He knelt by the jewel.
“Hurry,”Dad said.“The council is questioning Ryan about his supposed heist. He’s lying for you well, but the cracks are showing. They’re beginning to become suspicious.”
Concentrating, Liam muttered to himself. “Blue wire…red wire…connect to black wire…and yes, come to papa, that’s it, careful…careful….”
We watched him, not daring to breathe, hoping he was as much of an expert as we all thought…hoping a childhood spent accidentally blowing things up was actually time well spent…hoping it was okay to trust someone else, to trust family….A heist is all about trust. Each of us wastrusting everyone else to do their job. And each of us had to trust ourselves to deliver in the clutch.
“You can do it,” I whispered.
My other brothers echoed me, softly, and Dad. Gabriela whispered too, “Come on, you can do it. I believe in you.”
He snipped a wire.
Nothing happened.
His shoulders relaxed. “Done.”
The earpiece crackled.“Sky, get your team out of there now!”Dad ordered.“Charles, Tuck, to me! Get ready!”And then the earpiece squealed. I yanked it out.
Pulling on gloves, I picked the jewel up and shoved it into a bag. Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I hurried out of the vault. Gabriela, Benden, and Liam came with me. We ran through the hallway, up the stairs, and into the kitchen—it was empty.
Reaching the door first, Liam threw it open and then reeled back.
Outside on the lawn, blocking our way to the party tent, Dad, and freedom, was a very massive, very angry dragon with fire in his mouth.
MR.KEENE—IT HADto be him—reared back, wings spread wide. Fire shot out of his mouth, and he slammed his front talons against the house. Gabriela, Benden, and Liam yanked me backward, and we stumbled away, back against the kitchen cabinets. The copper pots clanked against one another. A tray tipped off a counter and fell onto the floor.
Rearing again, Mr. Keene slammed into his house even harder.
I saw Dad rush forward, trying to reach us, as Mr. Keene bashed the house a third time.
The wall burst apart. Bricks rained down, and we ducked, huddled together. Yelping, my father was hit. A brick knocked against the side of his head, and he fell. The ground shook, and instead of a wall, there was now a gaping hole to the outside.
“Dad!” I cried.
Beyond him, I saw Charles and Tuck transform.
Straddling Dad, Ryan’s father roared. He was a massive red dragon, twice the size of my brothers. Beside me, Gabriela was screaming. She clutched my arm. Liam was on my other side, squeezing my arm. Benden was somewhere behind me.
More wyverns were here, I knew, stuck in their human forms, but they were on the other side of Mr. Keene, beyond my brothers, in the gardens and under the party tent. I didn’t know if they could even see me, and I knew they couldn’t hear me, not over his roaring.
I’d planned to make a speech. Reveal the traitorous lies of Mr. Keene. Expose his secrets. But Mr. Keene was standing over my father, his talons resting on Dad’s neck, and I knew if I spoke, he would rip those talons into Dad’s soft, human skin. He’d broken the wall to his own house to reach me, to show me his power.
Around me, everyone was shouting. My dragon brothers. Liam. Gabriela. Dad. Benden rushed forward, his mouth open wide to spurt flame, but Charles, in dragon form, blocked him. I thought I heard Ryan and even Ryan’s mother, her shriek shrill and frightened.
I grew quiet.
I was the one who was holding the Door.
“Give it to me,” Mr. Keene said, “and he lives.” His dragon voice echoed, like a stereo pumped up too loud. It reverberated inside my bones.
And I felt myself lose my temper. The world zeroed in on just me, the jewel, and Mr. Keene.It’s all about power,I thought clinically.
Who had it. Who didn’t. Who thought they had it.
Mr. Keene wasn’t a massive dragon because he worked out at the gym as a human. He was large because that was how he saw himself: as more important than anyone else. There was no conservation of mass physics rule being followed here. It was shape-shifting. Magic.
Power.
