Nice Dragons Finish Last

Chapter 12

After driving nearly ten minutes with no sign of pursuit, Julius motioned for Marci to pull over. She did so immediately, coasting to a stop next to the remains of a curb long since crumbled by the roots of an ancient oak tree. Julius checked one last time for pursuers as they slid into the tree’s shadow, but the street was empty, the condemned houses on either side listing like low country tombstones. There was no sign of Bixby’s men—no sign of Chelsie either, not that he’d see one. Still, the emptiness was enough to make him finally release the breath he’d been half holding since Ghost had spoken in his mind as he turned to face Marci.

“Before we run into another hit squad. I think it’s time you told me what’s really going on.”

Marci winced. “I’m super sorry about all that. I never thought Bixby would send a real force all the way up here.”

“You stole a priceless object,” he replied irritably. “Of course he’s going to come after it.”

“I didn’t steal it!” she said. “My dad stole it, and he only took it because Bixby was illegally withholding his money.”

“Fine,” Julius snapped. “But why did you keep it after he died? I would have thought one death would be enough to prove that thing isn’t worth messing around with.”

Marci shot him a hurt look, and Julius instantly felt like a jerk.

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face. “It’s just…stealing a magical relic from a vengeful mobster seems like a pretty stupid move for a smart girl like you.”

“I didn’t set out to take it,” she said, petting the Kosmolabe in her lap. “I didn’t even know what it was until Dad told me, and after everything went down, it seemed kind of pointless to try and give it back.”

Julius let out a long breath. “I just wish you’d told me everything back at the restaurant. If I’d known from the beginning you had something Bixby wanted, we might have been able to avoid all this. We could have used the Kosmolabe as a bargaining chip and negotiated—”

“Negotiated?” Marci shrieked. “Those people killed my father! They nearly killed us just now. The only negotiating they do is at gunpoint.” Her eyes narrowed. “And anyway, if there’s anyone in this car who should have come clean earlier, it’s you. You’re not even human!”

Julius didn’t try to deny it. He just sat still while Marci eyeballed him like he was a wild animal she’d discovered in her car.

“So what are you, anyway? Skinwalker? Vampire?”

“Vampire?” Julius repeated, glancing pointedly at the dappled sunlight falling across his legs.

She shrugged and kept going. “Wendigo?”

“Why are you only guessing the worst things? Maybe I’m a kind and benevolent spirit of nature?”

“No reason to hide being a spirit in Detroit,” Marci said, shaking her head. “Besides, I’ve felt spirit magic plenty of times before, and it’s nothing like—” She stopped, eyes lighting up in sudden recognition. “Oh my God, you’re a dragon! That’s it, isn’t it?” When he didn’t say no, she started bouncing up and down in her seat. “You are a dragon! This is amazing! I’ve never met one. Can you breathe fire?”

Julius’s spirits sank lower with every breathless word. “Ix-nay on the agon-dray,” he grumbled. “I’m not legal here, remember?”

“Oh,” Marci said, dropping her voice, though not her excitement. “So can you breathe fire?”

“Yes,” Julius said heavily. “But before you ask, I can’t right now. My dragon form is sealed at the moment.”

Marci snapped her fingers. “I knew you were under a curse. So how old are you? A hundred? A thousand?”

“I’m twenty-four,” Julius said before she tried to check his teeth.

She gaped at him. “Twenty-four what? Years?” He nodded, and Marci collapsed back in her seat. “I can’t believe it. I finally meet a dragon, and he’s a year younger than I am. I have the worst luck ever.” She heaved an enormous sigh and sat up again. “So how did your dragon form get sealed? Did you try to eat a great and powerful mage or—”

“Can we not talk about this?”

Marci flinched as though he’d struck her, and Julius immediately feel awful.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I was sealed under complicated circumstances, and I’m not really up for an interrogation right now.”

“I understand,” Marci said, lowering her eyes. “I don’t mean to be pushy, but I’ve wanted to meet a dragon all my life. Though I guess I’ve actually met two now. Your brother’s a dragon, too, isn’t he?”

Julius nodded, and Marci’s face split right back into a grin. “That explains a lot. I knew nothing human could survive in that lamprey pool.”

He fought the urge to growl. Of course Justin’s actions would be explained. He was bold, arrogant, everything a dragon should be, whereas Marci hadn’t even been able to guess what Julius was.

“So why didn’t you tell me what you were earlier?” she asked, leaning toward him between the seats. “If I was a dragon, I’d tell everyone. Is it because we’re in the DFZ?” She gasped. “You weren’t afraid I’d turn you in for the bounty, were you? Because I’d never do that. I mean, who in their right mind would pick money over having their own dragon? You can’t buy that sort of access! So do you really make your own magic?”

By the time she finished, Julius’s stomach was clenched in a tight little knot. He’d been warned that humans took the dragon reveal badly, but he’d never expected this from Marci. She was leaned all the way over into his seat now, staring at him with gleaming eyes like he was her prize catch, and suddenly, Julius had to get away.

He couldn’t take this, not today. He couldn’t sit here and listen to the person who’d become the closest thing he had to an actual friend badger him for access. Especially since he couldn’t give it to her without getting her killed, which was what always happened to humans who learned too many dragon secrets. Marci wasn’t the sort who’d give up before she knew everything, and Julius didn’t have the strength to tell her no over and over again. But as he threw off his seatbelt and opened the door, Marci’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“Wait! I’m sorry.”

It was the tremor in her voice that stopped him more than her words or her touch, and Julius looked over his shoulder to see Marci staring at him with real fear in her eyes. That would have been appropriate for a human who’d just learned she was sharing a car with an immortal predator, except Marci’s hand was still latched onto his shoulder. Hard. Because she wasn’t afraid of him, she was afraid he would leave.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Don’t go, please. I messed that up. I get overly excited and talk before I think. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

The urge to run was still there, but Julius couldn’t go when she was looking at him like that. “It’s okay,” he said quietly.

Marci shook her head so fast her short hair flew. “It’s not okay. I was being stupid. I’m sure you had your reasons for not telling me, and it was rude of me to push. Especially since the only reason I found out at all was because you let me pull off you back there to save our lives.”

“The life-saving was all you,” Julius said, but Marci would have none of it.

“No way. I couldn’t have done a tenth of that on my own. I mean, I’ve pulled off strong sources before, but touching you was like…” Her voice trailed off as she searched for the words. “Plugging into the sun,” she said at last, her lips curling into a wondrous smile. “It was absolutely amazing. So much concentrated power, and it was right there, right at my fingertips. I’ve never felt that strong in my life, and I’m afraid I might have gone a little overboard.”

Remembering the surge of righteous vengeance that had bled into him when she’d crushed the other mage, Julius wasn’t sure overboard was the right word. He would have picked “mad with power.” He didn’t say so, though, because Marci already looked guilt stricken enough.

“I’m so, so sorry, Julius,” she said, letting go of his shoulder at last. “Not about what I did—I would have burned them all if I could—but because I hurt you to do it. I’m sorry for all of it, actually. I’m sorry I sucked you into my mess of a life, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about the Kosmolabe earlier, and I’m very sorry I went crazy with the questions just now. I’ve been curious about dragons forever, and finally getting to talk to one was more than my brain could handle. But I’ve got it together now, and I promise I don’t think of you as my own private dragon resource center. I’ll never ask you another question again if you don’t want me to, just don’t go. You’re the nicest, most considerate person I’ve ever met. You deserve much better than I’ve treated you, but I promise I’ll be better. Just give me another chance. Please?”

The please pulled him right back into the car. He closed the door and sank back into his seat, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. It wasn’t a question anymore of whether he would stay—there was no way he could do otherwise after that—but he didn’t know what to do about the rest of it, especially the part at the end. Because when she said nice and considerate like they were the best compliments she could give, he wanted to be those things. He wanted to be the person she thought he was, the one who deserved that warm, sparkling look in her eyes, and that was a serious problem. It was one thing to tell Justin he was done pretending to be a good dragon, but if Julius started actually trying to be what she said, he wasn’t sure he’d be a dragon at all.

He sighed and shifted his fingers to peek at Marci, but she was still staring at him like her whole life hinged on his next words. His did too, he realized, because whether or not he managed to sort out his own mess, staying with Marci meant he was going to have to tell her the truth, and Julius wasn’t at all certain she’d feel the same way after she heard it.

“I’m not going to go,” he said, dropping his hands to face her at last. “And I’m not mad at you, either, just overwhelmed. I should have told you what I was before now, but I was afraid to, and not just for the reasons you think.”

Marci frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Our two species don’t exactly have the best history together,” he said, trying his best not to fidget. “Most humans see dragons as either a threat to be eliminated or a power to be tamed and used, and with good reason. We deserve all the fear and mistrust aimed at us. Dragons see humans as pets at best, and you don’t want to know about the worst.”

Marci arched an eyebrow, and Julius scrambled to add, “Not that I see you like that, of course, but I’m a little different from the rest of my family. I’m also in a lot of trouble with them right now, and I don’t know if I can protect you if they find out you’re with me.”

“You don’t need to protect me,” Marci said, pulling herself straight. “I’m—”

“A very good mage,” Julius finished with a smile. “Believe me, I know. That’s not what I meant.”

She still looked miffed, and he blew out a breath, trying to think how best to explain this. “Dragons think of things in terms of tools and ownership,” he said at last. “So long as you were just some random mage I hired, you were a tool, which is the safest thing to be. You don’t kill someone and then go break his hammer out of spite. Now that you know what I am, though, things are different. Even if I claim otherwise, my family will see you as my human from here out, which means when they target me, they’ll also target you.”

She nodded. “And since you’re in trouble, you think that’s going to happen.”

It was practically guaranteed seeing how Justin had already told their mother that Marci was Julius’s. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Just knowing that I’m a dragon is enough to make you a liability, and I’m not a big enough threat to keep others away if they decide not to tolerate it. It would have been a lot safer for you if we’d broken the contract as soon as I realized Katya wasn’t at that party, but I needed your help, and I—”

“And you didn’t want to leave me to face Bixby alone,” she finished, grinning.

He’d been about to say that he liked her, but if she wanted to see it that way, that was fine with him. “I’m afraid I’ve only made things worse now. You think Bixby’s bad? He doesn’t even touch the Heartstrikers.”

Marci gasped. “You’re a Heartstriker?”

He blinked, confused. “You’ve heard of us?” Most humans didn’t know one clan from another.

“Of course I’ve heard of you!” she cried. “I was a little girl who grew up obsessed with magic and magical creatures in Nevada. The entire southwestern US is Heartstriker territory. You guys were my home team. Wait, so if you’re a Heartstriker, does that mean the Bethesda I talked to on your phone last night was the Heartstriker?”

When Julius nodded, she sucked in a breath so fast he worried she’d hyperventilate. “I talked to a great dragon!”

“You were almost killed by a great dragon,” Julius snapped, grabbing her hands. “This is what I’m trying to explain. Even among dragons, my mother is considered ruthless and prideful. She’s had humans killed for wearing the same dress as her to a party. If Justin hadn’t grabbed the phone last night, she probably would have ordered me to kill you just for daring to speak to her. I’d have had to do it, too. I can’t disobey a direct order from my mother.”

Marci didn’t look cowed in the least, and Julius let out an enormous sigh.

“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. Dragons and humans don’t mix. Dragons and dragons barely mix.”

He glared hard as he said this, trying his best to frighten her into accepting just how dangerous this game was. Apparently, though, he was bad at this, too, because Marci’s face melted into a warm smile.

“It’s really sweet how you’re working so hard to scare me into backing off,” she said. “Pointless, but very sweet. You know, you’re nothing like how I imagined a dragon would be. I’d always heard you guys were cold and calculating, the sort who would stroke your hair while stabbing you in the back.”

“Most dragons are.”

“But not you.”

She grinned wider as she said this, and Julius took a deep breath. “No, I’m not. And that’s why we’re both in trouble.”

Marci’s smile faded, and Julius breathed deep again, building up his courage. Here went nothing.

“I’m a failure,” he confessed. “I’m not ruthless or cunning or any of the things dragons are supposed to be. That curse you saw on me? It was put there by my mother to seal my true form, sort of a combination test and punishment. That’s why I’m on this job, actually. I’m supposed to be proving myself as a dragon so I can earn my wings back, but seeing how I’m explaining all of this instead of just threatening to turn you over to Bixby unless you swear to serve me for eternity, I’m clearly messing it up. That’s okay, though, because I don’t want to be like that, but it’s important that you understand I’m a really, really bad dragon. The others aren’t like me at all, and when they come, I won’t be able to stop them.”

His heart was pounding by the time he finished. It felt good to finally tell Marci the truth, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. He hadn’t realized just how much he cared about her good opinion until it was time to ruin it. But as he was bracing for her tell him she had no interest in risking her life to help such a miserable failure, Marci opened her mouth and turned his world on its ear.

“What are you talking about?” she said, utterly incredulous. “You’re a fantastic dragon.”

Julius gaped at her, momentarily speechless. “No,” he said at last. “No, no, no. You don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t have any ambition or guile, and if someone gave me the world to rule, I’d probably try to give it back. I’ve spent my entire adult life hiding in my room playing video games and earning online degrees as an excuse to avoid my family, and if my mother hadn’t threatened to eat me, I’d still be there right now. Trust me, I am awful.”

Marci arched an eyebrow and lifted her hand, counting off on her fingers. “You came into town last night with nothing. Now, not twenty-four hours later, you’ve earned more money than I saw in the last six months, beaten up everything Bixby has thrown at us, and saved my life at least three times. Oh, and this was all while you were sealed, which I can only assume means you’re operating under a serious handicap, correct?”

When he nodded, she spread her arms wide. “There you go. I can’t claim to be a dragon expert, but in what world does that add up to awful?”

Julius was mortified to feel his cheeks heating. “That’s not really—”

“I mean, God, you’re a much better dragon than Justin,” she went on. “No offense to your brother, but he’s more charging bull than cunning lizard. Frankly, I’m amazed he’s still alive.”

“Justin is very hard to kill,” Julius said, but he was only half paying attention. His mind was still reeling from the fact that someone thought he was a better dragon than Justin. Fish would start raining from the sky next. Not that Marci’s opinion would matter to a dragon, of course, but it mattered to him. An astonishing amount, actually. “You really don’t think I’m terrible?”

“Of course not,” Marci scoffed. “I mean, sure you’re a little shy, and you probably could stand to be more assertive so people don’t take advantage of your good nature, but you’re also clever and brave and pretty charming when you want to be. You don’t have to threaten to get what you need. People want to help you because you’re a nice guy. I want to help you, which is why I’m not charging you another cent from here out.”

Julius blinked in surprised, and Marci’s grin turned bashful. “I think the last day has made it pretty clear that we’re a lot more powerful together than we are apart, and I’m definitely not going to abandon you to your family just because things might get rough. I mean, you didn’t abandon me to Bixby’s men just now, and that was amazingly dangerous. You could have easily tossed me out the door and been on your way.”

His eyes widened in horror. “I would never do that!”

“Exactly. So why should you expect less from me than you expect from yourself? You saved my life back there. The least you can do is let me try to return the favor.”

“I told you,” Julius said, slightly frantic. “You don’t owe me for—”

“I’m not doing this because I owe you,” Marci said, sitting up straight. “I’m doing it because I want to. And because there is absolutely no way I’m letting the only dragon who’ll actually talk to me escape.”

Julius didn’t know what to say. He’d never encountered anything like this before. Loyalty to the clan was expected, but this sort of loyalty, personal loyalty, was completely beyond his scope of experience. “You’re sure?” he said. “Absolutely sure? Because unless I pull off a miracle, I’m probably going to die tonight.”

“Well, then I’m definitely not leaving,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest with an insulted huff. “Honestly, Julius, what kind of friend would I be if I left you to pull off a miracle on your own?”

Julius didn’t answer. He couldn’t. No thanks seemed big enough for the person who was offering to stand by his side against his family. He tried to tell himself that Marci couldn’t really know what she was getting into and he should send her away for her own good, but that argument never even had a chance, because she was right. They were much stronger together than he could ever be alone, and if he was going to have a prayer of surviving until tomorrow, he needed all the help he could get.

“Thank you,” he said at last.

“You’re welcome,” Marci replied. “And now that we’re officially partners in this, I think you should answer some questions. We have a much better chance of making it through whatever this is alive if one of us isn’t in the dark, don’t you think?”

Her transparent digging made him laugh out loud. “You never give up, do you?”

“When I’ve got a primary source trapped in the car with me?” she cried. “Never! Now, why are you in danger of dying tonight?”

Keeping family secrets was far too ingrained for Julius to risk revealing what he’d discovered about his mother’s plan to use him as the fall guy for a long shot gamble at mating her son into the Three Sisters, but he figured he could probably explain the basics. He was opening his mouth to do just that when his pocket began to buzz.

The sound made him jump nearly out of his seat. The second he recovered, he was scrambling, digging out his phone so fast he almost dropped it. The AR came up as soon as his fingers touched the mana contacts, and his heart leaped into his throat.

It was a short, automated message. Just an address, a time stamp, and a picture snatched from a security camera of a beautiful blond woman sitting down at a booth in a diner. A woman whose face Julius now recognized almost as well as his own. “It’s her,” he whispered.

“Katya?” Marci asked, but Julius was already putting the address into the car’s GPS. The route popped up a few seconds later, and Marci’s expression grew skeptical. “Are you sure that’s right? I mean, I know she was shacking up with a shaman in the sewers, but he was still a trust fund kid. That’s not a part of town you go to if you have money.”

“Probably why she’s there,” Julius said, breaking into a grin as the reality of what had just happened finally started to sink in. He had her. He’d found Katya, and it was only two in the afternoon. He had practically the whole day left, and while he wasn’t sure if that was enough time to pull off the plan that was beginning to piece itself together in his mind, it was way more than he’d hoped for.

He glanced over at Marci, who was busy redrawing their route manually to avoid as many of the really bad neighborhoods as possible, and his grin got wider. A lot of things were more than he’d hoped for. But thinking too much about his good fortune felt like tempting fate, so he forced himself to be serious, turning around to sit properly in his seat as he strapped himself in. “Let’s go before she changes her mind and leaves.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Marci said, tapping the autodrive to set the car in motion. “Now, you were telling me about dragons.”

“I was?”

“That would be great,” she said innocently.

Serious as he’d tried to make himself, he couldn’t help chuckling. He knew better than to think Marci could be put off, though, so he gave in, sticking to the safe, practical matters—yes, he could fly, yes, dragons generated their own magic, no, he’d never eaten a person and never would, humans were horribly carcinogenic—and avoiding any of the family politics and clan secrets that could land her in real trouble. He basically pretended Chelsie was sitting in the back seat and answered every question accordingly.

Thankfully, the basics were more than enough to keep Marci interested. Good thing, too, because Julius was only half paying attention to what he was saying. His real focus was on the plan that was now taking final shape. Furtively, he slipped his hand into his pocket to check Svena’s silver chain. Even after all the rolling around during the fight, it was still there, the enchanted links as cold and magical as ever. He clutched it tight, letting out a long, steadying breath as they drove back toward the hulking shape of the double layered city and the dragon hiding somewhere beneath it.

Despite Marci’s warning, the neighborhood the address led them to caught Julius off guard. When she’d said it was a bad area, he’d imagined something like the housing blocks that surrounded the commuter deck Ross’s people lived under, only with more trash and drug dispensaries. This was like entering another world.

The first thing he noticed was the dark. Thanks to a quirk of skyways above, two enormous support pillars had been placed directly in the middle of the main road that ran through this part of the old city, cutting off all street traffic for eight blocks. Adding insult to injury, the two pillars had also been placed in the exact right position to block out the gaps in the Upper City that would have let sunlight down into this part of the Underground, leaving the eight-block span black as a cave even in the middle of the afternoon.

This combination of oppressive darkness and blocked streets had destroyed any chance the neighborhood had of rebuilding. Even though someone had carved out a driveable path around the north-most pillar, breaking through an abandoned garage in an effort to let in traffic, the alternate route clearly hadn’t caught on. There were no shops here, no flashing advertisements or vending machines or vibrant crowds, just a ghost town of boarded-up brick buildings that still bore the high water marks of Algonquin’s flood on their upper stories. The only building that bucked the trend was the one they were driving to.

Like everything else here, the one story diner was a relic of the days before the flood. Unlike the rest of the rotting city around it, though, this one was relatively kept up. It stood on the corner of what must once have been a busy intersection before the road had been cut off. But though its windows were clouded with dirt and the residue from decades of wax-based glass marker specials, the light that shone through them was yellow and cheerful, and more than enough for Julius to make out the slender blond woman sitting in the red vinyl booth in the corner, staring into her coffee mug like it held the mysteries of the universe.

After searching so long, finally spotting their target felt a little like seeing a ghost. Julius had gotten so nervous during the drive over, he’d half convinced himself that Katya would be long gone, yet there she was, sitting just as she’d been when the tracking program had yanked her picture off the diner’s security camera.

He held his breath as Marci parked the car on the curb right by the diner window, but Katya didn’t even look up. Tapping his pocket to make sure the silver chain was still there, Julius got out of the car and leaned down to speak through the shot-out passenger window. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.”

“I hope not,” Marci said, eying the empty, pitch-black street. “Call me if you need me, and good luck.”

He flashed her a tight smile and turned away, walking into the diner as casually as he could. An ancient string of bells on the door announced his arrival, and a voice from the kitchen yelled for him to sit wherever he wanted. Julius ignored them both, keeping his eyes locked on the diner’s only other customer.

From the moment he’d entered the building, the dragoness had given no sign she noticed his existence, but as he walked past the rows of empty booths, he could see the tension building in her shoulders. By the time he’d reached her table, she looked ready to bolt. She hadn’t done so yet, though, and Julius took his chance. “May I sit?”

She glanced up, looking at him head on for the first time, and Julius took an involuntary step back. In the pictures he’d seen, Katya’s kinship to Svena had been obvious—same white-blond hair, same snow-pale skin, same ice-blue eyes—but now that they were face to face, the differences were all he could see.

Where Svena had been perfect, poised, and deadly, everything he expected from a daughter of the Three Sisters, Katya looked awful. The pale skin beneath her eyes was marred by bruise-dark circles, and her long hair was a tangled, ratty mess pulled back in a sloppy pony tail. Sitting in the faded booth in a long sleeved t-shirt and sweat pants, clutching her coffee mug like a lifeline, she didn’t look dangerous or ancient or magical. She looked hunted and exhausted, and more than a little afraid. She was still a dragon, though, and she made him sweat through a long, weighing look before finally nodding at the booth across from her.

Julius didn’t wait to be asked twice. He slid into the seat, placing both hands on the table where she could see them. “I’m—”

“A Heartstriker,” she said, her softly Russian accented voice as weary as the rest of her. “The eyes always give it away.”

He nodded, waiting for her to go on, but Katya just turned back to her coffee, swirling the black liquid in slow, thoughtful circles.

“I must admit it hurts,” she said just when Julius thought the silence would go on forever. “I never was the pride of our clan, but I hadn’t thought Estella’s opinion of me had sunk so low that she would outsource my defeat to one of the feathered serpent’s baby lizards.”

“I’m not here to defeat you.”

Katya snorted. “I’m not worried about that.”

Considering his lowly, non-threatening status was the reason Ian had picked him for this job in the first place, Julius wasn’t insulted by her dismissal. He did, however, have a point to make, so he reached out his hand, resting it palm down on the table right next to where hers were cupped around her coffee. “You should have been,” he said, turning his hand over to reveal the enchanted chain hidden in his palm.

She’d been so certain of his inability to hurt her, she hadn’t even bothered to get out of the way. Now, she snatched her hands back with a gasp, knocking over her mug in the process. Julius caught it before the coffee could spill, setting the chipped mug safely back down beside the silver chain, which he’d left on the table. Katya watched him warily, her eyes flicking from him to the chain and back again, and then, in a tiny voice, she whispered, “Why?”

“Because your sister wants you to come home.”

“I know that,” she snapped, her soft accent sharpening to something much closer to Svena’s. “You think I can’t recognize Svena’s magic? I meant, why didn’t you do it? You had it right there next to my fingers. All you had to do was twist your wrist and I would have been chained. So why didn’t you? Why not put me to sleep and be done with it?”

“Because I don’t work that way,” Julius said with far more confidence than he felt.

Her eyes narrowed. “What is your name, Heartstriker? How did you find me?”

“I’m Julius,” he said. “And I found you by tracing the number Ross Vedder gave me.”

Her expression turned equal parts betrayed and furious when he mentioned her human lover’s name, and Julius raised his hands at once.

“He didn’t sell you out or give in to threats,” he assured her. “I didn’t do anything to him, actually, and it wouldn’t have worked if I’d tried. That man would have fought me to the last breath rather than give up any information about you. He didn’t even tell me you two were together until I’d convinced him I meant you no harm, and the only reason he gave me your number then was because he was out of his mind with worry.”

“Well, I wasn’t worried about him,” Katya said, though the lie was so bad even she winced. “I appreciate you not putting that chain on me,” she said quietly. “And I’m happy you didn’t hurt Ross. He’s a very good human. But I can’t go back. You don’t know what it’s like for me at home.”

“You might be surprised,” Julius said, resting his elbows on the cheap Formica table.

Katya shook her head. “You can’t understand. You’re a Heartstriker. You have, what, a thousand siblings?”

He chuckled. “Not a thousand.”

“There are twelve of us,” she went on, ignoring him. “Twelve daughters, all born of magic one at a time.”

Julius stared at her, uncomprehending. He’d heard that none of Three Sisters had ever engaged in a mating flight, but he’d always assumed it was a myth. Even the most powerful dragons had to obey the basic rules of biology, but Katya was shaking her head.

“My mothers are the most powerful dragons to ever inhabit this plane,” she explained, her voice more bitter than proud. “No one was considered worthy to father their children, and so they scorned all suitors, creating eggs between themselves one at a time using their power alone. Each daughter took centuries to create. I was the last, hatched just before the Earth’s native magic dropped too low to support such an enormous ritual. Our mothers went to sleep immediately after. I’ve never met them, actually. Svena raised me.”

She finished with a shrug, but Julius could only stare. No wonder the Three Sisters considered Bethesda an upstart. If Katya had hatched back before Earth’s magic dried up, she had to be at least a thousand years old, which meant their youngest daughter was almost as old as his mother.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That explains why Svena asked me to find you. She must be very worried.”

Katya rolled her eyes. “If she’s worried about anything, it’s that I’ll embarrass her. I’m a failure, you see. All of my sisters are great mages, Svena especially, but I could never manage more than the simplest magic. It was so bad that my eldest sister, Estella, deemed me an incurable disgrace before the end of my first century. I’ve been locked away in our glacier in Siberia ever since so no one would find out that the daughters of the Three Sisters aren’t uniformly perfect.”

He winced. “I can see why you ran away.”

“This is my twenty-third escape, actually,” Katya said bitterly. “You can’t imagine what it’s like up there. Nothing but ice and snow and the constant echoes of my mothers’ troubled dreams. None of my other sisters will stay for more than a few days at a time, but I’m expected to live there forever simply because Estella decided I didn’t fit our family image.” She tilted her head toward the dark window beside her. “I came to the DFZ because I thought if I went to a place where dragons couldn’t move freely, I could buy some extra time. But it’s barely been a month, and here you are.”

“Well,” Julius began. “I—”

“I’m not going back,” Katya snarled, bearing her sharp, too-white teeth. “I refuse! And if you try to make me, I will kill you!”

She said this as viciously at any dragon, but Julius had a lot of experience with death threats, and there was a lack of surety in her tone that made him suspect that Katya of the Three Sisters had never actually killed anyone in her life. Voicing his suspicions would be an unforgivable insult, however, so he made a show of looking properly cowed, lifting his hands and exposing his neck in a display of surrender.

“I wasn’t planning on making you do anything,” he said meekly. “Believe it or not, I understand you completely, and I’m on your side. I’m not a thousand yet, but I know what it’s like to be trapped by your family’s expectations. My mother actually threatened to eat me just this morning if I failed to bring you back to your sister.”

“So why don’t you?” Katya demanded. “What game are you playing with me?”

“I’m not playing at all,” he said. “You’re right. My life would undoubtedly be a lot simpler if I’d taken my chance and chained you a few minutes ago. But if I had it to do over, I’d make the same decision, because putting you to sleep and returning you to your family against your will isn’t something I feel right doing.”

Now she just looked confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’ve recently had cause to reevaluate my life,” he explained. “You see, my family thinks I’m a failure, too.”

“I guessed that much from the seal,” she said, giving him another appraising look, though a curious one this time. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything, according to my mother,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s just say I don’t fit her vision of what a dragon should be.”

Katya chuckled. “I can see that. Any dragon who didn’t take the chance and chain me when he could is clearly a few scales shy of a full coat.” Her eyes dipped to his chest. “Or is it feathers with you?”

“A mix,” he admitted.

He hadn’t meant it as a joke, but she began to smile all the same. “I think I see Bethesda’s problem. You’re much too nice to be a dragon.”

Julius smiled back. “Thank you.”

“I don’t understand why you’re letting that hold you back, though,” Katya went on. “I’m a failure because I can’t use my magic, but your problem sounds more like an attitude issue than a true handicap. Have you tried just gritting your teeth and pushing through?”

He sighed. “Several times. Most recently last night when I let my brother convince me to try and break into your old sewer compound through the side and ended up stuck in a lamprey pool. That’s how we met Ross, actually.”

Her eyes went wide. “You went into that horrid place and lived?” and then, “Wait, two Heartstrikers attacked Ross?”

If Julius had any remaining doubts that Katya really did care about her human shaman, her violent hiss at the end of that last question would have put them to rest. “No one attacked Ross,” he assured her. “My brother was going to, but I stopped him.”

She lifted her chin. “And you tell me this to curry my favor, I suppose?”

Julius’s eyes went wide. “No! That’s not it at all! Really, I didn’t even think about that angle until you pointed it out just now. That’s how bad I am at the ‘conniving dragon’ stuff, and honestly, I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be someone who saves people just to get leverage on their lovers.”

“But that’s life,” Katya said flippantly. “Use or be used. You can frown on it all you like, but if you want to survive, you’ll do what you have to just like the rest of us.”

Julius shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

She gave him a sharp look, but she didn’t cut him off, so Julius hurried to explain. “When you treat everyone you meet as either an enemy or a pawn, you give others no choice but to hate and fear you.”

“So?” Katya said. “It’s better to be feared than loved.”

“Maybe in the short term,” he admitted. “If you’re strong enough to take it, but no one’s strong forever. No matter how good a user you are, when you treat others like tools, you’re setting yourself up for an endgame that inevitably leaves you outnumbered and alone with no one but resentful pawns for backup. That doesn’t sound like victory to me.”

“What would you do instead?” she scoffed. “Be so nice that all the dragons have a change of heart? Teach us the power of friendship like some sickening moral tale?”

“No,” Julius said. “But I am going to try being your friend. Because I think if you stop dismissing this out of hand and actually consider what I’m saying, you’ll find we make much better allies than enemies.”

That stopped her cold. “You would ally with me against your own clan?”

“That’s just it,” he said, leaning over the table. “We’re not against anyone. This doesn’t have to be a fight or a war or a game or any of those terrible dragon metaphors for life. Just because everyone is expecting us to be at each other’s throats since you don’t want to go back and I’ll die if I don’t make you doesn’t mean that’s our only option. Because we’re not thoughtless pawns with artificially limited moves, we’re dragons, and if we combine our efforts, there’s a good chance we can turn a lose-lose situation into a victory for everyone.”

He finished with a hopeful grin, but Katya was still scowling, her white teeth chewing on her pale lip. The longer she stayed silent, the more Julius worried. Maybe he’d come on too strong? He’d tried to be as honest as possible, but if Katya didn’t believe him, if she still thought his vulnerability and confessions were just a show to gain her trust, there was nothing he could do. He’d gambled everything on this. If she bolted now, he had no way to stop her.

Seconds ticked by like hours, making Julius sweat. But then, just when he was sure he’d lost, Katya sighed. “I’m not agreeing to anything,” she warned. “But I am very tired of being cloistered by my sisters, and even more tired of running. So tell me, Julius the Nice Dragon, what would this proposed alliance entail?”

Julius very nearly fell over in relief. The only reason he didn’t was because there was no time. He was already explaining the plan he’d come up with, laying it out for her just as it had formed in his mind while he was talking to Marci. Within minutes, Katya was nodding, and though she didn’t look convinced, she wasn’t rejecting him either, and that was enough.