One Good Dragon Deserves Another

by Rachel Aaron

  “Spoken like a true failure,” Justin said, shaking his head. “But maybe if you got better at not dying, you wouldn’t need all that help all the time.”

  Julius’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know why I’m talking about this with you,” he grumbled, stomping into the house. “You tell Mother whatever you want. I’m going upstairs to help Marci try to keep us all from getting killed by Vann Jeger.”

  “Why bother?” Justin yelled after him. “I already told you I’ve got it.”

  “Then feel free to go to sleep,” Julius yelled back.

  He felt guilty as soon as the words left his lips. He’d just promised Marci he was going to stand up to his brother and tell him he wasn’t going to be facing Vann Jeger, but he was so sick of fighting. It wasn’t like Justin would listen, anyway. He’d just call Julius weak again and do whatever he wanted anyway. At this point, his best shot at saving his brother was to help Marci break her curse and avoid fighting Vann Jeger at all. Maybe then Justin would actually survive to see Julius and Katya’s plan work. Not that the ungrateful jerk deserved it.

  That angry thought just made him feel depressed, but Julius didn’t have time to mope about it. His family crisis with Justin was going to have to get in line behind all the others, because right now, he had to make good on his promise to Marci. With that, he put the conversation with his brother determinedly out of his mind and started up the steps, climbing them two at a time toward Marci’s lab to offer his help however he could.

  Chapter 8

  What was left of the night passed in a haze.

  Marci worked like a machine, using up every casting marker and stick of chalk in her workshop as she went through spells one after another after another trying to crack the curse. She tried dusts and powders from her stockpile. She drew spellwork on her skin, on Julius’s skin, and even around where Ghost was sleeping on his bed in the corner. At one point, she actually made a perfect double of herself using a circle written in her own blood—a technique she later admitted she’d gotten from a blood mage forum—to try and trick the Sword of Damocles into jumping over. But no matter what she tried, the black sword on her neck didn’t budge, and with each failure, Marci’s expression grew more bitterly determined until she seemed to be plowing through spellwork on sheer stubbornness.

  If things had been less dire, it would have been an amazing thing to watch. Julius had never known human magic could be cast in so many ways. As promised, he helped wherever he could, fetching things down off of high shelves and keeping her stocked with coffee. He would have liked to do more, but a month wasn’t enough to pick up even the basics of the incredibly complicated world of Thaumaturgic magic. Mostly, he acted as her battery, letting her siphon magic off of him once her own stockpiled reagents ran dry.

  After what had happened with Bixby’s goons, Marci had never asked to use his magic again. Given how uncomfortable that first time was, Julius had been happy to leave it at that. Now, though, things were too dire for him to be squeamish, but in a rare stroke of luck, Marci’s pull on his magic didn’t feel nearly as bad this time around. Not being in a rage and facing down a horde of gunmen, she was almost dainty about it, taking his magic in tiny sips over the course of multiple hours. But even with her extra care, the cumulative draw took its toll.

  By the time the darkness under the skyways began to shift from the neon-lit night black to the sooty, almost-black of morning, Julius felt like he’d run twelve marathons in a row. Every muscle in his body throbbed, and he could barely smell anymore. He tried to soldier on—this was life or death, after all—but when Marci scrubbed out her latest failed circle and began to draw three more, Julius reached his end.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, flopping down on the hard futon couch under the low spot where the sloping attic roof met the wall. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Oh my God,” Marci said, dropping her chalk to hurry over. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”

  “It’s not that bad,” he lied. “I just need to rest a bit.”

  Marci didn’t buy it for a second. “Why didn’t you tell me I was taking too much earlier?”

  “Wanted to help,” he panted, closing his eyes. “I got you into this. Least I could do.”

  The couch creaked as Marci sat down beside him. “That’s no call to kill yourself over it,” she muttered angrily, taking his hands and rubbing his cold fingers between her warm ones, which would have felt amazing if only he’d been well enough to appreciate it. “I should have kept better track, but I got so wrapped up in my work I didn’t notice. Not that it did any good.”

  He cracked his eyes open again. “The day’s still young. We’ve only been at this for…” he trailed off, frowning. “What time is it?”

  “Nine in the morning,” she replied. “So about four and a half hours. But I’m not sure how much more I can do. I’ve already tried every curse breaking trick my dad and I knew, plus everything I learned in school, plus everything I could find online, but I might as well have gone out for a crazy, last-night-alive bender for all I’ve got to show for it.”

  “Sorry,” Julius said again.

  “It’s not you,” she said quickly. “You could be a never-ending fount and it wouldn’t matter. This is a problem of leverage, not power.”

  He looked at her questioningly, and she reached up to touch the no-longer-bandaged black mark on her neck. “By putting the curse under all my protections, literally in my magic, the police mage left nothing for a counter-curse to grab onto,” she explained. “Most curses are designed like bear traps. The magic clamps onto the victim, which means getting it off is just a matter of shoving enough power inside again to force it back open. But the Sword of Damocles is different. It’s like someone hammered a headless nail deep into what makes me a mage. It doesn’t matter how hard I pull when there’s nothing to grab on to. So far, the only way I can see to get it out is to rip my own magic apart, which would kill me even faster than losing my head.” She sighed and glanced over at the cat bed in the corner. “I thought about asking Ghost to try pushing on it from the inside, but he’s still sleeping, and I’m pretty sure our bond doesn’t work like that, anyway.”

  “He’s been sleeping a lot,” Julius said, follow her gaze to the transparent, curled up cat. “Is something wrong?”

  A shadow passed over Marci’s face, but then she shook her head. “Nothing I know of.”

  That was a lie, but Julius didn’t have the energy to press. He’d figure it out later. Right now, all he wanted was to eat every scrap of food in the house and sleep for the rest of his life. But when he looked over to ask Marci if she wanted anything from the kitchen, she was sitting hunched over with her face buried in her hands.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, knowing how stupid that sounded but unable to think of anything else to say.

  “Not really,” she muttered. “I know it’s a waste of time to get depressed—crying over spilled magic and all—but I just feel like it’s already over.”

  “It’s not over,” he assured her. “We’re not dead yet.”

  “We’re as good as,” she said, turning her head to peer up at him through red rimmed eyes. “It isn’t like I’m not used to failing. I fail all the time—see the last twelve hours—but magic is different. It’s the one thing I was always really, really good at. Even knowing the Sword of Damocles was supposed to be unbreakable, I thought I could crack it. I thought I was different, but now…”

  She trailed off with a miserable sigh. “I’ve never had a spell I couldn’t master,” she said softly. “But I’m starting to think this one really is my Waterloo. I know I should keep trying anyway, but I’ve burned up every magical material in the house, including you, and I’m no closer to breaking it now than I was when I started.” She slumped lower on the futon. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Julius didn’t either. “We’ll figure it out,” he said anyway.

  “Or die trying,” Marci said sullenly.

  He was about
to tell her that was no way to think when the back of his neck began to prickle. Marci went stiff at the same time, her head snapping up. “What the—”

  Her words made him jump. He was the one with supernatural senses, and he hadn’t heard or smelled anything. Sure enough, though, when he turned his head to follow hers, a dragoness was standing on the stairs, smiling at them over the rim of what looked like a two-gallon mimosa.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Amelia said, though the blatant innuendo in her tone suggested otherwise.

  Julius was too shocked to answer. His oldest sister, heir to his family and possibly the greatest dragon mage alive, was in his house, and he hadn’t even smelled her coming. He supposed he could have blamed that on being exhausted, but Amelia was obviously not even trying to be stealthy. She was actually more outlandishly dressed than she’d been last night, wearing a cherry-red tank top, ancient ripped jeans, and chunky wedge flip-flops that hadn’t been in style for a century. Her long black hair was pulled back in a messy pony tail, and her hazel eyes, always jarring in her clearly Heartstriker-featured face, were painfully smug as they drifted past him to lock on Marci with a broad smile.

  “Who are you?” Marci demanded, shooting to her feet. “How did you get in here?”

  “Easy, Sparky,” Amelia said, grinning wider. “It takes more than a locked door and a few wards to keep me out. Besides,” she pointed at Julius, “he invited me to come meet his human.”

  After what had happened with Bethesda, Julius didn’t know how Marci would respond to that, but she just pulled herself straighter. “That’s me,” she said proudly. “But you still haven’t said who you are.”

  “Don’t you see the family resemblance?” Amelia asked, pointing at her face. “I’m his sister.”

  “He has a lot of those,” Marci said, looking her up and down. “Are you Chelsie?”

  Amelia’s eyes went wide, and then she burst out laughing. “Me?” she whooped. “Miss Killjoy? Do I look like a humorless killing machine?”

  Hearing Amelia talk that way about Chelsie raised every hair on Julius’s body. He didn’t even wait for her to finish laughing before he launched into a self-defensive round of proper introductions. “Marci,” he said quickly, hopping to his feet. “This is Amelia, my oldest sister. Amelia, this is Marci Novalli, my mage and partner.”

  By the time he finished, Marci’s eyes were as wide as eggs. “Amelia?” she said. “A-melia? But…doesn’t that mean…”

  “It means everything you fear and more, pet,” Amelia said, her boisterous laughter cutting off as quickly as it had started. “But I promise I don’t bite unless you ask. I just dropped by because I heard you had a Kosmolabe.”

  Marci opened her mouth, but Amelia beat her to it. “I already know you don’t have it anymore,” she said, strolling over to run her hand over the multiple rubbed out chalk circles on Marci’s casting table. “Just tell me whatever you can about where and how you lost it, and I’ll be on my—”

  She cut off so suddenly, Julius thought maybe she’d hurt herself on the residual magic, but Amelia wasn’t looking at the spellwork. She was staring at Marci’s desk in the corner. Specifically, she was staring at the cat bed beside it where Ghost was still sleeping, his body curled into a furry, glowing ball.

  “What is that?”

  “My cat,” Marci said defensively, stepping over to stand between Ghost and the dragon. “And Heartstriker or no, I’m not telling you anything about my Kosmolabe until you tell me why you want to know.”

  Any other time, Julius would have been both proud of Marci for standing up to a dragon as obviously dangerous as Amelia and terrified of what would happen because of it. Right now, though, all he felt was confusion, because Amelia didn’t look angry at all. She didn’t even seem to care that a human was talking back to her. She just pointed at Ghost and asked, in a trembling voice. “That’s your spirit?”

  “Yes,” Marci said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now, would you please—”

  Amelia stepped in before she could finish, stopping right in front of Marci with a smile so genuine and friendly, she didn’t even look like a dragon anymore. “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” she said brightly. “Let’s try this again. Hello, I’m Amelia the Planeswalker, and I am absolutely delighted to meet you, …?”

  “Marci,” Marci prompted.

  “Marci,” Amelia said, eyes sparkling. “May I pet your cat?”

  By this point, Marci had gone from the usual healthy suspicion that came from having a dragon suddenly appear in your house to looking flat-out ready to fight. Julius wasn’t far behind her. He had no idea what had caused his oldest sister to flip into best friend mode, but he didn’t like it one bit. “What are you doing, Amelia?” he asked, walking over to stand beside Marci.

  “What are you doing, Baby-J, asking such silly questions?” Amelia said, never letting up on her smile. “And I was talking to Marci, not you.”

  That made Julius more alarmed than ever, but Marci actually looked slightly mollified. “I suppose you can pet him,” she said, turning around to scoop Ghost up off his pillow. “But I’ll warn you. He’s cold.”

  “Cold,” Amelia whispered, placing her shaking hand on Ghost’s back. “So he is.” It didn’t seem possible, but her smile got even wider. “Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.”

  “Thank you,” Marci said, giving the dragon an odd look as she clutched her sleeping spirit back against her chest. “Now, about the Kosmolabe—”

  “Forget it,” Amelia said, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s just a long running side project. It can run a bit longer. We’ve got more important issues on our hands.” Her light brown eyes flicked up. “Or necks, in your case.”

  Marci flinched, and Amelia’s smile grew pointed. “Having a dragon hunter problem, are we?”

  “How do you know about that?” Julius demanded.

  Amelia rolled her eyes. “You have a human with a Sword of Damocles on her neck that reeks of Vann Jeger’s magic. It doesn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes levels of deduction to guess what that’s about. Though I am curious what you’re planning to do.”

  Marci and Julius both dropped their eyes to the ground, and Amelia smirked. “Thought so,” she said. “Up curse creek without a paddle, I see, but don’t feel singled out. Targeting humans was always VJ’s opening move. He almost got me that way once.” She sighed. “I guess some things don’t change.”

  Julius gaped. “You fought Vann Jeger?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Why else do you think I’m still here? I did lose the human, though. Real pity, too. He was one of my best.” She smiled at Marci, who’d gone very pale. “Not that that’s going to happen to you, of course.”

  “So you know how to break the curse?” she asked, her voice so hopeful it hurt.

  Amelia shook her head. “Nope. It’s absolutely impossible. The Sword of Damocles curse is perfect in its simplicity. Once it gets in, nothing can stop it from fulfilling its purpose.”

  Marci looked instantly crestfallen, though not as much as Julius had feared. “Well,” she said with a grim smile. “At least I know it isn’t just me.”

  “Not at all,” Amelia said. “But just because we can’t break it doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you.”

  “How does that work?” Julius asked.

  “Just because we can’t crack the sword on her neck doesn’t mean it has to fall,” his sister said. “There are still conditions attached, right?”

  Marci nodded. “I have to meet Vann Jeger tonight with a dragon.”

  “Well, there’s your answer,” Amelia said with a tip of her giant drink. “We’ll show up, kick Vann Jeger to the curb, and wham, bam, your problem’s solved. Thanks, Amelia!”

  She finished with a grin, but Julius couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You can’t be serious.”

  Amelia arched an eyebrow. “Can’t I?”

  “You just said you let your human die rather than
fight him,” he reminded her. “And it’s not like Vann Jeger’s working alone here. He’s Algonquin’s Hunter now, the Death of Dragons! Fighting him directly is suicide.”

  He was getting mighty sick of explaining that, but Amelia just looked down on him with an expression so haughty, even Julius, who got looked down on all the time, was impressed.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  Julius swallowed. “I know you’re strong, but—”

  “Strong?” Amelia scoffed. “You’re not old enough to comprehend the word.” She set down her drink, and the room seemed to grow heavy. He actually thought she’d cast a spell until he realized he didn’t smell any power but Marci’s. The pressure he felt wasn’t magic. It was Amelia herself as she turned the full weight of her predatory attention on him.

  “Do not confuse me with the rest of our scrabbling clan,” she said quietly. “While those snakes coiled and plotted in Bethesda’s shadow, hoping to catch a scrap of her power, I left and found my own. I am the Planeswalker, the last great dragon mage, unequaled in this world or any other. If I appear before him tonight, it is Vann Jeger who will be afraid.”

  From another dragon, Julius would have dismissed that as sheer bravado, but given the power Amelia could apparently turn on like a switch, he wasn’t so sure. But while he was reeling from just how badly he’d miscalculated a potential threat, Marci grabbed on to another part of his sister’s speech entirely.

  “Dragon mage?”

  Amelia smiled. “Didn’t he tell you? I’m kind of a big deal.” She turned back to Julius. “As to your question earlier, I didn’t fight Vann Jeger in my youth because he was on his fjord then, and I wasn’t stupid. But he’s a long way from home out here, and I am older than I look.” She smirked. “Age in dragons equals strength, but spirits never grow no matter how long they live. They are eternally limited by the land that birthed them, while I am limited by nothing but my own ability to survive. And, as my status as the last A proves, I’m very good at surviving.”

  She paused to let that sink in, taking a long sip of her drink before adding, “I’d be happy to use my phenomenal powers to crush Vann Jeger into a watery pulp. Provided, of course, you can pay my price.”