“None of your business,” she snarled, but the angry words were undermined by the obvious pain in her voice, and Julius bit his lip.
“Are you sure you’re—”
“I’mfine,” Chelsie growled. “I just need to take a short break and change into something with less blood on it. You.” She stabbed her finger at Justin. “Stay out of trouble. And you.” She stabbed her finger at Julius. “Keep your hand on that sword. Anddon’tdo anything nice. Gregory’s not the only one who sees taking you out as his road to power, and I might not be around to save you next time.”
“You weren’t around this time!” Justin yelled, but Chelsie was already gone. She didn’t even bother to wait until their backs were turned. She simply pulled her sword and sliced down, splitting the air in a strike almost too fast for Julius to see, leaving them staring at the empty step.
“Show-off,” Justin grumbled.
“I don’t think she was showing off,” Julius said, looking worriedly at the blood she’d left on the stairs. “I think she’s really hurt.”
“You can’t hurt Chelsie,” his brother snorted. “She’s invincible.”
Normally, Julius would have agreed. But everyone had their limits, and between Justin, Vann Jeger, and Estella, Chelsie had been up against hers for a long time now. Mother still hadn’t let her rest, either, sending her to get shot in the DFZ first thing yesterday and making her get up before dawn this morning to keep the clan from tearing itself apart. Even for an old and powerful dragon, Chelsie was obviously being worked far beyond what she could handle, and the more Julius thought about that, the angrier he got.
“I’m going to go talk to her,” he said, starting down the stairs.
“Are you crazy?” Justin growled, stomping after him. “Chelsie doesn’t talk. She threatens. And if that doesn’t work, she hits. It’s called being clan enforcer.”
“All the more reason for me to do something, then,” Julius argued, taking the stairs down two at a time. “Chelsie’s the best at what she does, but no one dragon can police an entire clan alone. She doesn’t even like her job. She’s only doing it because Mother makes her. She has to work harder than all the rest of us combined, and that’s not fair.”
Justin snorted. “Fair has nothing to do with being a dragon.”
“It does in my clan,” Julius growled. “The whole point of moving to a Council was to free us from Mother, but that can’t happen if some of us are still trapped under her thumb.”
“Yeah, well, life ain’t fair,” Justin said. “I’m sure Chelsie doesn’t like her lot, but it’s not like you can just make Mother set her free.”
“Why not?” Julius asked. “Because that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.”
Justin froze on the stairs behind him. “What?”
“I’m going to free Chelsie,” Julius said, stopping as well to turn and look at him. “Mother’s making her do this just like she makes F-clutch act like servants, and it’s wrong. So I’m going to find a way to set them all free and put a stop to this once and for all.”
Justin stared at him like he’d lost his marbles, and then he turned away with a curse. “Look,” he said at last. “I’m all for not having to deal with Chelsie lurking behind me anymore, but what you’re saying is insane. I know that you’re not exactly up on how our clan actually works since you were basically living under a rock until a month ago, but Chelsie’s been the Clan Enforcer since forever. She’s an institution, not to mention one of the only reasons this clan keeps functioning. Do you know how many rebellions we would have had before now if Chelsie hadn’t been there to stomp them down?”
“All the more reason to set her free,” Julius said. “What kind of clan are we if the only thing keeping us together is our unifying fear of Chelsie? That’s not healthy.”
“Maybe not,” Justin said. “But it works. And what makes you think youcanset her free, anyway? Chelsie’s as sneaky as dragons come. If there was a way to wiggle out of this, she’d have done it ages ago. You already overthrew Bethesda. If Chelsie was going to go, she would have done it then. The fact that she’s still here doing her job just proves that she’s in a bigger mess than you can clean up with some Council edicts and wishful thinking.”
Bethesda herself had said something similar yesterday morning, but it was far too early for Julius to accept defeat. “I won’t know until I try,” he said stubbornly, starting down the stairs again. “If I can just talk to her and explain what I want to do, maybe she’ll at least tell me what Bethesda’s using to keep her in line. That’s more than I have now.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” his brother grumbled. “Chelsie keeps her secrets even closer than her enemies. If you start asking questions, she’s just going to slam the door in your face.”
Knowing Chelsie’s temper, a simple door slam was the probably a best-case scenario. But that was a risk he was willing to take. Even when she was being terrifying about it, Chelsie had always been there for him. Now, Julius was determined to at least try to return the favor, so he picked up the pace, taking the service stairs two at a time as he jogged down the endless corkscrew toward the very bottom of the mountain.
***
Now that he knew where he was going, finding F-clutch’s hidden door was remarkably easy. This was partially because Julius had always had an excellent, survival-enforced memory for the mountain’s layout, and partially because generations of Fs making the trip down here on a daily basis had worn a faint but noticeable track in the stone floor. But while finding the entrance was no problem, getting in was another matter entirely.
“For the last time,” Julius pleaded to the F who’d answered the door, a greasy, angry-looking dragon whom Julius vaguely remembered as being in charge of the mountain’s vehicle fleet. “I don’t mean Chelsie any harm. I just want to talk to her.”
“And I’m telling you she’s not here,” the dragon replied. “Sir.”
He spat the honorific like a curse, and Justin growled. “Watch it, Frankie.”
“It’s Finlay,” the dragon at the door growled back. “Sir.”
Justin bared his teeth, and Julius sighed. “Enough,” he said, getting between them. “We’re all on the same team, remember?” He looked up at the F. “Can you just tell her I’d like to see her, please?”
