The shamans had started out wary, but once it became clear that Julius honestly wasn’t trying to rip them off, the pace picked up enormously. In the end, Ross’s circle kept all the lampreys, and Julius received an immediate cash transfer of twenty-five thousand dollars, ten of which was actually for the big one, which Ross explained was full of magical components his circle needed for their wards.
“It’s not enough, really,” Ross admitted with a sigh. “Large, unique creatures like that are almost priceless. You could probably sell it for thirty thousand easy if you called in one of the big magical component suppliers from the Upper City. We can’t afford to pay that, of course, but you’ve been very upfront with us, and I wanted to make sure you knew the creature’s real value before you signed it over, just in case you wanted to pull out.”
“Thank you, but ten thousand will be fine,” Julius said, keeping his voice low so Marci wouldn’t overhear and fly to his rescue. “I meant it before when I said I thought you were doing good work down here. Also, have you seen that thing?” He jerked his thumb over at the bus-sized corpse of the giant lamprey that five mages were currently weaving a spell around in an attempt to finally lift it all the way out of the water. “Not exactly something I can put in my pocket. If you count that in, I think ten thousand for a monster I don’t have to pay to move is a very fair deal.”
“Fair indeed,” Ross said, sticking out his hand with a genuine smile. “Thank you, Julius.”
“Thank you,” Julius said, shaking his hand firmly.
As soon as he’d settled everything with the mages, Julius hurried back to Justin. He’d fully expected his brother to get bored and leave once it became clear Julius was serious about not attacking the humans. When he hadn’t, Julius had started getting nervous, but his brother had actually been remarkably patient, sitting against the wall and snarling at people who got too close. From anyone else, such behavior would have been surly. From Justin, it was practically an audition for sainthood, and Julius wanted to thank him before the miracle ended.
Justin didn’t look up when Julius approached, just gave his sword a final swipe with the cleaning cloth before sliding the blade back in its sheath. “Well?”
“All done,” Julius said. “They’re paying us—”
“Screw the money,” his brother said. “What about Katya?”
Julius shook his head, and Justin lifted his eyes at last to give him a look of such deep disappointment it actually hurt.
“I don’t understand you,” he said, rolling to his feet in one smooth motion. “You’re not stupid and you’re not a coward. You can even be bold if someone pushes you. You’ll never be a really good dragon, but that’s enough to be an okay one if you’d just stop dicking around. But you won’t.”
“I—” Julius began, but he stopped when Justin held up his hand.
“I don’t want Mother to eat you,” he went on, belting his sword back onto his hip. “We’ve been together our whole lives, and while you can be a total buzzkill, you’re also the brother I dislike the least.”
Julius’s eyes widened. That was the nicest thing anyone in his family had ever said about him. “Thank you.”
“Save it,” Justin growled. “I’m only telling you all this so you’ll understand why I took Bob’s ticket to the DFZ. I thought if I came myself to keep an eye on you, I could make sure you didn’t screw this up too badly. But after sitting here for a hour listening to you being so, so…”
“Reasonable?” Julius suggested.
“Nice,” his brother spat. “Roll over, play along, suck-up nice. Seriously, you were practically submissive to that human. I almost threw up.” He shook his head with a sigh. “I just don’t know what else I can do for you. It’s like you’ve got a faulty connection in your brain that makes you buddy up to humans instead of dominating them.”
Julius shrugged. “Is that really so bad?”
“Yes,” Justin growled, stabbing his finger at the mages fishing lamprey bodies out of the water. “If these people knew what you actually were, they wouldn’t be your friends. They’d be terrified, as they should be. Because if they weren’t scared, they’d be trying to kill you and sell you for parts.”
Julius shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” Justin asked, stepping closer until he was looming over his brother. “You might be a sheep in wolf’s clothing, but never forget that, to the humans, you’re just another monster with a bounty on its head. We’re all monsters to them, and they will punish us for it every chance they get if we don’t give them a reason to run away. In this whole world, your clan is the only thing you can trust, so if I were you, I’d worry less about pleasing a bunch of short-lived mortals who will never accept you, and more about pleasing us.”
Julius longed to point out that he’d been trying and failing to please his family his whole life, but it wouldn’t do any good. Justin was already turning away.
“Thank you very much for your help tonight,” he said to his brother’s back. “I owe you.”
Those were heavy words between dragons, but Justin just shrugged. “I’ll add it to your tab.”
Julius had no doubt of that. From the moment he’d learned how to talk, Justin had been able to recite every debt he was owed and why. He could still do it, too, though it took him over an hour to get through the list these days. Every dragon in the Heartstriker clan seemed to owe Justin for something, but while he collected favors with a vengeance, Julius had never heard of him cashing any in. Some Heartstrikers, the ones who didn’t know Justin very well, though he was storing them up for some kind of massive power play in the future. Julius, however, was far more inclined to believe that his brother had simply never encountered a problem he didn’t think he could take all by himself with one arm tied behind his back.
He watched Justin haul himself up the now-dried metal ladder without a word. Since his brother didn’t even seem to be pretending at humanity anymore, it took him ten seconds to climb the thirty-foot wall and vanish into the pipe at the top. Fortunately, all of the mages were too busy cleaning up lampreys to notice. All of them, that was, except for the one who mattered.
“How did he do that?”
Julius looked over to see Marci standing a few feet behind him, staring up at the now-empty metal ladder with a look of pure wonder. It was the sort of thing that would take a very clever explanation to cover up. Unfortunately, the best his tired brain could do right now was, “Justin is special.”
Marci gave him an odd look, and for a moment, Julius could almost feel her adding up all the impossible things Justin had done. But as he braced for what seemed like inevitable disaster, Marci just turned away, shifting her wet bag higher on her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Julius nodded dumbly, following her over to the water where the shaman who’d been tasked with escorting them back to the surface was waiting. But as they were climbing into the repurposed canoe that would take them across the lake, Ross ran over and stopped them.
“Wait!” he called. “I wanted to give you this before you left.”
Before Julius could ask what, the alligator shaman pulled out his phone and gestured in the air. A second later, Julius’s own phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see a new entry had been added to his contacts, fronted by a picture of a smiling Katya standing in the arms of an equally happy-looking Ross.
“That’s everything I’ve got,” the shaman said quietly. “Her most recent number and all her old ones, just in case. My info’s in there, too, so please call me if you find her or if there’s anything else I can do.”