Jack’s chair tipped over as he surged up onto his feet. When the heavy wooden back slammed against the floor, everyone jumped and the lights flickered. Allie wasn’t sure who was responsible. Wasn’t positive it hadn’t been her.
“It’s gone!” His eyes gleamed gold, lid to lid. “I can’t find my other self!”
“It’s your father’s blood.” Graham glanced at Allie as everyone turned to face him. “Blood magic’s the strongest there is,” he continued when she nodded to let him know he had the floor. “You lot should all know that. He’s in the same reality with his father for the first time in his life, and it’s locked him down. You don’t need scales while you’re here, kid, and you’ll get them back when you go home. I’ve picked up a bit over the years,” he added in answer to David’s raised brow.
“My father’s blood,” Jack repeated. His gaze jerked around the room like he was in a cage. “When do I get to see my father? I want to see my father.”
Everyone turned to look at Graham. Who sighed.
“It’s complicated, kid.”
“But he sent you.”
“Yeah. He sent me.”
Allie wondered what Graham had in his front pocket. Every time he spoke to Jack, his hand rose to touch the small lump. She suspected he didn’t even know he was doing it. It was an artifact, she could feel that much but nothing more specific, not with the amount of free-floating power in the room.
The Dragon Lord—no, Dragon Prince, she guessed if he was heir—drew himself up to his full height. “You should take me to him,” he declared imperiously. “Now.”
“I’m not…” His fingertip whitened. He was pressing against the lump so hard it had to have been digging into his chest, but he gave no indication that it hurt. “Your father might not want to see you.”
“So? I want to see him.”
“And they say Gale boys are spoiled,” Charlie murmured, setting half a rhubarb pie on the table and dropping into her chair.
Allie bumped her with her hip as she passed. “You could call him.” They were the first words she’d spoken directly to Graham since the garage, and that had been a whole pie ago.
“Call him?”
“I think we all need to know where he stands.” She held out her phone. “You’d better use this. It’ll make sure you get through.”
“I don’t…” His gaze slipped past her to Jack and back to her again. “All right.”
When their fingers touched, Allie felt the shock race up her arm and pool warm and heavy in her belly.
David growled and pushed away from the table. “Loft.”
Head cocked, eyes whirling, Jack watched David leave, then jerked his head around toward Allie as the door slammed. “We don’t have that problem,” he said.
That problem. They needed more third circle here while David was or it was going to become a bigger problem. “Lucky you.”
“Allie?”
Which was when she realized she hadn’t let go of the phone. “Right. Sorry. You can go into…” She started to gesture toward the bedroom, felt power building, remembered there was now a bed in the second bedroom as well and jerked her hand more or less toward the bathroom.
“No. Better you all hear.”
He wanted them to trust him. Allie could see that. Understand why. Still… she glanced over at Jack. “Are you sure?”
“If it goes wrong…” Graham’s one-shoulder shrug reminded her of his injuries although there were no visible bruises, so it seemed he’d been healed. She hated that it was Kalynchuk who’d healed him. “It’s better he hears it from the source than secondhand.”
“The fast Band-Aid approach?”
He started to frown in confusion, then smiled up at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah, the fast Band-Aid approach. Here, where he has people…” She wondered if he even knew he was reaching for her. “… who’ll support him.”
Allie wanted to take his hand. She wanted to take his hand more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. More than Michael. But Graham had chosen, and they couldn’t… it wasn’t…
“Maybe you two ought to save that for later,” Charlie suggested.
“They have no later,” Roland reminded her.
She heard Michael sigh. “He chose to come back.”
Apparently, everyone but Joe had an opinion. Allie watched Graham’s hand settle on the table.
She spun around as Charlie’s foot impacted with her butt, glared at her cousin, and said, “Jack, do you care if we can all hear your father talk to Graham?”
Jack’s shrug was all teenage boy. “What could go wrong?”
She couldn’t let him go into it blind. “Graham.”
“I don’t…”
“Tell him.” It was only logical to stand by Graham’s side where she could see both Jack and the phone. She was close enough to hear him sigh, see the fine muscle movement as he squared his shoulders.
“Your father sent me to kill whatever emerged from the UnderRealm.”
Jack cocked his head to one side, the motion almost birdlike. If birds had evolved from dinosaurs and dragons were sort of like dinosaurs, then… she shook the thought away. Not the time to consider parallel evolution in metaphysical realms. “Did he know it was me?”
Graham touched the artifact in his pocket again. “He said it was an enemy.”
Not the whole truth, Allie realized as Jack said, “Then he didn’t know it was me.”
“You’re no danger to him?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.” He looked around the table and rolled his eyes although with the whites still barely showing Allie found it a strangely nondefinitive movement. “And he hasn’t met me. How can you tell a person is your enemy if you haven’t met them yet?”
“He has a point,” Charlie admitted.
“He has a mouthful of them,” Roland murmured in what Allie suspected was intended to be a warning but only came across as somewhat petulant.
“He only looks like a thirteen-year-old kid, doesn’t he?” Joe said suddenly. “He’s not, though, is he? He’s a Dragon Prince. Heir to the sky. Stop treating him like he’s fucking made of soap bubbles, remember he eats people when he’s at home, and call his old man.”
The silence was broken by a snicker.
From Jack.
“Is there a speaker on this thing?” Graham asked.
Allie held out her hand, and he dropped the phone in it without them touching. When she set up the speaker function, she returned it the same way.
Eyes locked on the number pad, Graham punched in ten digits and set the open phone down beside his empty plate.
It seemed Kalynchuk had been waiting for the call.
“Is it alive?”
“He’s standing right here,” Allie told him, watching Graham close his fingers around the artifact.
“Then you’ve doomed us all!”
“Overreact much?” Charlie snorted.
“It maps the way, you fools! I warned you, Alysha Gale! I warned you that disaster would follow if it was not destroyed. If you’re there, Graham, kill it! Kill it now! It may not be too late!”
Graham took a deep breath and quietly asked, “Did you know?”
To give him credit, although Allie hated doing it, Kalynchuk didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Of course I knew. And that shot, that shot you didn’t take, that shot was the whole reason for your existence! The stars told me my past would find me sooner or later. Those other, minor annoyances over the years—I could have lowered myself to deal with them if I’d had to. This was your task, and you failed me! Failed me after I trusted you with my life! It is most definitely safe to say I will not look kindly upon you should we meet again, but since the lucky ones among us will shortly be dead, thanks to your stupidity, my displeasure seems moot. Kill it if you want to live!”
“Father?”
The silence extended long enough Allie opened her mouth. Closed it again when it turned out Kalynchuk had one final point to make. “Of all the men of power, back to the first man who claimed his birthright, only I dared that action which brings this doom upon us. No one else ever dared so much. I have that at least.”
“Wow,” Jack said over the dial tone. “He’s a bit of an ass, isn’t he?”