by Rachel Aaron
Still, the situation wouldn’t have been half as depressing if Julius and Katya hadn’t looked so good together. The way his black hair and sharp features emphasized her fair skin and delicate beauty was so perfect it almost looked fake, like some artist had set the whole thing up just for that effect. And then there was Marci, safely tucked away outside so her ugly haircut, shabby clothes, and mundane humanity wouldn’t ruin the moment.
That thought was melodramatic in the extreme, and Marci forced herself to look away. She needed to stop being stupid and focus on her own future, like finding somewhere to sleep now that she had money. She couldn’t afford another night at the sort of hotel Julius seemed to prefer, but the last few days had been humbling enough that anywhere with a real bed and no cats sounded like paradise. She’d just grabbed her new phone to look up reviews for extended stay motels when she felt something icy brush against her leg.
She lowered her phone to see Ghost sitting on the floorboard between her feet, his transparent tail swishing back and forth as he looked up at her with that smug cat smile. Back, he purred in her mind.
“So I see,” she grumbled. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d leave your adoring fans.”
Ghost blinked and leaned on their connection, reminding her that staying away wasn’t an option for a bound spirit. Suddenly guilty, Marci put down her phone and patted her lap in invitation. Never one to pass up the gift of warmth, Ghost hopped up, though he took his time about it to make sure she understood that this lap business was nothing special.
“You freaked Julius out good with that little display back there,” she scolded when he’d settled down at last, his soft body like a bag of shaved ice across her thighs. “We’re lucky he didn’t run away screaming.”
Ghost gave her a disgusted look.
“I know, I know, you saved us,” Marci said dutifully, petting him as much as her cold-stiffened fingers could stand. “And thank you for that. But do you think you could try to be a bit less dramatic next time? We don’t want to get a reputation.”
Her voice was cheerful, but inside, she just felt empty. As much as she liked to pretend otherwise, Marci knew perfectly well there wouldn’t be a next time. Julius had found his dragoness, which meant the job was done, and even though she’d promised to help him with whatever it was he had to do tonight, she wasn’t naive enough to think it would last. There was a reason humans knew so little about dragons. Julius had let her in this afternoon because he’d had no other choice, but the moment this crisis was over, he’d say goodbye. Not cruelly—Julius didn’t have a mean bone in his body—but he’d made it clear there was no place for a human in his life. As soon as he got out of whatever trouble he was in, he’d take his beautiful dragoness and go back to their world, and Marci would go back to being alone. All alone, without her father, without her home, no school, no friends she could call without endangering them. Just a girl and her death spirit on the run in a strange city.
Her vision started to go blurry after that, and her hands flew to her eyes. “Don’t cry,” she whispered angrily, scrubbing at the wetness gathering on her lashes. “Don’t you dare cry.”
But the tears wouldn’t listen to reason. They just kept coming in big, ugly drops. Soon her whole face would be red, which wouldn’t do at all. If Julius saw her like this, she’d have to explain why she’d been crying, because of course he would ask, probably in front of the beautiful dragoness, leaving her no choice but to die of shame on the spot.
Since stopping her stupid tears was now a matter of life and death, Marci threw open the door and leaped out of her car, toppling Ghost to the floor in the process. He yowled his displeasure in her mind, but Marci ignored him, clinging to the car as she gulped down breath after breath of dank, musty, Underground air.
She just needed some space, she thought, looking down the dark street. Space and perspective, and maybe a tissue, and… and…
And there was a man sitting on her car.
Marci jumped straight up, banging her knee on the car door in the process. But even the sudden, smarting pain couldn’t tear her attention away from the stranger who was now sitting cross-legged on the hood of her dad’s sedan.
Oddly enough, her first thought was that he must be absurdly tall. Since he was sitting, Marci couldn’t tell if that observation was factual, or if his long, slender limbs merely created the illusion of remarkable height. Either way, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing about him.
From the waist up, the man was dressed like he was going to a dinner party in a blue silk jacket with black piping and a Mandarin collar over a cream-colored shirt. From the waist down, though, he looked like a hobo. His paint-stained jeans were so old they’d lost all color, and he wore no shoes at all, though his blue-black hair, which he wore in a thick braid that hung all the way down to the small of his back, was tied off with a bright pink shoelace. He also had a pigeon on his shoulder—a live one that was currently tilting its head curiously at Marci. The strange man himself hadn’t even glanced at her, however, and Marci decided she’d better make her presence known before this situation got any weirder.
“Excuse me,” she said, quite politely, she thought, given the circumstances. “What are you doing on my car?”
“I couldn’t possibly explain,” the man replied, never looking away from the diner window where Julius and the dragoness were still deep in conversation. “But don’t worry. I’ll only be a moment.”
Marci bristled at the curt dismissal, but she didn’t yell at the crazy man to get off her hood. Rude as he was being, this was the DFZ. For all she knew, he was a spirit of some sort, and it never paid to insult spirits. “Can you tell me who you are, at least?”
She’d barely finished before the man spun around to face her, and Marci stifled her gasp just in time. And here she’d thought Julius and Justin were handsome. This man was something else entirely. He was so good-looking it was actually off-putting. Even in the dark, it was impossible not to see that his skin was bronzed and flawless. This, combined with his ruler-straight black hair, high cheekbones, and sharply beautiful face, made him look too perfect to be real. He reminded Marci more of an ancient artifact than a living thing, something sacred and powerful preserved from a more mysterious, magical time. After all that, the familiarity of his impossibly green eyes was almost a relief.
“You’re Julius’s brother.”
The dragon flashed her a brilliantly white smile. “I’m Julius’s favorite brother,” he corrected, his deep voice rich with humor and secrets. “But he won’t realize that until next year, so don’t spoil the surprise.”
He winked and turned back to the window, humming to himself as he resumed watching Julius like nothing had happened. Marci, however, was not so easily put off.
“What happens next year?” she asked, stepping around the car door to stand right behind him. “And why would it be a surprise?”
The dragon growled, making her shiver. Apparently, she was asking too many questions, but it wasn’t every day a dragon landed on the hood of her car. Once Julius left, it would probably never happen again, and she was determined to make the most of the opportunity. “If Julius is your favorite brother, does that mean you’re here to help him?”
“You’ve got that backward,” the dragon said without turning around. “I’m his favorite brother, and helping him would defeat the point entirely. This is a test, you see.”
Marci frowned. “A test for what?”
The dragon arched his shoulders in an elegant shrug, forcing his pigeon to flap in order to stay on. “That depends on Julius. The poor boy was going nowhere. I had to do something, so I gave him a little shove, just to shake things up.”
She arched her eyebrow. “A shove?”
“You know,” he said. “Trial by fire, adversity as crucible, et cetera, et cetera. He’s in the middle of a make it work moment, and between you and me, I hope he pulls it off. I need him for a project I’ve been working on, and it’s a little late in the game for me to start o
ver if he flubs things and gets himself eaten.”
The dragon rattled all of this off so quickly, Marci had trouble keeping up. What she did catch, though, she didn’t like at all. “Does this trial by fire have to do with the seal that’s on him?”
“That was Mother’s idea,” he said. “Though I will admit, the seal has made things easier. Put his back against the wall quite nicely, which always leads to results. And trauma. But really, what’s a dragon without a little trauma?”
He laughed like this was hilarious, turning back to flash Marci what would have been a devastatingly charming smile if she hadn’t been too angry to notice.
“Hold up,” she said. “You’re the one who did this to him?”
The dragon sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific. I’ve got a lot of pots on the stove.”
Marci began to sputter. “This!” she cried, flinging her hands out at the dark buildings. “Shoving him into Detroit! Leaving him alone with no money, no power, and no support in a city where he can be shot just for being what he is!”
“Oh, that. Yes, that was me. Mother needed someone to throw at this Ian nonsense, and I thought Julius would be just the ticket. All it took was a few oblique suggestions at the right time, and Mother thought the whole thing was all her idea.” He beamed at her. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
“It’s terrible!” Marci said. “What kind of brother are you?”
The dragon looked confused by her outburst, and then he spun all the way around again to face her head on. “Why, little human,” he said softly, resting his long arms on his raised knees. “Are you attempting to call me out for being cruel to baby Julius?”
The soft mockery in his voice sent Marci’s fists clenching so tight, the spellmarked bracelets on her wrists began to glow. The dragon’s green eyes glittered in the light, but she didn’t let the magic fade. She wanted to slam a spell into his smug, beautiful face. She had no idea what game this dragon was playing, but Marci knew exactly what it felt like to be kicked out of your home, and the thought of Julius—sweet, kind, thoughtful Julius who’d never had a harsh word for anybody—being dumped into this crisis by his own brother was more than she could stand.
“I’m not attempting,” she said, stabbing her finger at the dragon’s perfect nose. “I am calling you out. I’m sure you’re powerful and ancient and could probably eat me in one bite, but I’ve had a terrible week, and what little I have left to lose, I owe to Julius. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me since I came to this city, and I am not going to stand here and listen to you brag about making his life miserable!”
The dragon’s eyes flashed as she finished, and Marci felt a strange, sharp magic building in the air. She drew her own power in as well, filling the small circles of her bracelets and wishing she’d thought to draw a proper-sized one on the street before she’d started this, but she didn’t try to backpedal. Her father might have had the business sense of a piggy bank with a hole in the bottom, but he’d loved her and supported her in every way he knew how. That was family to Marci, and she didn’t care if it was her business or not. She was not going to stand silently by while this dragon made a mockery of it.
Almost as though he could hear her thoughts, the dragon chose that moment to slide off the hood of her car. Sinuous as a cat, he landed in front of her without a sound, straightening to his full height with a lazy roll of his shoulders.
Now that he was on his feet, Marci saw his remarkable height was no illusion. He was so tall, she had to crane her neck back just to look him in the face. His striking green eyes were waiting when she got there, staring down at her like he was trying to look straight through to her feet, and for a breathless moment, Marci could actually feel the presence of something larger looming over her. Something much, much larger.
“You’re a presumptuous little creature,” the dragon said, the words coming out in a deep, cruel rumble that was decidedly not human. “You really think you could attack me, don’t you?”
By this point, every instinct Marci had was screaming at her to run. But her pride had made her bed, and Marci lay in it belligerently, refusing to yield an inch. “I am a mage,” she replied with every ounce of haughtiness three years in a competitive doctoral program had taught her. “We bend the rules of the universe on a daily basis. Presumptuousness is the base line for entry.”
The dragon’s green eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing.
The sound broke the tension so sharply, Marci wavered on her feet. The dragon reached out to steady her at once, slapping his hand on her shoulder so hard she almost fell for real.
“Oh my,” he said, wiping his face with a gold-embroidered handkerchief from somewhere in his pockets. “That was not the reply I expected at all. I’d forgotten how nice it is to be surprised.” He looked her over one more time, and though it didn’t seem possible, his smile got even wider. “For the record, Little Miss Mage, that was a test, too. Whatever Julius’s dooming and glooming might have led you to believe, loyalty is very important in our family. It wasn’t what I picked you for, but I welcome it all the same. You will do marvelously. I only hope my brother can keep up.”
Marci blinked, her anger slipping in the face of her confusion. “Picked?” she said, and then, “Wait, keep up with what?”
“Everything,” the dragon said with a sigh, replacing his handkerchief with one hand while the other pulled an ancient keyboard phone out of his back pocket and began typing a message. “Now, not that this hasn’t been a lovely visit, but I’m afraid I have to go get ready to give someone a ride. Would you be a dear and tell Julius to buckle up for me?”
“Buckle up,” she repeated slowly. “You mean, like, in the car?”
The dragon nodded gravely, returning his phone to his pocket. “The near-complete adoption of self-driving cars over the last quarter century has made road accidents statistically unlikely, but my baby brother has recently developed a dangerous knack for bringing in long shots, and I’d hate to lose him to a variable I don’t control.”
That seemed like pretty innocuous advice, so Marci promised she’d pass it on. The moment he’d secured her cooperation, the dragon gave her a winning smile and set off down the sidewalk, his pigeon riding comfortably on top of his head. He’d nearly reached the end of the block before Marci realized she’d never found out his name. Before she could yell after him, however, he turned on his heel and vanished into an alley. She was still staring at the place where he’d been when a flash of movement through the window brought her eyes back to the diner just in time to see Julius wave for the check.
***
“I will admit, it’s a clever plan,” Katya said as she gathered her things from the booth. “I just don’t think it’s going to work.”
“It doesn’t have to work,” Julius said, paying the check when it popped up on his AR. “It just has to look like it’s working long enough for us to get out of our mutual predicaments.”
“But that’s the problem. It’s one thing to dally with a Heartstriker for an evening, but anything more, even the appearance of such, is completely out of the question for a daughter of the Three Sisters. Especially for Svena. Other than Estella herself, she’s the most famous of us by far, and she’s never agreed to a mating flight in her life. She certainly wouldn’t start with a male so far below her, whatever your mother dreams. No offense meant to your brother, of course.”
Julius shrugged. “Offend him all you want, it won’t stop Ian. I don’t doubt you’re right about your sister, but Ian’s ambitious and persistent even for a dragon. Even for a Heartstriker. An elder daughter of the Three Sisters is exactly the sort of prize he’d risk everything to go after. All we have to do is harness that ambition, and suddenly he’s working for us.”
Katya still looked unconvinced, so Julius laid it out for her again. “Look, you want to stay here in the DFZ with your shaman boyfriend, right?”
She glowered at his word choice, but she nodded al
l the same.
“But your sisters won’t let you loose on your own, so you keep running away,” he continued. “And it drives your sisters crazy.”
She nodded again, and Julius spread his arms. “So tell me how this doesn’t work? You know Svena best. How badly does she want you to stop running?”
“Bad enough to go to a Heartstriker when she failed to corner me herself,” Katya admitted.
“Exactly,” he said. “You have what she wants, which means you have the power to negotiate. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll go to my brother and let him in on the plan. That way, when Svena arrives, Ian and I will both be there to give you backup while you explain to her that you won’t run from your family again on the condition that, rather than being locked up alone in Siberia, you’re allowed to confine yourself to the DFZ under her watch instead.”
“So you keep saying,” Katya replied with a sigh. “And I keep saying she’ll never agree.”
“I don’t think you’re giving your sister enough credit,” he said. “It’s true I don’t know Svena nearly as well as you do, but everything I’ve seen of her tells me she’s not the sort of dragon who wants to waste her time incarcerating an otherwise fully functional sister if there’s a better option on the table. All we have to do is convince her that the DFZ is that better option, and I don’t think it’ll be a hard sell. First, we’re on Algonquin’s turf, which negates Estella’s primary complaint that your lack of magic is an embarrassment to the clan since you can’t do big dragon magic here anyway. Second, you actually want to stay in the city, which means Svena won’t have to worry about you running away. And if those reasons aren’t enough to sway her, I’m sure Ian will think of twenty more. He’s good at that sort of thing.”
Katya scowled. “You seem very sure your brother will help us. I thought you were considered a failure in your family?”
“Ah, but he won’t be doing it to help us,” Julius said. “He’ll be doing it to help himself. That’s why we’re specifying Svena as your guardian here in the DFZ. If we make keeping you in the city synonymous with keeping Svena inside his reach, my brother will probably take care of the rest all on his own.”