The Dragon's Tooth

Antigone watched Cyrus and Nolan run, and her teeth drew blood from her fingers when Cyrus jumped.

She saw the plane drag her brother into darkness. She saw the fire and the tumbling crash. She raced after Greeves as he ran down to the docks, and she jumped into his metal shell of a boat while he jerked the cord on the motor.

Nolan was standing on the end of the jetty, watching the lake’s churning surface burn. Diana climbed up the rocks beside him and sat, covering her mouth in shock.

Antigone grabbed on to the heaving prow, and the boat surged and chopped its way out into the lake. Her mind was numb. Water stung her unblinking face. Wind and rain tore at her hair. Distant lightning and approaching flames seared their brightness on her staring eyes. The burning plane was sinking — the last three people she loved were sinking with it.

Rupert circled the wreckage and circled again, tightening his loops, passing through islands of flame. Finally, cutting the engine, he jerked his shirt over his head and prepared to dive.

Antigone grabbed his arm.

Antigone was the one who heard her brother — her brothers—calling out her name from the oily water. She was the one who spotted the three shapes in the darkness. And when Rupert had lifted her mother’s limp, dripping body from the waves, and a muscled, confused Dan had swallowed her in a hug, and Cyrus had emptied his gut of lake water and lay gasping at her feet, when the boat had finally turned its nose back to Ashtown, she was the one who held her mother’s head in her lap, rocking with the heaving waves, stroking dripping white hair, looking at her battered and bleeding brothers, mixing hot tears with the rain.

A mile to the east of the sinking plane, Lilly the bull found something strange. Two somethings. She could smell them. She could feel their vibrations in the water running down her skin. One of them was a people. He smelled like a people, looked like a people, and moved like a people. She mustn’t eat the people or taste the people or be seen by the people.

But the other was not a people. Parts of it smelled people, but more of it was like dog and monkey and … vile tiger shark. It had gills. She could feel the gills vibrating as it swam. It was not slapping the water like people. It was slithering through it, dragging the people on its back.

She needed to know what this new thing was. And, for a shark, there is only one way to be sure.

After trial, after hardship and horror, even after the darkest night, the Earth still turns. The sun still burns, though its light may discover many changes. When the morning sun rose into blue sky over the freshwater sea that is Lake Michigan, when its light kissed the stone walls and towers and windows of Ashtown, the chapel held twelve bodies in need of graves — eleven members and staff of the Order of Brendan who had not survived the night. One who had been murdered in the office of Cecil Rhodes.

Rupert Greeves stood beside them, his brow furrowed, his hands crossed, studying the faces of those he had lost. Five of his guards. A man and a woman, newly engaged, both cooks. A smiling Keeper. A monk. A wrinkled Sage. A young Acolyte. And Eleanor Elizabeth Eldridge. Alone, Rupert had already uttered blessings over each of them.

Jax had wept over each of those he had not reached in time, and he had paced every corner of Ashtown with his antivenin until Rupert had forced him to bed.

Rupert himself had not slept, and it would be a long time before he did. There were too many things to do, and the list wouldn’t stop scrolling in his head.

Cecil Rhodes was missing. The other captured traitors were in containment, waiting for Rupert’s arrival.

The young Oliver Laughlin was comatose.

Wisconsin authorities were waiting for his call about a reported plane crash.

An elevator needed fixing. The Brendan — soon to resign, no doubt — was probably hungry.

The O of B had lost its cook, but that wouldn’t stop people from wanting breakfast. He hoped everybody liked French toast, because that’s all he knew how to make.

Phoenix had the tooth.

Rupert dragged a heavy hand down his jaw and through his pointed beard. He didn’t even like to think about what that meant — old images, scars on his memory, flickered past, and he was again digging graves for the misshapen and disfigured remains hidden by a younger Phoenix in the walls and floors of Ashtown. His own brother’s body …

Rupert closed his eyes. He was going to need help from the other Estates. And he would have to train up help for himself within Ashtown. He opened his eyes, staring straight ahead. The future was invisibly dark, but to Rupert Greeves, it smelled like war.

He looked down at the row of bodies in their open boxes. Twelve dead in two days.

Sighing, Rupert Greeves turned and left the chapel. Everything else could wait until he’d been to the hospital.

John Horace Lawney was sitting up in his bed when Rupert arrived, carrying a large envelope under his arm. Gunner was snoring in the bed behind his uncle.

“Horace,” said Rupert, nodding.

“Greeves,” said Lawney.

The two of them looked at the row of beds.

Daniel Smith. Katie Smith. Antigone Smith. Cyrus Smith.

Diana Boone was curled up with a blanket on the floor. Nolan was hunched over, snoring in a chair by the window. Breeze-rustled curtains dragged through his hair. A slightly frayed red-winged blackbird hopped on the sill behind him.

Groaning, Daniel Smith opened his eyes and stretched his thick, bruised arms above his bandaged head.

“Mr. Smith?” Rupert asked.

Daniel opened his eyes. “Mr. Greeves!” He sat up carefully. “Are you here, too? I mean, were you there last night? In the boat. That part seemed like a dream. I didn’t know why you would be here. Don’t you live in California? You know, in the house? Sorry, I’m really foggy right now. Good to see you, though. It’s been a long time.”

“Likewise,” Rupert said. “I have something for you. And I wish I’d given it to you sooner.” He handed Daniel the envelope. “If you recall, I bought it from you furnished. Since that time, no one has set foot inside it. I owe you an explanation, and at some point, I intend to give you one. But for now, this will have to do.”

When he’d gone, Horace stood up and shuffled over to Daniel’s bed.

“What is it?”

Daniel dropped the papers onto his lap. “It’s the deed,” he said. “To our old house in California.”

With hot eyes, Daniel Smith looked down the line of beds, and he laughed.

twenty-two. NEW YEAR’S EVE

CYRUS SMITH RAPPED his knuckles on the table and slowly rolled his head. His right leg was bouncing. A notebook was open in front of him, a pen was in his hand, and a large leather-bound volume faced him on a small stand.

He stared at the window. The world outside was white. Snowflakes were drifting on the sill.

A clock was ticking. Worse, across the table, an hourglass was busily draining its sand.

Beside the hourglass, Nolan was tipping back in his chair, yawning and slowly peeling the skin off his forefinger like he was taking off a sock.

“Do you mind?” Cyrus asked. Nolan set the finger skin upright on the table. It was only missing the fingernail.