“You’re a Shaman, and you’re asking me this?” the spirit said, exasperated. “Parts aren’t parts! You can’t put magic back into a dragon for the same reason you can’t put chicken nuggets back into a chicken. Dragon fire is alive. If you want it to grow, you have to feed it.”
“Okay,” I said. “How do I do that?”
She tapped her claw thoughtfully on her chin. “Stealing fire from someone else is the quickest solution. Is there anyone you don’t like that you could feed to him?”
It was a sign of how desperate I’d gotten that I actually gave that question serious consideration. “No one I could catch,” I answered at last. “I’d happily feed him White Snake, but we only got away from her the first time with the help of the DFZ. I don’t think I could take her alone.”
“I don’t know,” the spirit said thoughtfully. “White Snake’s got her own problems right now, which makes her a softer target than you might think. That said, I don’t know how we’d feed her fire to your father if he’s unconscious, and I probably shouldn’t be selling out my dragons. Not that I care about their good opinion, but I am technically the caretaker of all fire, and I try to maintain a minimum level of neutrality. If I didn’t, a lot more snakes would be dead, believe me.”
I sighed. Of course the one dragon in the world who could have made this easy for me was also the only one who actually sort of cared about fairness. Maybe my bad luck curse wasn’t broken after—
I froze, eyes going wide. “What about the curse?”
“What about it?” the god asked.
“You said the reason my dad is in this state is because of the curse he put on me,” I said. “He tied his fire to my luck, and then I burned it up by forcing his magic to sabotage entire currency markets. I thought the curse broke on its own the night he was attacked, but looking back, I don’t think he ever actually removed it. I think it just stopped working because he ran out of fire to fuel it.”
“Makes sense,” the spirit said, looking more interested. “Go on.”
“We’ve already established that I can’t just shove magic into his body like I would to fill a circle,” I continued. “But if I was able to use up all his magic, that proves there’s an open connection between myself and his fire. A live wire, so to speak. Is there any reason I couldn’t hack that wire to go the other way and send power back in?”
The Spirit of Dragons frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she said after almost a minute. “There is definitely a connection of some sort, but how would you use it? You burned up Yong’s magic the first time by forcing his curse to do crazier and crazier things until his fire could no longer keep up. I don’t see how that works in reverse.”
“But the link is still there,” I said eagerly. “White Snake said he was a fool for tying his fire to me, and obviously he was, but if the curse isn’t actually broken, if it’s still there binding us together, that means I’ve got a main line straight into my dad’s fire. Shoving magic into his body obviously won’t work for all the reasons you just mentioned, but if I use that connection to send magic straight into his fire, could I reignite him?”
“You mean like jumping a car?”
I’d been thinking dragon-fire defibrillator, but that worked too. When I nodded, the Spirit of Dragons opened her mouth only to close it again just as fast. She sat in silence for several minutes, tapping her tail on the floor so hard the empty cups bounced.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “And that is extremely vexing. I can’t think of a concrete reason why it wouldn’t work, but there are so many conflating factors going on here that I can’t say for sure that it would.”
“Is there any harm in trying?”
The dragon god lapsed back into another long thought session, smoke curling from her nostrils. “Probably not. If it doesn’t work, you run the risk of smothering whatever tiny spark he has left. If you don’t do anything, though, he’ll eventually grow so weak that he’ll no longer be able to keep up his end of the connection. You’re basically doomed either way, so I don’t see a reason not to give it a go.”
That was hardly a ringing endorsement, but even long shots looked good when you had nothing else. “Let’s do it, then,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’m ready. I just need a minute to go get Dr. Kowalski.”
The dragon spirit blinked at me. “Doctor who?”
“My teacher,” I explained, going for the simplest answer since I didn’t know which of the DFZ’s secrets were common knowledge among the spirit community and which weren’t. “And a much better Shaman than I am. She’ll know the best way to handle this.”
“What?” the dragon god cried angrily. “No, no, no! You can’t bring in another person! This is dragon business. The only reason you’re allowed is because Yong considers you clan, and you’re already in the middle of this mess. You have to be present, but we’re going to be digging into the innermost workings of dragon fire with this. Outside consultants are strictly not allowed.”
“But I can’t do it on my own! We’re basically talking about performing magical surgery, and I only became not-terrible at casting two months ago!”
“It has to be you,” the fiery spirit argued. “You’re the one with the connection to your father, and it was your idea. All you have to do is follow your own instructions and you should be fine. I’ll even get you started.”
She took a deep breath and leaned over, blowing gently above my father’s chest until one of the sparks from her breath caught on the tip of his nose.
