I looked at my father, who was still sitting at the table, his dark eyes unreadable. “There’s a sleeping bag in the hall closet. The den couch is probably the only spot left.”
He nodded and rose to his feet. For a moment, he and my mother stood facing each other across the kitchen, close enough to touch but separated by an ocean of history.
“Josie,” he said quietly. “I know this isn’t the time, but — ”
“You’re right.” She cut him off, but gently. “It isn’t the time. But soon, Finn. Soon we’ll talk. Really talk.”
He nodded again, something easing in his expression. “Soon.”
They parted ways in the hall — my mother climbing the stairs to her old room, my father heading for the den with the sleeping bag tucked under his arm. I watched them go and tried to figure out what I was feeling.
My family, fractured for so long, was finally beginning to heal.
Ben was waiting for me in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the mattress with his elbows on his knees and his head bowed. He looked up as I entered, and even through my exhaustion, I sensed how the familiar warmth of our connection kindled between us.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“About as well as could be expected.” I came over to the bed and sat down next to him, letting my head drop onto his shoulder. “Seventeen years of secrets, laid bare in about twenty minutes. My grandmother thinks I’m part phoenix. My parents might actually speak to each other again someday. And apparently, I’m either going to save the world or become a monster.”
“No pressure, then.”
I laughed, the sound watery and strange. “No pressure at all.”
He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close, and I felt the last of the night’s tension begin to drain away. Whatever came next — Gregory, the Dragon, the impossible task of healing a wounded world — we would face it together.
“Get some sleep,” Ben murmured against my hair. “Tomorrow, we save the world.”
“Tomorrow,” I agreed, and let my eyes drift closed.
Chapter Ten
Voices in at least three different languages drifted up the staircase, and Ben opened his eyes.
For one disoriented moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. But then the world seemed to right itself on its axis, and he knew he was in the room he shared with Sidney. One hand reached out and found that the space beside him in the bed was cold, which meant Sidney must have been awake for a while, and he’d been so deeply asleep that he hadn’t even roused when she got up. His dimensional scars prickled beneath his T-shirt, responding to the concentration of guardian energy that had gathered in the house overnight. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant exactly, more like the pins-and-needles feeling of a limb waking up, but it was persistent and hard to ignore.
He found his jeans on the floor where he’d dropped them and pulled them on, then grabbed a flannel shirt from the closet. The house seemed to creak and settle around him as he dressed, and he could hear footsteps moving through the rooms below — too many footsteps, too many voices, the big old Lowell homestead suddenly crowded with people who shouldn’t have been able to exist in the same space.
The upstairs hallway was empty, but he paused at the top of the stairs to listen. Someone was speaking in rapid Spanish, the words too quick for him to follow. A woman’s voice answered in accented English, and then a third voice cut in — Brigid Callahan’s Irish lilt, sharp with what sounded like disagreement.
Ben descended the stairs, skipping the third step out of habit, and followed the sounds to the living room to find it utterly altered.
Someone had pushed the furniture back against the walls to create an open area in the center, and the guardians had arranged themselves in a rough circle on chairs, cushions, and the floor itself. Ben counted at least fifteen people, maybe more — the Quispe family taking up one corner, the elderly Kofi Asante settled in what had been Emily Thompson’s favorite armchair, the Scandinavian twins perched on the windowsill with their legs dangling. Kenji Tanaka stood near the fireplace, slim and elegant as a blade, and Brigid Callahan occupied the center of the room like a general surveying her troops.
Sidney stood near the kitchen doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression carefully neutral. Her mother and grandmother flanked her, Josie’s hand resting on her daughter’s shoulder in a gesture that looked both protective and restraining. Finn hovered at the edge of the group, close enough to participate but clearly uncertain of his place in a room filled with people who possessed talents he could never share.
Rebecca Morse leaned against the far wall, her tactical gear of the night before traded for jeans and boots and a dark sweater, but her stance was still that of a soldier on watch. Her eyes tracked the room constantly, noting positions and potential threats.
“The old ways have served us for centuries,” Brigid was saying as Ben stepped off from the bottom step. Her voice was filled with conviction, the certainty of someone who had never questioned the foundations of her world. “When the Dragon stirs, we sing it back to sleep. When the boundaries weaken, we strengthen them with ritual and sacrifice. That is what guardians do.”
“The old ways assume that the threat comes from within the network,” Emily Thompson replied, her tone measured but firm. “A natural imbalance, or possibly a shift in the ley lines, something that can be addressed through traditional means. This is different.”
“Is it?” Brigid’s storm-colored gaze swept the room, clearly seeking allies. “I’ve studied the histories. The Withering that touched our ancestors was also caused by human interference — miners in Wales who dug too deep, fishermen in the North Sea who pulled up things better left on the ocean floor. They were stopped, the damage was healed, and the Dragon returned to its slumber.”
Rebecca’s voice cut across the room, cool and brisk. “Those miners had pickaxes and lanterns and mules, and whatever meager technology the eighteenth century could muster. Julian Gregory has surveillance drones, satellite uplinks, and equipment that can crack bedrock from half a mile underground.”
Brigid turned to face her, and Ben watched the Irish woman’s expression harden. “You are not a guardian.”
“No, I’m not.” Rebecca pushed away from the wall and moved into the circle, her rubber-soled boots quiet on the old oak floor. “But I am a federal agent with fifteen years of experience in counterterrorism, domestic surveillance, and classified operations. I’ve seen what happens when people with money and resources decide they want something badly enough to ignore every warning sign along the way.” She stopped a few feet from Brigid, close enough that the height difference between them was obvious. Rebecca was taller by several inches, but the Irish guardian didn’t give any ground. “You want to sing the Dragon back to sleep? Fine, be my guest. But while you’re lighting candles and chanting in Gaelic, Gregory’s drill is boring deeper into the ley line with every passing hour. He doesn’t care about your rituals. He doesn’t even know they exist.”
