I froze, all happy feelings driven out of me by an icy wave of fear. Above my head, the huge form of White Snake began to shift inside her steel cage, the burned-out bars of which were looking flimsier by the second. When I tried to scramble away, though, my father caught my arm.
“Don’t,” he ordered sharply, his eyes locked on his towering sister. “Show no fear, no weakness. Don’t give her an inch.”
I nodded, forcing myself to stand back up instead of fleeing like I so desperately wanted to. When I was back on my feet at his side, my father took my hand and squeezed it. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I know how to handle her.”
I wasn’t at all sure that he did, but it was out of my hands. My part was over. All I could do now was stand up straight and trust in my father as the dragoness opened her huge eyes, the black-slitted pupils dilating in confusion before locking onto my dad as she took a hissing breath of pure, smoky hate.
“You.”
Chapter 13
I jumped backward. Stupid, I know, since my dad had just warned me not to do exactly that. In my defense, the instinct to keep my soft, easily chewed body as far as possible from those huge teeth was really strong. I was still getting myself back together when my father stepped in front of me.
“White Snake,” he said in Korean.
The dragon above us blew an angry huff of smoke out of her nostrils, and I braced for the worst. My dad looked a lot better than he had a week ago, but there was no fooling White Snake. She knew exactly how weak he was, because she was the one who’d made him that way. I was already reaching out to the DFZ for more magic to stop…whatever it was she was about to do. Eat my dad. Eat me. Trample us both while laughing on her way to freedom.
All seemed equally likely. In the end, though, White Snake did none of those things. She simply put her head back down, resting her wedge-shaped, sharp-toothed jaw on her folded forelegs with a disgusted sigh.
“What do you want?”
I frowned. That was not the reaction I’d expected. Fortunately, my dad was still on the ball.
“We’ve come to set you free,” Yong replied, pointing at the open security door behind us. “Go. I promise not to follow.”
White Snake snorted, sending a cloud of white-gray smoke up to the rough-cut ceiling. “I’m not afraid of you,” she grumbled. But she still didn’t move, and my father’s firm scowl grew confused.
“Why aren’t you leaving?” he demanded when it had become clear she wasn’t going to budge.
“Why should I?” she replied, turning her huge head away. “There’s no point.”
“There is every point,” my father said angrily. “We have been enemies since you hatched, but we are still blood. I will not stand by and allow my sister to be used as mortal entertainment!”
White Snake glared at him through resentful, slitted eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. As you are so fond of reminding me, we are not clan.” She curled herself tighter, tucking her head under her long tail. “Go away.”
My father stared in disbelief. I was right there with him. Of all the ways this plan could have gone south, the idea that White Snake would simply not want to leave hadn’t even blipped my radar. And that sucked, because according to the timer Sibyl was keeping at the corner of my vision, the guards would be down to escort her to the arena any moment.
“Don’t you want to get out of here?” I cajoled, going for a different angle. “The Gameskeeper’s planning to humiliate you tonight, but if you run, there’s nothing to stop you. You can go back to your humans! I’m sure they’re worried sick.”
“There’s no one worrying over me.”
I was opening my mouth to say that wasn’t true when her head suddenly snapped back up.
“Don’t you get it?” White Snake snarled, pressing her snout against the blackened bars. “You won. Thanks to whatever miracle you pulled to get the DFZ on your side, I was defeated in front of the entire world! Do you honestly think my mortals would stick around after that?”
My father’s would, but my dad had always been special. White Snake’s relationship with her humans seemed far more typical. Considering the dragon who’d jumped us outside of Peter’s place had bought his info from one of White Snake’s people in exchange for a plane ticket, I had a feeling she was right on the money. But while I could see her predicament, my father looked deeply, personally offended.
“So you’re just going to give up?” He sneered. “I don’t recall you being so weak.”
“Don’t talk like you know me,” she said, baring her huge teeth at him. “You’ve done everything you could to keep me away for a thousand years. You have no idea what I’ve been through! You were always strong, and you only got stronger after you ate Father’s fire, but I had nothing! I had to connive and pander and show my belly to stronger dragons just to survive. The fact that I didn’t end up as a head on some enemy clan’s wall is proof that I’m more resilient than you could ever be, a sentimental idiot who let himself get drained dry over a mortal!”
My dad and I both flinched.
“But that’s all over,” White Snake went on, her voice defeated. “I bet everything I had on this plot. After using your mortal to weaken you, I was going to eat what was left of your fire and present your severed head to the Peacemaker as proof. He’d kick
