“Yes, yes, I missed you too,” he said as he rolled them back to his feet. “But this isn’t the time for games, little ratter. Now run back to your mother.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “You’re making daddy jealous.”
The Qilin did not look happy to see his youngest daughter, who’d only just begun to let him touch her, fawning all over the seer. His scowl deepened further when the whelp ignored the order, choosing instead to clamber onto Bob’s back like a monkey. He wasn’t the only one who looked upset, either. Svena and Katya had come out of the destroyed house as well now to see what the fuss was about, and the moment the White Witch saw the child clinging to Bob, her blue eyes widened in a look that made Julius’s blood run cold.
“Bob,” he said quietly, taking a nervous step toward his oldest brother. “I don’t think this is a good time for—”
“It’s the only time,” Bob said, the laughter leaving his voice. “This might not be the way I’d planned to kick things off, but everything I see says we’re still on course, which means this might be all the time I have left.”
“There is no more might, Brohomir,” replied a deep voice.
Julius whirled around just in time to see the Black Reach step to the edge of the now-roofless front porch. “I gave you more chances than you had any right to expect, but no more.” The oldest seer lifted his chin to look down his long nose at Bob. “This is the end.”
The finality in his voice made Julius’s stomach clench. “It can’t be,” he said desperately, taking a step toward the construct. “How is this the end? Everyone’s still alive, and we’re all here together. We can beat Algonquin!”
“I’m not here for what could be,” the Black Reach said dismissively. “I’m here for what will be.” He lifted his eyes, looking over Julius’s head at the taller dragon standing on the edge of the crater behind him. “This is your very last chance, Brohomir. Turn back now, and you may yet have a future.”
“If I turn back, there’s no future for anyone,” Bob said, his voice shaking for the first time Julius had ever heard. “I’ve looked down every possible path millions of times. This is the only way.” His green eyes narrowed. “And you know it.”
The Black Reach released a long breath, and Julius’s hand dropped to the Fang at his hip. He wasn’t even sure what he meant to do with it—if there was anything he could do against a power like the Black Reach—but he refused to stand by while his brother died. To his surprise, though, the Black Reach made no move to attack Bob. He just held out his arms.
“If you’re intent on destroying yourself, at least give me the next seer,” he said. “It’s too early for her to see the end that awaits her.”
It was a reasonable request, but Bob made no move to comply, and why would he? Even if he hadn’t adored the whelp clinging to his back—which he obviously did—it was clear he didn’t mean to give the Black Reach anything. The oldest seer had to know that, so why bother to ask? Julius was still wondering when a sheet of ice flew across the ground to bind Julius’s and Bob’s legs to the ground. That was when he understood. The Black Reach hadn’t made the request for the baby seer’s sake.
He’d said it for Svena.
The White Witch was standing in front of the porch with her infant daughter clutched in her hands. The white whelp was squirming, but her mother didn’t seem to notice. Svena’s eyes were fixed on the little girl clinging to Bob’s back. The human child who wasn’t actually human at all.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, holding out her daughter. “This is the next seer.”
“No,” the Black Reach said. “What you hold is merely a child. That”—he nodded at the golden-eyed dragoness clinging to Bob—“is Estella’s replacement. Brohomir hatched her from a dud egg using Amelia the Planeswalker’s fire thirty minutes before you laid your clutch.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Svena of the Three Sisters. I’m afraid you lost before you began.”
His lips curled as he finished. It was a tiny motion, barely more than a twitch, but Julius had been watching powerful dragons all his life. He knew a pulled trigger when he saw one, and from the way Bob was struggling to free his legs from the ice, so did he.
“No,” Svena whispered as frost began to form in the damp air around her. “No.”
By the second no, a strange expression spread over Bob’s face. On any other dragon, Julius would have called it panic, but seers never panicked. He was still trying to figure out what it meant when Bob snatched Chelsie’s daughter off his back and tossed her at the Qilin a split-second before a wall of ice took him off his feet.
Standing right beside his brother, Julius felt the cold of the ice as it flew by, but he was miles too slow to do anything about it. The blow had already slammed Bob into the spiral of Skyway on-ramps that sheltered the house, sending his sword—the Magician’s Fang—flying off into the darkness. Julius held his breath as the cement guardrails cracked, waiting for Bob to pop back up to his feet as he always did…
But not this time.
When the ice released him, Bob fell hard, landing facedown in the gravel at the start of Julius’s driveway. When he finally pushed himself up, blood was running from his mouth. He was still wiping it away when Svena lunged at him, her hand already raised as the icy bite of her magic filled the air.
“Svena, stop!”
The white dragon froze, her blue eyes flicking to Amelia, who was running to Bob’s side faster than Julius had ever seen her move. “Back off,” she snarled, smoke curling from her lips as she put herself between the white dragon and her brother. “Brohomir is under my protection.”
“He stole my seer!” Svena roared at her. “My clan’s legacy! He played me for a fool!”
The killing rage in her voice was enough to make Julius cower. Even Amelia looked nervous, glancing warily down at the thick carpet of frost that now coated the driveway and everything around it. “I know it hurts,” she said, melting the ice from her own feet with a flick of her fingers. “But he had his reasons.”
“Reasons?” Svena cried. “He stole from us!”
“He did,” Amelia agreed. “But you’re just going to have to let it go, because the only way you’re getting to my little brother is by going through me, and we both know you can’t.”
That wasn’t bravado. Amelia was simply stating fact. Now that they were standing face-to-face, even Julius, who was terrible at judging dragon magic, could feel the power gap between them. But despite being hideously outclassed, Svena showed no fear.
“You see, this is why we’re not actually friends,” the white dragon said bitterly, glaring at Amelia with hard, hurt eyes. “A friend would not allow this crime to go unpunished. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to beat you to win.”
The Spirit of Dragons snorted. “How do you figure that?”