“Is there going to be a long term?” Julius asked quietly. “Not to be a pessimist, but everything Amelia and Raven said about the Nameless Ends made it sound like our only hope was to stop Algonquin from falling into despair, and we didn’t. We failed. There’s no way to know how much since we’re trapped in the house until the magic clears up, but I can’t imagine Algonquin’s been idle. She’s probably bringing that thing into our world right now. How do we face that?”
“The same way we face everything else,” Marci said, smiling down at him. “How many times have we done the impossible, Julius? We are always punching above our weight class, and yet we always pull it out in the end. This time will be no different. Our enemy might be a giant creature that eats worlds, but the only thing he’s eaten so far is Algonquin, and she’s small potatoes these days.” She pointed at the glowing window. “The magic is back! We’ve got two Merlins with fully amped Mortal Spirits. We’ve got Raven and Amelia and a bunch of really scary dragons, not to mention a legit luck god.” Marci flashed him a grin. “I bet we kick that Nameless End’s butt.”
That statement was so ludicrously overconfident it bordered on delusional, but the optimism was just so her, Julius couldn’t help but grin back. He’d missed her so much. Just like always, Marci was ready to go. Ready to fight beside him against anything, and he loved her for it.
He kissed her then, pulling her down to him with the desperation that still hadn’t gone away. She kissed him back just as fiercely, wrapping her arms around his neck. He was losing himself in the wonder of having Marci all over him again when someone knocked.
They both froze, turning in unison to look at the door, which was still locked. That wouldn’t mean much to a dragon, but dragons didn’t usually bother with knocking. Julius was working up the will to ask who it was when Emily Jackson’s voice filtered through the wood.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “Raven and I are calling an ops meeting. Be downstairs in five minutes.”
Julius bristled. It was a perfectly reasonable request, but her tone still irked him. He might be a Nice Dragon, but that didn’t mean he took orders from humans. Especially not the one who’d shot Marci in the back.
“Who put her in charge?” he muttered as Emily’s footsteps vanished down the stairs.
“She is a general,” Marci reminded him, climbing out of bed, much to his dismay. “Being in charge is her default. General Jackson’s no fool, though. No one interrupts a happy dragon unless they have to. If she’s pushing, there’s a reason, which means we need to get moving.” She tapped her bare foot on the moving rainbows the magic from outside was casting across his scuffed wooden floor. “Can’t hide in here forever.”
Julius would have been happy to stay in this sheltered room with Marci until he died, but she was right. They’d had a reprieve, but now it was time to go back to the real world, so Julius hauled himself reluctantly out of bed and began climbing into his clothes as slowly as he could. Marci was done way before he was, dressed in one of his sweatshirts and what had been her favorite pair of jeans. She’d also dug up a spare plastic bracelet to replace the ones she’d melted, and while Julius didn’t see any spellwork written on the inside yet, the chunky pink band made her look like herself again.
When he was finally decent in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, he kissed her one last time, wrapping his hand around hers as they unlocked the door and headed downstairs to jump back into the fight.
***
Marci clutched Julius’s hand the whole way down, clenching her jaw to keep from grinning. It was hard, but they were in the middle of what could be a world-ending event, and she was the Merlin. Grinning like a lovestruck idiot was not allowed, so she forced herself to keep her eyes off of Julius—whom she could touch now, anytime she wanted—and on the stairs ahead of them, where Fredrick was waiting at the bottom.
Now there was a dragon she did not understand. From Julius’s story, Marci was pretty sure Fredrick was the dragon equivalent of the crown prince of China. Someone needed to tell him that, though, because he was still acting like Julius’s butler. He even had the younger dragon’s jacket in his hands, which he held out for Julius to put on as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Julius looked as awkward as Marci felt, but he let Fredrick put the jacket on him anyway, probably because the house was freezing. It was November in Detroit, and they hadn’t run the heat in days. Even global warming couldn’t take the edge off that chill. They were lucky it wasn’t snowing actual frozen water instead of just magic.
When Julius was properly attired, Fredrick handed him a sword that looked like a tooth. It was the same kind of blade Fredrick wore at his own side, a Fang of the Heartstriker.
Julius took the blade with a shocked look. “How did you get this?”
“The Diplomat’s Blade is far more forgiving than the Defender’s,” Fredrick said with a smile. “You dropped it when you went after your mortal. I thought you would need it, so I picked it up. It didn’t transform for me, of course, but it was courteous enough to allow me to carry it in its sleeping form. I would have given it back to you earlier, but I didn’t wish to interrupt.”
From the smirk on his face, Fredrick knew exactly what he would have been interrupting. Marci smirked back, but Julius just turned red again, though that didn’t stop him from reclaiming Marci’s hand the moment the sword was belted around his waist. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Waiting for you in the kitchen,” Fredrick replied. “They wanted to start earlier, but I refused to let them begin until you arrived, sir.”
He hid it well, but Marci swore Julius winced at the “sir.” “Thanks, Fredrick.”
The F beamed. “You’re welcome, sir,” he said proudly. “And happy birthday.”
Marci whirled toward Julius with a gasp. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday!”
“I completely forgot,” Julius said, looking bewildered.
A lot had been going on, but… “How do you forget your birthday?!” Marci cried, gaping at him. “So you’re twenty-five now, right?”
He nodded, a smile spreading over his face. “Same age as you.”
Two months ago, Marci would have considered having a dragon boyfriend who was the same age as herself slightly disappointing. Now, though, she was too happy just having him to care. “Happy birthday,” she said, rising up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
He blushed again, lifting their tangled hands to his lips to kiss the back of her fingers before turning them down the hall that led to the kitchen. “Shall we go hear the bad news?”