“Please don’t say that,” she begged. “We’ll do this as fast as possible, I swear. Myron’s one of the best mages in the world, and ancient spellwork is his area of expertise. If anyone can patch that hole in record time, he can.”
“You don’t have to reassure me,” Julius said, smiling at her. “If you say it’ll work, that’s all I need. In the meantime, we’ll do our part. We’ve got more firepower here than I’ve ever seen. We’ll keep the Leviathan high and dry for as long as you need to bring that hammer down.”
That was a ludicrously optimistic statement, but it was worth it to see Marci smile. “They should call you the Flatterer Dragon,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing bright pink as she brushed her short hair behind her ear. “I just hope you’re right. Even with this many dragons, you’ve a lot of ground to cover.”
Julius shrugged. “All we need to do is blast tentacles out of the sky before they reach Algonquin’s water, and if there’s anything dragons are good at, it’s blasting.” He grinned. “Justin’s going to have the time of his life.”
“At least someone will be happy,” she said, looking down at Ghost, who was somehow both a cat in her arms and a giant figure holding up the barrier over their heads. “I’ve got to go. We’ve got work to do on the other side, and Ghost and I still have to figure out how to get me over there without dying.”
Julius’s heart skipped several beats. “But you just said—”
“I know,” Marci interrupted. “And I meant it. I am absolutely not dying again. I haven’t entirely figured out how to do that yet, but there has to be a way. What’s the point of being a Merlin if you can’t get to your special clubhouse?”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, reaching out to take his hands. “I’ve already got a great idea, but I need to get going if I’m going to pull it off in time.”
“I know you will,” Julius said, tightening his hands in hers. Then, because he could now, he pulled her into a hug. “You’re the cleverest, hardest-working person I’ve ever met,” he whispered into her hair. “You’ll make it work, I know it.”
Marci didn’t reply. She did something much better. She hugged him back, squeezing his chest until his ribs creaked. Finally, after almost a full minute of holding him as tightly as she could, Marci let go reluctantly, looking up at him with the stubborn determination that had made him fall in love with her in the first place. “We’re going to beat this.”
“We are,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You’d better get going.”
She nodded and turned to go. Then, suddenly, she darted back in again and rose up on her toes to kiss him on the lips. Julius was still reeling in surprise when she hurried off, waving over her shoulder as she jogged away. Dazed and happy, Julius waved back, watching her weave through the crowd of dragons with a painfully huge smile on his face. He was still grinning like an idiot when a wistful voice spoke right next to his ear.
“I’m never stealing her away from you, am I?”
Julius jumped and whirled around to see Amelia standing beside him, watching Marci’s back with open envy. “It’s so unfair,” she muttered. “The First Merlin of the new age, in love with a dragon who can’t even cast a spell.” She shook her head. “Such a waste.”
“I don’t think it’s a waste at all,” Julius said, irritated. “What are you doing over here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be helping Svena?”
The Spirit of Dragons shrugged. “She said she didn’t need me anymore. We’ve gotten pretty much everyone. The only dragons left are the ones she already knows, her family and allies and whatnot. Once she pulls those in, we’re done.”
“Done?” Julius looked around in confusion. “How can you be done? There are only a few hundred dragons here.”
Amelia gave him a flat look. “Julius, how many dragons do you think there are?”
He opened his mouth to say thousands but stopped because he realized he didn’t actually know. His mother had lectured them all their lives about the threat of the other clans, so he’d always assumed there must be a lot, but he’d never heard a hard number. To be fair, there were no hard numbers for the dragon population since most clans kept their true size secret to obscure the actual extent of their power, or lack thereof. He hadn’t even known exactly how many Heartstrikers there were until they’d held the vote, but still, there had to be more dragons in the world than this.
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Amelia said when he told her as much. “But we’re a species on the decline. A surprising number of us escaped through the portal to this plane, but the attrition since has been brutal. Between the clan wars and the infighting, dragons have been dropping like flies for the last ten centuries, and with the notable exception of Bethesda, we just don’t breed fast enough to keep up.”
“So this is it?” Julius said, looking at the crowd in the cavern, which now seemed pathetically small.
Amelia nodded. “It was a shock for me, too. I’d always suspected most clans were smaller than they pretended, but it wasn’t until I plugged myself into everyone’s fires that I realized just how bad the problem had gotten. Counting Svena’s whelps, there are only five hundred and thirty-two dragons in the world right now, and most of them are already here.”
Julius sucked in a worried breath. When he’d promised Marci they’d keep the Leviathan back, he’d assumed he’d be working with a much bigger force. What they had here didn’t even look like enough to cover the DFZ and Lake St. Clair, let alone the five actual Great Lakes. But just as he was getting worked up, Julius realized he was being an idiot. He wasn’t looking at all the dragons. There was still one major clan missing. One he’d never thought he’d miss.
“Where’s Heartstriker?”
Chapter 8
“Remember,” Fredrick said, clutching his Fang in his hands as he looked around at his gathered brothers and sisters. “We only have one chance at this. Julius is depending on us to bring the clan. Whatever happens, we must uphold that, but we will not return as servants. Agreed?”
The others nodded, their newly revealed golden eyes resolute. It was a sight to behold. Before he’d left, Brohomir had pulled Fredrick aside and handed him an envelope containing step-by-step instructions in Amelia’s hand for how to break Bethesda’s green-eyed curse. It was the same spell the Planeswalker had cast on him, but while Fredrick was no mage, his brother Ferdinand was. He’d cut straight to him, and then they’d cut to each of their siblings in turn, breaking the curse as they went.