Despite his insistence that Chelsie wasn’t in, Finlay stepped back inside, closing the door firmly to keep them from following.
“He’s going to ditch us,” Justin said, looking back down the badly lit stone hall toward the stairwell. “I don’t even know what we’re doing down here. Chelsie’s a CandBethesda’s Shade. If she lives anywhere in the mountain—which, for the record, I doubt—it’s going to be upstairs, not down here in the F gutter.”
“I’m not saying sheliveshere,” Julius replied carefully, doing his best to toe the line between keeping Chelsie’s secret and not outright lying to his brother. “But the Fs have a better chance of finding her than either of us. They—”
The click of a lock cut him off, and Julius looked up to see Finlay holding the door open with a new look of grudging respect. “Come in.”
Julius was moving before he finished, darting inside before the F changed his mind. When Justin tried to follow, Finlay barred the way with his heavily muscled arm. “Not you.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “I go where he goes.”
“It’s okay, Justin,” Julius said quickly. “I’m not in danger from the Fs. They’re bound not to hurt any of us, remember?”
Finlay’s glower said he didn’t like being reminded of his clutch’s bondage. Justin didn’t look convinced, either, so Julius tried a different approach.
“If you really want to protect me, there’s something else I need you to do,” he said quickly, glancing up and down the hall in a convincing—and not entirely false—show of nerves. “Chelsie’s probably right about Gregory getting desperate after you insulted him, but if he wasn’t willing to go head to head with you before, he’s not going to try it now. With that in mind, I’m betting his next attack will be something subtle, like poison.”
“Good thinking,” Justin said, impressed. “You’re finally starting get this dragon gig, Julius. A coward who’d attack a human would absolutely use poison. So what’s our plan? Should I start eating your dinners?”
“You could do that,” Julius said, heart sinking at the thought of how much food this was going to cost him. “But a better bet would be to just get food from somewhere Gregory doesn’t have access to. You know all the good takeout places around here. Could you—”
“Way ahead of you,” Justin said, whipping out his phone. “You stay put in the F-locker, I’ll take care of food. Meet back here when you’re done.”
“Roger,” Julius said, biting his lip to hide his relieved smile. “Thank you, Justin.”
Justin nodded and waved him inside, never taking his eyes off his phone, where he’d already saved multiple pizza orders. When it was clear the knight was no longer a threat, Finlay closed the door in his face. “You’re pretty good at that,” he said as he turned the lock.
“The Justin redirect is a J-clutch survival skill,” Julius said with a shrug, glancing down the Fs’ long hall. “Is Chelsie in her room?”
Finlay nodded. “Fair warning, though, she’s in a foul mood. I think she only had me let you in so she could yell at you personally.”
“That’s fine,” Julius said. “So long as she talks to me.”
Finlay didn’t seem to know what to make of that, but he didn’t stop Julius as he walked down the hall to the warded door at the end. He knocked when he got there, but it was only perfunctory. Chelsie knew he was there, and he’d barely set his knuckles to her door before she snarled, “Just get in here, Julius.”
He did as he was told, opening the door just enough to slip inside. But when he looked up to thank her for seeing him, the words died in his throat.
It didn’t seem possible, but Chelsie looked even worse than she had on the stairs. She was sitting on the medical table with her armored jacket off, revealing a bloody mess of wounds—old and new—crisscrossing her olive skin beneath her stained tank top. One particularly nasty cut on her arm was still in the process of being stitched up, which shouldn’t even have been possible for an unsealed dragon, much less one as old as Chelsie. Julius had seen her heal wounds twice that size right in front of his eyeswhileshe was fighting Vann Jeger. He couldn’t imagine how close to the limit her body must be for her need actualmanualstitches to keep herself together. She should have been passed out in bed ages ago, and yet here she was, sitting patiently on the metal operating table at the front of her lair like this was all old news while Fredrick hovered beside her with a bloody needle and thread.
The sight of the F made Julius do a double take. “I thought you were with Marci?”
“I passed her on to the correct dragons,” Fredrick said. “She’s safely on her way, but Chelsie required my immediate attention.”
Julius glanced at the needle in his hands. “Are you a doctor?”
Fredrick shook his head. “Frances is the family doctor. I’m merely a good tailor.”
“The best,” Chelsie agreed, wincing as Fredrick resumed stitching. “Go ahead.”
Julius blinked. “Me?”
“No one else has barged into my room,” she said irritably. “Finlay said you wanted to talk, so get on with it. Talk.”
Julius began to fidget. He’d been so concerned with just getting to Chelsie, he hadn’t actually planned what he was going to say when he did it. He knew the basics, but saying them in a way that would actually get through to his sister rather than just putting her back up was no easy task. But Chelsie always had appreciated honesty more than cleverness, and in the end, Julius decided to just stick to what he did best: blurting out the truth.
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” Chelsie said. “I’ve gotten through worse.”
