered, grabbing his phone, whose screen was a wall of missed calls. “No, no, no. She’s going tohateme.”
