Tonya Waves skidded to a stop outside the den, her nostrils flaring and her hands on her hips as smoke curled upward from under the door.
“Ashure Waves! What in the Seven Kingdoms did you blow up this time? Did Nali booby-trap another barrel of sea-bane? Or did you finally try to open that cursed lockbox Koorgan left behind?”
The door creaked open and Ashure staggered out, coughing, his hair sticking up in every direction like he’d stuck a fork in a thundercloud. A scorch mark blackened his left cheek, soot covered his coat, and the very tip of his beloved feathered hat was on fire.
He patted the tiny flame out with two fingers and grinned, his teeth bright against the ash smeared across his face. “No traps. No curses. Just… progress.”
Tonya crossed her arms. “Progress?”
“I’m having a wonderful time with the devices Amber and Jade brought,” he said proudly, gesturing back at the chaos behind him. “Did you know that my feathers conduct elemental energy—something Nali conveniently forgot to share with me? You’ve got to see what happens when you weave a Thunderbird filament through an amplified conduction coil and drop it into a blend of shock root oil, enchanted fairy dust, a puff or two of plasma gas, and…”
He released a low curse and turned back toward the room. “Jade! What was that last ingredient you used again?”
“Don’t bother,” Tonya interrupted, holding up a hand with an exasperated smile. “I’m not sure I want to know. Just… try not to blow up anything important.”
“Define ‘important’,” Ashure said innocently, patting the dust off his coat.
Tonya shook her head, laughter bubbling in her throat. She reached up and patted his chest affectionately. “Namely you—all of you. Dinner’s in an hour. Try to keep your eyebrows, please.”
He wiggled what was left of his scorched eyebrows in response, eliciting an eye roll, before turning with a gleam of excitement back into the den.
Inside, the air buzzed with energy—literal and otherwise. The walls glowed with streaks of pale violet where plasma had kissed the stone, and the long table in the center of the room was covered in a glorious mess of gears, glass tubes, glittering filaments, and strange whirring devices that blinked in various hues of ‘don’t touch me if you want to live’.
Amber was crouched over a half-assembled gauntlet, goggles pushed up on her forehead. Jade was upside down in a hanging hammock-chair, furiously scribbling something into a soot-streaked journal with a glowing stylus.
“Oh! We added the thunder-filaments to the chain launcher!” Amber crowed the second she saw Ashure re-enter.
“It crackles now,” Jade said, flipping out of the chair with a catlike twist. “Instant plasma whip. Smells like burnt cinnamon—I added that because Dad is always complaining the house smells like burnt ozone.”
“Cool. I thought that might’ve been the safety fuse,” Amber muttered, frowning thoughtfully. “Or the lunch bag I left on the proton oven.”
Ashure’s grin widened. “Ladies, you are brilliant and mildly terrifying, but mostly brilliant. What’s next?” he asked, rubbing his hands together with delight.
“Oh, there's loads more to show you! Wait until you see what the Thunderbird feathers can really do,” Amber said, holding up one with reverence. “Did you know these things store residual elemental charges like little lightning batteries? They recharge with friction, storm energy, or good ole waving them like a wand.”
“We call them ‘EVFs’ now,” Jade added. “We’re trying to combine them with a kinetic microcore that can be attached to the bottom of your boots, and boom, instant boost modules for short-range flight or zero-g jumps.”
Ashure frowned as he studied the contraption Amber was holding. “You made jet-powered shoes?”
Amber nodded proudly. “Well… jet sandals. We haven’t figured out the insulation yet. Jade’s going to need to go shopping if we use up any more of the shoes she brought.”
“It’s a good thing dragons don’t burn easily,” Jade said, wiggling her toes. They were showing through the ends of her boots—which were missing. “We just need a good fireproof coating.”
“And this,” Amber said, rummaging in the duffel bag before triumphantly holding up something that looked like a cross between a hairdryer and a scorpion. “Spider Blaster 5000. Our brother James built it.”
Ashure took a cautious step back. “Should I be worried?”
Jade grinned. “Always.”
“It shoots out tiny, robotic spiders that create spiderweb-like traps that get stickier if you struggle. You have to know the release code to get free—it’s ‘sucks to be me’, by the way. James even added a new setting called ‘arachno-annoyed’. We haven’t tested that one out yet,” Amber explained. “James made the SB5000 after a spider scared him in the bathroom.”
Ashure barked a laugh. “Remind me never to scare your brother.”
“We do it all the time,” they said in unison.
He leaned in to study the Spider Blaster 5000 with a gleam in his eye. “Mind if I borrow this? I’ve got an annoying Giant I could test the arachno-annoyed on if you like.”
Amber and Jade exchanged glances.
