“I didn’t think anyone was paying that much attention!” he cried. “We only left the throne room ten minutes ago!”
“Clearly, it was enough time for someone,” Chelsie said, wiping her sword on her armored pants before returning it to its sheath. “But I’m impressed they were this quick on their claws. Your Fang freezes anyone with active thoughts of violence, but it doesn’t do anything about a curse laid down before you arrive. That’s pretty smart. You’re lucky the Heartstriker clan is universally terrible at magic, or this could have been a lot worse.”
Julius didn’t even want to think about it. He’d only been part of the ruling Heartstriker Council publicly for thirty minutes, and already his siblings were finding ways to get around his supposedly unbeatable defense. “Do you think there will be more?”
“Of course there’ll be more,” she said. “You just upset a thousand years of status quo. Naturally, folks are going to be upset.Nowdo you see why I insisted on coming with you tonight?”
He did. “Thank you, Chelsie,” he said, lowering his head humbly. “Um, is it safe to come in?”
She nodded, and Julius stepped inside, gagging at the acrid smell of foiled magic that was still burning in the air as he carried Marci over to the mattress.
“Do you need help?”
Julius was about to say no when he realized that, thanks to his armor, he couldn’t bend down. “Yes, actually,” he said, shifting Marci to show his sister the hidden ties that kept the hide breastplate tight as a leather wall against his ribs. “Can you get me out of this?”
It took a bit of contortion, but with Chelsie’s assistance, Julius managed to wiggle out of the Quetzalcoatl’s armor without waking Marci. Losing the headpiece especially was a relief. The moment Chelsie pulled it off his head, the enormous deadweight of their grandfather’s magic vanished with it, leaving Julius feeling light as a feather. He didn’t even care that he was standing in front of his sister and Marci in nothing but his undershirt and boxers. He was just happy to feel like himself again.
“Thank you,” he said, rolling his shoulders with a relieved sigh.
She shrugged and turned around, placing the ancient armor in his empty closet with the feathered headdress balanced carefully on top. “I’ll message Franz to come pick it up and take it back to the treasury. Even if we’re here with it, the Quetzalcoatl’s armor isn’t the sort of thing you should leave lying around.”
Julius nodded gratefully. He was about to thank her a third time when Marci stirred in his arms, and Julius looked down just in time to see her eyes blink open in confusion.
“Where are we?”
“My room,” he said apologetically. “Or what’s left of it.”
He fully expected her to be disappointed. After the grandeur of the rest of Heartstriker Mountain, his room looked like a utility closet, not to mention he was basically in his underwear. It was hard to get more pathetic than that, but Marci didn’t look put out at all. Quite the opposite. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, looking up at him in amazement. “You brought me to yourroom?”
“I know it’s not much,” he said quickly, kneeling to set her down on the mattress, the only place to sit that wasn’t the floor. “But it’s the only place I could think of. The mountain’s packed.” He grabbed his phone off the floor beside him. “I’ll call housekeeping and see what I can scare up. Maybe they’ve got some spare furniture or—”
Marci lurched forward. It happened so quickly, Julius didn’t actually realize what was happening until she’d locked her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself up his body. The sudden motion knocked the phone out of his hands, along with all thoughts of furniture and housekeeping and the fact that she still smelled faintly like Amelia and…everything, actually. The moment Marci had pressed her body against his now-unarmored, undershirt-clad chest, Julius’s entire universe shrank to the feel of her warmth on his body and the gentle tickle of her breath against his ear.
“You know,” she said softly. “We don’t have to go flying tonight.”
“We don’t?” he replied breathlessly, voice cracking.
She shook her head, brushing her short hair softly against his cheek. “I wasreallylooking forward to it, but there’s always tomorrow, and I can think of something else I’d rather do tonight.”
“What?” he asked stupidly, his mind turned to mush by how close she was.
Marci’s answer to that was to lean in even closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Let’s just say there’s more than one way to ride a dragon.”
The moment she said that, Julius was absolutely certain he was going to spontaneously combust. There was simply no way he could be this terminally embarrassed, frantically excited, and deliriously happy all at the same time and survive. Marci had already pulled back a fraction, looking up at him through her lashes as she waited for him to reply, but Julius couldn’t get his lungs to work for breathing, much less give her an answer tothat.Mercifully, though, none appeared to be needed. Once it was clear he was past the point of coherent thought or speech, Marci made the decision for him, digging her fingers into his shoulders as she yanked him down for a kiss.
It was around this point that Julius’s brain gave up entirely. After a horrible, stressful, nonstop day, the overwhelming excitement and joy offinallygetting what he’d wanted for so long was simply too much. He couldn’t handle it, couldn’t even process it, so he just stopped trying. It was so much easier to just give in and let his body do whatever it wanted, which was apparently to grab Marci and kiss her back.
This was clearly the right choice. The moment he gave in, the crippling doubt and self-aware awkwardness evaporated, and everything began to feel beautifully, perfectlyright. There were no more dragons, no more danger, just Marci’s warm body against his own as he squeezed her tighter, sighing in delight when her warm hands slid up to tangle in his hair. Even the air he breathed was full of her: a heady mix of casting chalk, magic, and the wonderfully familiar smell of Marci herself, which smelled more like home to him now than even the familiar scent of his room. She was everything good in the world to him: his precious friend, his steadfast ally, his brilliant mage, and she was here withhim. Here by his side of her own volition, just as she’d always been, and he loved her for it.
In hindsight, the realization was painfully obvious, but it still hit Julius like a punch to the gut. Helovedher. Not just as a friend or an ally or even in the dizzying rush of possibilities all this kissing could lead to, but in every way. He loved Marci in every meaning of the word—had done so for a very long time if he was honest—and that sudden, all-encompassing truth was the most terrifying and wonderful thing Julius ever felt. It was also the only thing big and important enough to cut through his haze of excitement long enough to make him remember two critical details about their current situation: Marci was still drunk as a skunk, and Chelsie was still in the room.
For the second time in as many minutes, Julius was sure he was about to spontaneously combust. This time, though, it wasnota happy feeling, and he jerked away from Marci at once, leaving her blinking in confusion.
“What?”
The hurt and rejection in that single-syllable question cut him deeper than any knife, and he rushed to explain himself before she got any further down the wrong idea. “We can’t do this,” he said quietly. “I want to. I really,reallywant to, but we can’t right now. You’re too drunk to know what you’re doing, and that’s not how this”—he motioned at the two of them—“should be.”
He stopped there, hoping against hope that that would be enough and he wouldn’t have to make this even more awkward by explaining the situation in detail. He needn’t have worried, though. Even falling over drunk, Marci had always been quick on the uptake. He could actually see her wheels turning as she sorted through his logic, and then she slumped forward, pressing her face into his chest.
