“Please,” Svena said. “Only your mother confuses children with power. I was referring to this.” She reached out to poke Amelia in the breastbone. “You’re the one who set herself up as a god. Start acting like one.”
Marci had no idea what that meant, but Amelia was staring at Svena as if the white dragon had just shown her magic for the first time. “She’s right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Svena said. “I’ve always been the brains to your brute strength. That’s how our relationship works.”
“Shut up,” Amelia said, but her face was a huge grin as she turned to face her brother. “You need dragons to slow the Leviathan? I can get you every single one.”
“That would be amazing,” Julius said. “But how? Can you open portals straight to dragons now?”
Amelia sighed. “Sadly, no. I’m not that awesome, at least not yet. But I am connected to every living dragon’s fire, which means I know where everyone is, and I can talk to all of them.”
“Great,” Chelsie grumbled. “Of all the dragons, you’re the one with the megaphone.”
“You won’t be complaining when we save your feathers,” Amelia snapped. “I might not be able to bring in the dragons I call, but I don’t have to. As she just proved by teleporting through a magical disaster, we already have the best teleportation mage in dragon history right here with us.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Planeswalker,” Svena said with a sniff. “But feel free to go on.”
“I’d rather you show me yourself,” Amelia said, turning her grin on Svena. “You started this plan. Here’s how we’ll finish it. I can locate any dragon, and I know you can teleport anyone anywhere if you know where they are.”
Svena jerked back so fast that that her daughter, who was sleeping on her shoulder, nearly fell off. “How do you know that?” she cried. “That knowledge is top secret, the hidden weapon of my family!”
Now it was Amelia’s turn to look smug. “It was secret, until I read it in your fire.”
“What?”
Amelia placed a hand on her chest. “Hey, god here, remember? I see you when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake. I know if you’ve been bad or good, so do what I say, for goodness’ sake!”
Svena clenched her jaw. “First, that doesn’t even work with the song. Second, Santa Claus is not a god, so your comparison isn’t just stupid, it’s also incorrect. Third, this whole thing is invasive and disrespectful. I never gave you permission to read things out of my fire!”
“I can’t control what I see,” Amelia said defensively. “I just looked, and there it was. What was I supposed to do, not see it? Besides, this was your idea.”
“My idea was for you to do the shuttle service!” Svena roared. “Do you know how much magic teleportation takes? I just laid a full clutch of eggs! You can’t expect me to teleport hundreds of dragons thousands of miles through magical fallout!”
“You’re the one who’s always claiming to be the greatest dragon mage in the world,” Amelia reminded her. “It’s put up or shut up time. Your secret’s already out, so we might as well use it not to die. And speaking of not dying, we need to get on that, because we’re racing against an unknown timer, and we’ve been standing around talking for, like, three days.”
They’d been here for thirty minutes tops, but the point must have been well made because, after several angry huffs of icy smoke, Svena threw up her hands. “Fine. But this is not over, Planeswalker! I want to know exactly what you’ve seen of my abilities, and then I want to know about everyone else’s.”
Amelia snorted. “What happened to ‘Oh Amelia, how could you? That’s so invasive and disrespectful!’”
“It was,” Svena said. “To me. I don’t care if you disrespect the operational security of other dragon clans. That’s just good intelligence.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Amelia said, turning to give Julius a wink. “Ice Queen and I will handle the dragon delivery. Can you get Heartstriker here on your own, or should I pull them in too?”
Julius looked at Fredrick, who nodded. “We’ll take care of Heartstriker. You and Svena bring in everyone else.”
“Not my clans,” the Golden Emperor said. “As I said before, they should already be on their way, and I wish to speak to all of them before this begins.”
“Just make it quick,” Amelia said. “I know you’re luck incarnate, but we’re on a schedule here.”
With that, she walked over to join Svena, who was already staking out a large section of dirt in what would have been Marci and Julius’s front yard if they’d had a yard. Or a house anymore.
“I guess that takes care of that,” Julius said nervously as he turned to Marci. “We’ll get everyone together and stall the Leviathan for as long as we can. How long do you think it will take you to line up what you need for the banishment?”
“That depends on how quickly Myron can work and how much help I can wrangle,” Marci said, glancing at General Jackson, who was already back on the phone as Myron whispered frantically into her free ear. “But I promise we’ll go as fast as we can.”
“I know you will,” he said. “You always do your best.” He looked down at her for a long moment after that, his inhumanly green eyes nervous, like he wanted to say something else but couldn’t. She was about to tell him to just spit it out when Julius swooped down and kissed her.
Even after last night, the move took her by surprise. She was so used to walking a narrow line on her feelings for Julius, she didn’t know what to do with herself now that it was all out in the open. But Marci had always been a quick study, and she got with the program in a heartbeat, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him back. She was getting even closer when a cleared throat made them both jump, and Marci whipped her head around to see Myron waiting a few feet away.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, tapping the cracked face of his wristwatch.
Marci felt her face turn beet red, but she didn’t apologize. Instead, she kissed Julius again, holding him close one last time before she reluctantly stepped away. “Good luck.”
“You too,” he said, giving her the thousand-watt smile that only came out when he was really happy. “We can do this.”
“We can do this,” Marci agreed as Myron pulled her away. She was still staring at him wistfully when the UN mage grabbed her shoulder and yanked her around.
“Ow!” she said, smacking his hand away. “What gives?”
“Everything’s going to give if you don’t pay attention,” he said angrily. “This is the end of the world, not romance time with other species.”
“If I waited until the world wasn’t ending, I’d never see Julius at all,” Marci snapped. Still, Myron had a point. “Okay,” she said, sneaking one last look at Julius before she put on her serious face. “What are we doing?”
“You tell me,” he said. “You’re the one with the plan.”