Page 5

On me.

Not Kai. Not Barney, standing there with his journal clutched to his chest like a shield made of paper. Me.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The whole swamp went so quiet I could hear my own heart trying to climb out through my throat.

Which meant, naturally, that I opened my big mouth.

"Okay," I said, to absolutely nobody in particular, since nobody else seemed inclined to say anything useful. "I'm gonna need somebody to tell me why Swamp Barbie is staring at me."

"Don't talk to it," Barney hissed.

"That advice would've been more useful before I talked to it."

The thing's mouth — freshly formed, still glistening — opened.

"Margaret."

One word. My whole body went cold.

I am Martha Mary Margaret Dellencourt. Margaret's my middle name, my great-great-however-many-greats-grandmother's name, the name that belonged to the Dellencourt who supposedly took one look at a Dragon Queen's crown, said no thank you, and disappeared into a history nobody could fully agree on.

"Wrong Dellencourt," I said, mostly on reflex, because that seemed like the sort of thing a person should say.

Aideen went dead silent.

Not sarcastic-silent. Not sleeping-silent. The kind of silent that told me, better than any words could have, that this was not remotely funny.

Kai reached for his Magic.

I felt it — that little flare he always got right before he called on Roy's power, the one that usually made the air around him hum. It flashed. And then it died, sputtering out like a candle somebody had pinched between wet fingers.

“Roy?” I heard Kai reach for him through the Mating Bond, and I heard — faintly, so faintly it was like listening to a radio station fading out of range — Roy's voice, distant and fuzzy and unable to answer.

"I told you," Barney whispered, and Lord help him, there was actually a note of vindication in it.

"This is not the time to enjoy being right, Barney."

I reached for my own fire.

Nothing.

Not a flicker. Not a spark. Nothing at all, like reaching into a drawer you knew was full and coming up with empty air. I couldn't feel my scales, couldn't feel the Shift waiting under my skin the way it always did, that low simmer that meant I could be Dragon in half a second if I needed to be.

Gone.

“I'm still here,” Aideen said, quiet and steady, the one thing in my whole body that hadn't just been switched off. “Whatever this is, it hasn't taken me. Just what we can do with our Magic.”

Which meant four months of combat training, four months of getting my face shoved in swamp water by a man who apparently thought "you left your side open" counted as an apology, had not, in fact, been a giant waste of my time.

I hated that. I hated it so much.

"Son of a bitch."

"What?" Kai, already dropping into a stance beside me.

"Barney was right."

Barney opened his mouth.