“Tuck?”
“I take over for the cooks,” he said. “Keep the food flowing so the guests don’t get suspicious. I’ll tell the servers that the cooks are on break.”
“Liam?”
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen, ready to defuse.”
“Benden, you’ll be with Liam,” I told Benden. Then I looked at each of them, making sure I had their attention. Good. Now, we needed an emergency backup plan. “If anything goes wrong—”
Dad interrupted. “If anything goes wrong, fly out of there.”
“Nuh-uh, we’re not going to do that,” Liam said.
“You must,” Dad barked. “I’ll have your promise on this. Each of you. If we fail, you leave and don’t look back. There are emergency funds—draw on them and melt into the world. Stay away from any enclaves of wyverns. No Colorado. No California. Hide among the humans far away from any of our kind.”
“But we won’t fail,” I said.
My brothers echoed me.
And then I made the promise anyway, because Dad needed to hear it, because in his eyes I’d already died once, because I didn’t want him to have to be afraid anymore. But it was a promise that I planned to break.
Either we came out of this together as a family, or we didn’t come out of it at all.
WE PILED INTO CARS.Gabriela and I crouched in the back of Dad’s, with Dad and Charles in the front, and Benden went with Liam and Tuck in Liam’s car—to his credit, he didn’t ask too many questions, though I knew he hadn’t seen a car before. My brothers had lent him a tux. Gabriela and I wore all black.
By the turnoff to the lake, Dad slowed. “Be careful,” he told me.
“Always,” I promised.
He looked as if he didn’t believe me.
“I’ll try. Really. Aside from flying through my boyfriend’s window and breaking into a high-security vault, I won’t do anything crazy.”
He nearly smiled.
Gabriela and I got out of the car and scurried into the underbrush. We watched Dad and Liam drive up toward the gate. “Are you ready?” I whispered to Gabriela.
“Can I rename myself Gabriela the Dragon Rider?”
Grinning at her, I transformed between the trees—every time I changed, it was easier, probably because I didn’t doubt I could do it—and Gabriela the Dragon Rider climbed onto my back. “Hold on,” I told her. “And do you have my grappling hook? Keep it ready. But still hold on.”
“This is the coolest night ever,” she announced.
I flew.
Higher.
Higher.
I reached the clouds. Mist closed around us. As we flew closer, I saw Ryan’s house beneath us, blurred from the mist. Circling, I came at it from behind. I knew exactly which window was Ryan’s. I hoped he didn’t mind if we broke in through it.
He wouldn’t be there, I knew. As the host’s son, he would be in the courtyard, greeting guests with his father and mother.
“Ready?” I called to Gabriela.
“I think I’m going to be sick!” Gabriela called back.
Diving down, I hoped she could hold it together. We needed to time this right—otherwise we’d end up plummeting down the cliff. I couldn’t go through the window as a dragon—I’d have to transform. “Ready with the hook?”
