Page 196 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Somewhere behind me, Max barked.

My blood stopped listening to reason.

Quinn.

I roared.

The sound shook dust from the ceiling and cracked what remained of the nearest glass case. Across the room, Quinn’s head snapped up from behind the fallen display, one arm wrapped around Max’s collar.

Still alive.

I had half a second to register her face before the objects flew.

I threw myself between her and the storm.

Glass cut across my side. A bronze shard struck my jaw and glanced away. Something heavy struck the ridge of my shoulder and drove pain through the joint. I dropped over the fallen case where Quinn and Max had taken shelter, curling my long body around them as tightly as the ruined room allowed.

Debris struck scale, horn, spine.

I held.

Through the storm, I saw Luke moving toward the detonator table, one hand outstretched.

Dimitris saw him too.

The phoenix crossed the room in a streak of gold and hit Luke so hard they both crashed into the far wall.

The spell broke. Everything fell.

For half a second, the gallery was nothing but impact. Stone, metal, glass, all of it hitting the floor in a violent rain.

I kept my body over Quinn and Max until the last pieces struck and settled.

Luke was down, the constructs dragging broken limbs across the stone, thieves lying still among the wreckage. The detonator still sat on the table.

But inside the sheltering curve of my body, Quinn moved.

I shifted back before I had fully decided to do it, scales giving way to skin, claws to hands, fire closing in my throat. Pain arrived all at once, sharp along my shoulder, deep beneath my ribs, hot through the joint where the debris had struck.

I ignored it.

Quinn lay partly under the angled case door, one arm wrapped around Max’s collar. Dust streaked her cheek, and a thin line of blood marked her collarbone, but her eyes were open.

Alive.

Max sneezed, shook debris from his coat, and gave me a deeply aggrieved look.

Quinn blinked at me. “Hi.”

I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands hovering uselessly above her shoulder, her face. There was nowhere safe to put the fear.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“Mostly offended.”

“Quinn.”

“I’m okay.” Her voice softened. “Really.”