Page 57 of Red Dragon’s Heart

Emon turned around, glared at the kittens, and then glared at Zak. “Seriously?”

Zak spread his hands, smirking. “She won’t go without the cats. And don’t piss her off. She’ll make a serum that will turn you into a toad, and slip it in your breakfast cereal.”

Maddie, emboldened by Zak’s defense and fairly sure that Emon was not going to flame her to a crisp, folded her arms. “He’s right. I will.”

Emon rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just hurry up about it.”

Chapter 25

After changing clothes and gathering up anything essential, Maddie watched in fascination as Emon set magical wards on the warehouse, to protect it from intruders.

She’d seen Zak do a few spells, but she still had trouble believing it was possible. Actual magic—and without any equipment. Just words and his own innate dragon power. Or, possibly, their brain waves interreacting with quantum energy.

What Emon was doing seemed like a larger, more complex version of the containment spell on Zakerek’s cell, with anchor points at the corners of the building. Except this one was designed to keep people out instead of in.

While they watched, she whispered to Zak, “How come you never put up these ward things?”

He replied grumpily, “A) Because I’m good at hiding. Nobody’s found me yet. And B) Because the wards themselves put out magical energy. It’s like a fucking beacon to every dragon and sorcerer in creation: ‘Here’s something worth stealing!’”

Emon apparently had the same sensitive hearing as Zak, because he heard them from all the way across the cavernous room. “Not the way I do it,” he growled. “Because C) Zak sucks at it, so he can’t conceal his wards, which is why they’re fucking beacons. I can.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a royal Al-Maddeiri. You shit magical poop,” Zak muttered. “Big fucking deal.”

“I heard that,” Emon snarled. Maddie was pretty sure Zak had intended him to.

When he was done, they went up to the big empty main floor. Emon stood in the middle and muttered something in the Draken language, and waved his hand.

The air in front of him quivered and grew smoky. As Maddie watched, mouth open, it coalesced into what looked like a muddy gray whirlpool lying on its side, with the large opening right in front of them and the tiny vortex somehow off in the distance.

“Holy shit,” she murmured.

“Come on,” Emon said impatiently. “I keep telling you, I can’t hang around here all day. I have shit to do.”

Zak slung Maddie’s bag of personal items over his shoulder, and picked up the box with her lab samples and research notes. Maddie had another box with the kittens in it. She really needed to get them a carrier—but who would have anticipated she’d have to take them through a magical portal?

Princess Di took a flying leap out of the box, landed on Zak’s chest and climbed his shirt to his shoulder.

Maddie said uneasily, “She won’t get lost in this portal thingy, will she?”

Zak shifted the box and cupped one hand reassuringly around the back of Maddie’s neck. “Nobody’s getting lost. I’ve got you. Both of you.”

But she could feel the tension in his body. Not about entering the portal, she realized. Because he was going home, and he didn’t know how everyone would react when they saw him.

She leaned into him for a moment. “I know. It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t answer, but she thought he relaxed a fraction.

When they entered the portal, Maddie was plunged into gray smoke and a dizzying feeling of nothingness. She couldn’t even feel any floor under her feet. Her only anchors were the edges of Grayson’s cardboard box, and Zak’s hand solid and warm on the back of her neck.

His voice came into her mind. Don’t worry, we’re almost there.

And then they were. They were standing in late afternoon sunshine, on the flat stone rooftop of—

Holy shit. It was a castle. They were on top of a central area, but she could see towers and parapets belonging to other wings. Beyond the castle were fields and forests, a couple of villages, and, in the distance, a range of mountains.

It looked like they’d walked into an illustration from a fairy tale.

“Where are we?”