By this point, no amount of telling herself to keep cool could slow Marci’s racing heart. “What does that mean?”
The bird’s black eyes flashed as he pointed his beak at the card in her hand. “I’ll explain when you get there. A secret’s no good if you spill it all at once.”
“Oh, come on!” Marci cried. “Really?”
“Of course,” Raven said, preening. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? It wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t a catch. But, assuming you’re really not a prisoner and can actually get out of the mountain, I think you’ll find the effort worth your time.” He winked at her. “Merlin.”
Marci’s breath caught. Amelia had used that word, too. Before she could ask for more, though, the spirit vanished, leaving only the card to prove he’d existed at all.
“Great,” Marci grumbled, clutching the card in her hand. “He’s worse than you.”
Don’t compare us,the cat said, insulted.I tell you everything I know. He knows everything and stays deliberately vague to bait you.
“True enough,” she agreed. “Unfortunately, knowing there’s a hook inside doesn’t make the bait any less tempting.”
Then take it,Ghost suggested.What do you have to fear? You’re a better mage than he is, and you have me.
“I amnota better mage than Sir Myron Rollins,” Marci said firmly. “He’s one of the best in the world, maybethebest. There’s a reason he’s got, like, thirty jobs other mages would consider the pinnacle of their careers. Everyone wants him. He’s that good.”
Not as good as you,Ghost said stubbornly.
“Aww, you’re sweet,” Marci said, petting him. “Wrong, but sweet.”
Not wrong,he argued.Let’s just go see what he wants. Even if it all turns out to be a waste of time, at least we’ll have proven we’re not prisoners.His blue eyes roved over the tiny hallway.This place feels too much like a cage.
She couldn’t argue with him on that one. “I wonder where Julius is,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Or where we are, for that matter.” She glanced at Ghost. “You were up eating magic all night. Do you know?”
No,the cat said, looking away like the entire subject bored him.He’s probably off making plots with his millions of siblings.
That didn’t sound like Julius to her. He never went anywhere without telling her where he’d be, which was as overly cautious as it was cute. When she pulled up the fancy AR system on the new phone Julius had gotten her, though, she didn’t see anything that hadn’t been sent last night, and while reading his profuse apologies for standing her up made Marci grin, they weren’t actually useful right now.
“I’m just going to call him,” she said, hitting his picture on the new phone’s sleek contacts list. “Maybe he knows what this Raven business is all abou—”
She cut off abruptly when the call picked up on the first ring, and a voice that was obviously draconic—but definitelynotJulius’s—said, “Julius Heartstriker.”
“W-Who are you?” Marci stuttered, shocked. And then she got mad. “Where’s Julius?”
“You must be the human,” the dragon said in a calm voice that somehow managed to be both polite and insufferably condescending. “I’m afraid the Great Julius is currently occupied with matters of vital strategic importance to the Heartstriker clan. But I’ll inform him that you called.”
“You can inform mewho you are,” Marci snapped back. “What did you do, steal his phone?”
There was a long sigh, and then the dragon said, “I am Fredrick, the Great Julius’s assistant.”
Marci blinked. Her first instinct was that the dragon was lying, but she dismissed the idea as quickly as it came, mostly because she couldn’t imagine a dragon who would lie about being an assistant. That said, F was pretty high in the Heartstriker alphabet of power. Assuming he was also telling the truth about his name, she couldn’t understand what a dragon like him was doing picking up Julius’s calls. Then again, though, Juliuswason the Council now. Given how big and rich Heartstriker was, that probably made him equivalent to a senator or a CEO, which was kind of cool. And kind of annoying, especially if it meant she was going to have to go through this nonsense every time she wanted to talk to her dragon.
“Okay, I get it, you’re his secretary,” she said. “But can I just talk to him anyway? It’ll only take a moment.”
“He does not have a moment,” Fredrick said haughtily. “As I already told you, he is very busy with extremely important matters. His new position requires a great deal of attention.”
“So I’ve been learning,” Marci grumbled. At this point, she was starting to wonder if she’d ever see Julius again. “When will he have a moment?”
“I do not know,” Fredrick said. “But as I said, I will inform him you called, Miss Novalli.” He paused after that, and then, like it had just occurred to him, he asked, “Is this an emergency?”
She rolled her eyes. “Would you have acted differently if it was?”
Fredrick’s reply was an icy silence, and Marci sighed. “No emergency,” she said, looking down at Myron’s card. “Just tell him I’m having lunch with a friend and to call me whenever he can.”
The dragon didn’t make a sound to let her know he’d gotten that. He just cut the call, leaving Marci clutching her phone with shaking hands.
