A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  As always, Julius missed landing on his feet. He managed to scramble back to them in record time, though, following his nose frantically to Marci, who was groaning on her back a few feet away. “Are you all right?!”

  “I’m fantastic,” she croaked, reaching up to wipe away the trickle of blood running down from her nose. “Haven’t been backlashed that hard in a long time, but look.” She tilted her head back toward the spirit. “It worked.”

  Sure enough, the DFZ was frozen when he turned around, her mouth hanging open as the roaring magic drained out of the air. “No,” she whispered, desperately grabbing at the emptying space in front of her. “No, no, no!” She turned on Marci. “How could you do this to me?”

  “Actually, she was just the interruption,” Raven’s voice croaked from the dark. “I’m the one who took your power.”

  The spirit whirled around only to freeze again. Raven was sitting inside the silver circle, which was still shining as bright as ever, though it was no longer shining out. All the light was focused inward now, shining in a laser pinpoint on the piece of metal where Raven was perched, the only bit of the circle that wasn’t gleaming silver.

  It was steel. An old, battered chunk of debris on which someone had carved a name. Which name, Julius couldn’t tell. The letters had all been clawed out, and above them, squeezed in along the metal’s edge, Raven’s name had been written in shaky talon marks.

  “You stole it,” the DFZ whispered.

  “I can’t steal what was never yours to begin with,” Raven said as the silver light converged on his name. “Emily the Phoenix is my creation. She belongs to me. Not to you, not to Myron, and never to Algonquin.”

  The light flared as he finished, and all the silver ribbons began to flail like whips. They whistled through the air at Raven’s call, unraveling from the spiraling circles and folds they’d been so carefully arranged into, including the net of bindings that held Myron’s body down.

  He was thrust from the circle like a dead fish, thrown facedown on the dirt beyond. The silver ribbons plucked Emily’s sleeping head from his hands as he fell, sucking it back into the coiled silver cocoon that was now forming at the center of the circle. Raven jumped in next, folding his wings and diving into the swirling spellwork with a loud caw. That was all Julius saw before the spinning ball of silver vanished with a flash, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone and burnt feathers.

  “What just happened?”

  “Raven took back his construct and left,” Marci said, holding up her arms so he could pull her to her feet. “We should, too. I’m not sure what happens to magical pressure cookers when you pull the plug, but it’s probably not—”

  The ground split, opening a huge crack that ran across the floor of the Pit and all the way up one of the support beams to the skyway above.

  “—good,” she finished, staring wide eyed at the destruction before turning to scramble back onto Julius’s back. “Time to bail.”

  “Bail to where?” he asked frantically, helping her up. He grabbed Ghost next. The poor spirit cat was hobbling now, his glowing eyes dim as Julius placed him in Marci’s arms. “And how? I’m still not entirely sure how I got here.”

  “We go out the same way we got in,” Amelia said, suddenly appearing beside them. “We burn through. First, though…”

  She turned and scooped Myron’s body up under her arm like a sack of flour. “Can’t leave without our prize.”

  “What about her?” Julius asked, looking over his shoulder at the DFZ, who was still sobbing on the ground.

  “Nothing we can do,” Marci said. “This is her domain. We can’t take her out of it any more than we could take her out of herself. But she’s an immortal spirit. She’ll be pissed, but she’ll recover. We, on the other hand…”

  “Right,” Julius said, looking around at the quaking Pit. “So do I need to find an edge or a wall or—”

  “Just use your fire,” Amelia said, tossing Myron onto his back behind Marci. “I’ll do the rest.”

  Julius’s throat was still raw from his fire earlier, but he did as she asked, breathing a gout of flame into the empty space in front of them. Amelia waited beside him, watching his fire go from red to orange to bright white. Then, just when Julius was starting to overheat, she reached out and grabbed his flame.

  He nearly choked. She wasn’t just grabbing the fire in front of him. She’d grabbed him, her fist clenching around the fire that burned at the heart of his magic.

  Julius was still trying to wrap his brain around that when Amelia lashed out, slicing the flames through the dark like claws. It was just like what had happened when they’d cut their way in through the trash, only this time it wasn’t the air in front of them that ripped. It was everything else.

  Like a spark to tinder, the false DFZ was consumed by flames. Everything burned, surrounding them in an inferno. It should have been terrifying, but Julius wasn’t afraid at all. The heat was actually comforting, because it was his. This was his fire, his magic amplified through Amelia, and when it faded, they were back in the real world, standing in the flooded Pit at the base of the DFZ’s column of trash.

  Which was collapsing.

  “Move!”

  Amelia’s shout was still ringing in his ear when Julius rolled to the left, skidding through the shallow water just in time as the whole pillar came crashing down on top of itself.

  It fell like a demolished building, the stacked cars and dumpsters and washing machines sliding apart like knocked-over wooden blocks before crashing into the water below. When everything finally clattered to a stop, all that was left was a pile of trash rising like an island from the floor of the flooded Pit, and kneeling on top of it with her head buried in her shaking hands was the DFZ.

  “It’s over,” she sobbed, her voice raspy and pitiful. “You’ve broken everything. She’ll kill me now.”

  “No, she won’t,” Marci said firmly, sliding off Julius’s back. “We won’t let her.”

  “What can you do?” the DFZ said bitterly, lifting her head, which didn’t even look human anymore. “You can’t fight Algonquin. No one can. That’s why I did this. I had to protect myself.” She fisted her hands, which now looked more like rat claws. “Why did you stop me?”

  The question was screamed at Marci, but it was Julius who answered.

  “Because you were killing yourself.”

  “This is none of your business,” the spirit snarled, glaring at him with beady eyes. He’d been watching her the entire time, but even Julius couldn’t say for sure when the human-looking DFZ had changed into a rat. That’s what she was now, though. A giant, angry, wounded rat, cowering in the trash.

  “What do you know?” the rat cried. “You’re a dragon. You can fly away any time you want! But I’m chained to Algonquin forever, and she will never let me be.” The spirit bared her yellow teeth. “You have no right to tell me what to do!”

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” Julius said calmly. “But the DFZ was my home. What Algonquin does hurts all of us, but so does what you do to yourself.”

  The rat glowered. “What do you care?”

  “I care because I know what it’s like to be under someone’s boot,” he replied. “I know how it feels to be at your enemy’s mercy, how it feels being helpless. All this anger and rage isn’t hurting Algonquin, but it’s ripping you to bits. You’re just doing her job for her, but it doesn’t have to be like that.”

  He looked over at Marci, who was hovering beside him. “Marci’s the best mage I’ve ever met. She and Ghost have stood against Algonquin before. They’ll help you do it now. So will I, because Algonquin’s my enemy, too. There are dragons out there right now risking their lives against Algonquin and her Leviathan to buy us time to help you.” He smiled at her. “You don’t have to fight alone.”

  His plea was a long shot. He still didn’t fully understand the situation or Marci’s plan for fixing it, but while Julius wasn’t a mage or a spirit, he understood des
pair very well. He knew what it felt like to be trapped and stomped on, but where he’d had Marci and Justin and Chelsie and even Bob, the DFZ had no one. She was a city of millions, but she thought she was fighting alone, and as one of those millions, Julius couldn’t let that be.

  “We’re your allies,” he said firmly. “You can’t stand against Algonquin, but Algonquin can’t stand against the world. She’s the one who’s alone, not you. We want to help you. You’re our city, our home, and we’ll fight to defend you if you’ll just let us.”

  The rat stared at him for a long time after that. “I remember you,” she whispered at last. “You lived in the house under the underpasses, and you cleared rats from the sewers. You had a business here. A life, even though you’re just a little dragon.”

  Her round eyes dropped. “I’m touched you want to fight for me, but you’re wrong. Even with your help, we’re no match for Algonquin. All the magic I gathered is gone. Without it, I’m no longer bigger than she is.” She looked up at the flooded Pit with a shudder. “When the next wave comes, she’ll drown us all.”

  “Then we’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t come,” Marci said, marching up the pile of trash. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Raven has a plan.”

  “Raven?” The rat cringed. “Raven hates me.”

  “Raven doesn’t hate anyone,” Marci said. “I don’t even think he hates Algonquin. He’s just mad because you took his construct and ran amok. But he was the one who came to the Heart of the World to help me, and who brought me back to this world so I could help you. It’s all part of his plan to stop Algonquin’s threat for good, and that starts with you letting Myron back into his body.”

  “What?” The DFZ cried, skittering backward. “NO! He’s the one who chained me!”

  “He did,” Marci said. “And he was an idiot. Just like you, though, he only did those stupid, self-destructive things because he was afraid. He thought the rising spirits were going to destroy humanity, and he made some very bad choices because of that. If you give him another shot, though, I think you’ll find he’s had a change of heart. At the very least, you need to release your hold on his body so he can come back from the Heart of the World.”

  The rat looked surprised. “He got in?”

  “I let him in,” Marci said. “So he wouldn’t die. Now he’s trapped there until you let him out.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with him,” the spirit grumbled. “Why can’t Raven do it? He brought you back.”

  “Because I was dead,” Marci reminded her. “Myron’s not. At least not yet.”

  She glanced back at Julius, who was still carrying Myron’s unconscious body on his back. “However it came to be, you’re his Mortal Spirit. The two of you are intrinsically linked, connected across the two halves of this world. Just as you were the only one who could get him into the Sea of Magic, only you can get him out.” She smiled. “If nothing else, it’ll give you a chance to yell at him.”

  That argument seemed to appeal to the DFZ more than any other, but when Julius walked up the pile of trash to carefully lay the unconscious mage in front of her, the spirit looked nervous. “I’m not sure how to—”

  “Just reach out to him,” Ghost said. He was still a cat in Marci’s arms, but his eyes were open and bright again, looking at the DFZ with the exasperated patience of an old hand talking down an excitable, foolish novice.

  “Reach out, and he’ll grab back,” he said. “Humans are quick learners, and Myron’s probably ready to come home.”

  The DFZ didn’t look convinced, but she leaned down, nudging Myron’s body with her pointy nose. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then Myron’s body convulsed, his eyes shooting open as he gasped for breath.

  “Myron?” Marci said, waving her hand in front of his wide eyes as he lay panting on the trash. “You back?”

  Myron’s answer was to scramble to his feet, waving his arms frantically as if he were under attack. “We have to stop!”

  Marci jerked back. “Stop what?”

  “Everything,” he said, his eyes haunted as he scrubbed his shaking hands through his graying hair. “The seal, Novalli. I tried to hold it, but Algonquin’s attacks, whatever the DFZ did to blend her domains, you!” He stabbed his finger at Amelia. “You plunged all the dragon fire in the world into the Sea of Magic at one time! What were you thinking?!”

  “Easy,” Amelia said, putting up her hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything!” he cried, whirling back to Marci. “The seal is breaking. I kept it together as best I could, but with all of you down here swinging magic around like bats, there was nothing I could do. If we don’t calm everything down right now, the seal’s going to break wide open.”

  “It’s okay,” Marci said. “We’ll just—”

  “It is not okay!” he shouted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! When you left me up there holding the dam together with my bare hands, you didn’t tell me you were going to shake the tank! That crack is as wide as my arm! It’s—”

  “Myron,” she snapped. “We get it. Things are FUBAR. But we can still fix them, because your spirit”—she looked pointedly at the rat behind him—“has already taken her chill pill, so why don’t you chill, too?”

  “You’re still not understanding,” the mage said through gritted teeth, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the DFZ, who watched him back warily. “I’m very grateful to the DFZ for deescalating, but the damage is already done. The only reason a thousand years of magic isn’t falling on our heads right now is because I rigged up the world’s most ridiculously temporary barrier, and it’s not going to hold much longer. This is bigger than the DFZ. What you did here has sent tidal waves all through the Sea of Magic. If we can’t reverse them, the whole mountain’s going to crack.”

  “What mountain?” Julius asked, thoroughly confused.

  “He means the Heart of the World,” Marci explained. “It’s the place where the ancient Merlins put all the magic they sealed off during the drought.”

  “Wait,” he said, horrified. “Merlins caused the drought?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said. “What matters is that all that magic didn’t just go away. It’s built up behind a seal.”

  “And the seal’s cracking,” Julius said, nodding. “I got that part.”

  “The crack is the least of our worries,” Myron said angrily. “A crack can be managed, which is exactly what I was doing when you reckless idiots started rocking the boat. We’re on the edge of catastrophic failure. Once my barrier fails—and it will—we’re looking at a total shattering, and not just of the seal. The whole mountain could blow, releasing a thousand years of magic back into the world in a single blast.”

  “Oh,” Marci said, pursing her lips. “That’s worse than I thought.”

  “So how do we stop it?” Julius asked.

  “I told you,” Myron snapped. “We have to calm the Sea of Magic down. I mean press it flat. If we can do that, there’s a chance Marci and I may be able to build some kind of housing around the seal before it reaches critical mass.”

  “That’s a lot of ‘chances’ and ‘mays,’” Amelia pointed out. “But you’re forgetting a critical factor in all of this: us.” She turned to Julius. “Who did you say was keeping Algonquin busy?”

  “Chelsie and Fredrick,” he answered at once. “And the Qilin.”

  Amelia’s eyebrows shot up. “No way! The Golden Emperor’s in on this?” When he nodded, she whistled. “That explains a lot. I can’t believe Bob wrangled the Qilin into his deck. I knew that kid had talent!”

  Julius stared at her. “You can’t think this is all Bob’s doing.”

  “Who else’s doing would it be?” she asked. “How do you think I got here? Or you? Why do you think you were in the DFZ at the exact right moment to see Marci come back and get involved in this merry venture? Luck?”

  Normally, Julius would say no, but with the Qilin... “Maybe?”

&nbs
p; Amelia snorted out a ring of smoke. “You need to trust your brother,” she scolded. “We’re all pieces on his board, even me. I’m cool with that, though, because Bob always wins. That’s his superpower. He takes an impossible situation, and he makes it his. And speaking of impossible situations, I’m going to go lend my dear little sister and her golden boyfriend my godly assistance. That should buy you”—she turned her glare on Myron—“enough time to do your part of this job.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Myron cried. “There is no more job! Raven’s plan is a wash. The seal is far more—”

  “Raven’s plan is all we have,” Amelia snarled at him. “That seal is nothing compared to what will happen if Algonquin goes to her End, get me?”

  Julius didn’t at all, but whatever she’d said was enough to make Myron go pale. He was still opening and closing his mouth when the pile of trash beneath them began to shake.

  “It’s not me,” the DFZ said when everyone looked at her. “I’m not—”

  She didn’t get to finish, because at that moment, one of the flattened cars flew up off the ground like it had been launched, sailing into the dark to land with a distant splash. The water was still falling when Raven flew out of the hole where the car had been, and behind him was…Julius wasn’t sure, actually.

  It looked like a modern art statue made from spare bits of metal bound together with silver ribbon. Aside from having the right number of arms and legs, though, the only part of it that actually looked human was its head, which was that of a stern, middle-aged, dark-skinned woman, her brows furrowed in grim determination as she maneuvered her scrap body out of the muck.

  “Sorry for the delay,” Raven said cheerfully. “I had to fix my favorite toy soldier.”

  “Are you sure you succeeded?” Amelia said, looking the amalgam up and down. “She looks like a bunch of trash tied together.”