White Snake sank deeper into the mud, her glowing eyes flicking across the river. The DFZ’s undulating skyline was settling down at last, but she could already see dragons gathering on the roof of the Peacemaker’s consulate. Dragons who would be coming for her if she didn’t do something fast.
“I’m listening.”
***
“Sir?”
The man who smelled of blood turned away from the team of hired muscle hefting his newest star off the riverbank to glare at the mage kneeling on the road behind him.
“What is it, Kauffman?”
Andrej Kauffman winced at the coldness of his voice, but what else did the boy expect? He’d lost, and there was nothing more despicable than losers. If he hadn’t made himself so critical to the operation, he’d be dog food.
“I have the footage you requested,” the mage said, holding out his phone. “The dragon taken by the DFZ was indeed Yong of Korea, but my media team also managed to ID the girl riding on his back. As I suspected, it’s his adopted human daughter: Opal Yong-ae.”
“Opal, eh?” The man grabbed Kauffman’s phone to get a closer look at the grainy, zoomed-in picture on its screen. “Isn’t that the name of the Cleaner girl sniffing around my Mad Dog? The one he broke your face over?”
Kauffman’s newly reconstructed jaw ticked. “Yes, sir.”
The bloody man’s mouth split into a grin. “Tonight just gets better and better. If Yong and his brat have truly been eaten by the city, they’ll be in there for a while. The DFZ doesn’t surrender her prizes lightly. Meanwhile, Kos will be left on his own.” He tossed the phone back to Kauffman, who barely caught it. “Looks as if you’ve been given a chance to redeem yourself, Andrej. Let’s give Kos a few days to get nice and desperate, then we’ll send him a message offering to help with his…problem.”
The mage blanched. “With respect, sir, Nik swore he would never—”
“I don’t care what he swore. This is the same Cleaner girl he gave up the cockatrice payoff for, right? The Asian one who blasted you with your own magic?”
When Kauffman nodded, the bloody man spread his hands. “There you go. Kos never turns down money. I don’t know what angle she’s working, but she’s hooked him hard, and you know what a stubborn dog he is. He’ll beat himself bloody against the city hunting for his lost jewel. Then, after the DFZ breaks him, we’ll swoop in to put the pieces back together into something better, just like always.”
From the look on his face, Kauffman didn’t believe that, but the mage had always been small-minded. Brilliant, which was why he was still here, but tragically lacking in vision. He saw Kos as a simple thug, a killer for money. He’d never understood that under his “leave me alone” exterior, Nikola Kos was a savant. A glorious, snarling animal just waiting for its stage, and that was back when he’d been fighting merely for cash. Now that he had something real to go to war over, he’d be incomparable.
Cackling with delight, the bloody man looked over his shoulder at the dragoness who’d just now healed up enough to transform into a shape capable of fitting inside the armored van they’d brought. After years of waiting, it looked as if his stars were finally lining up. He’d known it would happen eventually—luck always hit if you waited long enough—but he’d never dreamed things would come together this explosively. This was the chance of a century. All he had to do now was strike, and who better to strike with than his favorite runaway weapon, dragged home at last?
“Just make sure you’re ready to receive Kos when he arrives,” he ordered his mage. “My best dog escaped once. We mustn’t let it happen again.”
“I will tie him tight,” Kauffman promised, but his face was still weak. “But what if he doesn’t come? Not that I doubt your vision, but Nikola Kos isn’t the man he once was.”
The bloody man scoffed. “Every man wants to win, and a dragon’s daughter is a hell of a prize to lose.” He shook his head. “No, Andrej. Kos will come. He’ll come and he’ll fight and he’ll win. He’ll do whatever I tell him to. That’s why he’s the dog and I’m the master. Though with the ways things are aligning”—he jerked his head back at the defeated dragon—“I might just become master of everything.”
Maybe Kauffman wasn’t as small-minded as he’d feared, because the mage smiled greedily at that. “Yes sir,” he said, lowering his head once more before slipping away to rejoin the rest of the hirelings. When he was gone, the bloody man turned back to the DFZ, the glittering prize across the water that would soon—at last—be within his reach.
Chapter 1
“I thought we’d try something bigger today.”
I froze, the spoonful of wheat berries I’d been about to eat stopping halfway to my lips. I was in Dr. Kowalski’s house in the woods, sitting on a stool in the tiny kitchen and holding my bowl above a battered wooden table too cluttered with ancient magazines, gardening tools, and piles of produce to actually eat on. Across from me, the sadly deceased but still world-renowned expert on Shamanic magic—and my new teacher—stood in the doorway to her backyard, holding an orange squash the size of a beach ball between her dirt-covered hands.
“It’s a pumpkin,” Dr. Kowalski announced at my horrified stare.
“I can see that,” I replied, swallowing against the sudden dryness in my throat. “It’s just, I have kind of a…thing about pumpkins, and that one’s really big.”
“Beauty, isn’t she?” Dr. Kowalski said proudly, setting the giant gourd on the crowded table with a thump. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine! You haven’t cooked a potato since week one, and you’re going to want the big guns for today. We’re moving that trellis by the southern edge, and I’m counting on you to do all the digging and lifting.”
I groaned internally. I’d been training with Dr. Kowalski for the last eight weeks. At least, I thought it had been eight weeks. The days had all kind of blurred together since I’d sold myself to the DFZ in exchange for saving my dad. Every morning, I got out of bed before dawn and dragged myself over to Dr. Kowalski’s for Shamanic magic lessons. After all her talk about riding the lightning and shaping magic in real time, you’d think that would be exciting, but so far “training” seemed to be a euphemism for “farmhand.” I’d load up on as much magic as would fit inside the day’s chosen vegetable, and then I’d use all that fantastic power to dig holes or haul water or whatever else Dr. Kowalski needed until it was time for lunch or I collapsed from exhaustion, whichever came first.
All this magical-manual labor was supposedly teaching me to handle larger and larger amounts of power without burning myself out. Privately, though, I was beginning to think it was just an excuse to make me do all the grunt work she didn’t want to do herself. Like moving a giant plywood trellis from one side of the garden to the other.
“Why are you still sitting there?” Dr. Kowalski scolded, clapping her hands at me. “Hustle up! We’re burning daylight!”