Edward Barnes’s legacy as a bureau agent pales in comparison to his final act of selflessness. While some deem his sacrifice a noble act, others refuse to acknowledge it as anything other than a tragedy. Despite several attempts to decipher his dragon’s curse, not a single living witch or wizard has been able to do so. The secret, it seems, is lost to us forever. What’s not lost is the memory of a man who saved the world. Neither is the hope that comes with knowing his dragon’s curse can never be broken.
—Excerpt from Julissa Mercado’s article “A Cursed Life: How a Gold Wand Saved the World” in The Weekly Scorcher
RANDALL CASTS A PARALYSIS CHARM ON ME BEFORE I CAN CHARGE forward.
He also hits Samira and Andrew. His spell clings to me like a vine, coiling around me until it’s too tight to move. I can breathe just fine, but it’s definitely uncomfortable.
“No!” Papi yells. “Please don’t hurt them!”
“Don’t worry, old man. It doesn’t hurt,” says Randall. “Not yet.”
I grit my teeth as I try to shake off the spell. Randall flicks his finger. A wild gust of wind shoves me across the habitat. The glass walls that wrap around the enclosure have been smashed to smithereens. Shards are scattered all over. Even though my suit protects me, the glass still pricks at my legs. I yelp upon contact. Then Randall’s magic drags Samira, Andrew, and me all the way to where my father and his three captors are. With a jerk, the spell roots me to the spot, forcing me to my knees. Samira and Andrew are kneeling beside me.
“Excellent.” The Sire walks in front of us, hands behind his back. “Disarm them.”
Samira whimpers. While Randall searches her pockets, she squints hard, as if trying out charms in her mind, but nothing works. He’s too damn strong. Randall pulls out her wand and stares at it like he’s found trash.
“Oh, you poor little girl,” he mocks, with a dry laugh. “You brought a knife to a gun fight.” Randall tosses her wand over his shoulder. It rolls away onto the lake’s shore. He searches me and Andrew next, finding nothing, then returns to his original spot next to Papi.
“Do whatever you want to me,” Papi begs the Sire. “Just let my daughter go.”
“No. I’m not leaving without you.”
The Sire halts. He laughs in a grave voice, but it still rattles my bones as if it’s coming from loudspeakers at a music festival.
“What are you doing?” Andrew shouts. He’s not looking at the Sire.
He’s looking at Takeshi.
“I thought you were still one of us. Not after this, mate.” Smoke might as well be coming off Andrew’s body. He’s hardened his expression into steel, unyielding in his rage. Andrew winces as Randall’s magic coils tighter around him, but he recovers quickly. “That man’s done nothing to you. And you’re about to slit his throat!”
Takeshi says nothing. He’s as poised as ever.
“How is this avenging Hikaru?” Andrew’s raising his voice now. “In what world is this what he would’ve wanted? Tell me right now!”
The Sire paces from side to side. He stops to Andrew’s left. “The boy you used to be friends with is long dead.” The Sire looks over his shoulder. “Am I mistaken, Takeshi?”
His reply is swift. “No, Sire.”
Andrew looks like he’s just been shot. He’s struggling to speak again, but his silence isn’t because of the spell. It’s like he doesn’t have words left.
“As I was saying”—the Sire steps closer to me—“now we can start with today’s activities. I can no longer feel my Anchor’s presence. I can’t punish him nor can I force him to punish you. This would upset me if my original plan hadn’t worked.”
“And what’s that?” I growl.
“I needed you here, so here you are.” The Sire turns to Takeshi. “Escort Mr. Torres to the forest. Do you still have your magic?”
Randall scowls at the question, but it lasts only a second.
Takeshi nods. He shows off two golden orbs clipped to his belt. “One is a Death Charm.”
“And the other?”
“Freeze Charm,” Randall cuts in. “It incapacitates whatever it touches by cloaking it in frost.” He glances at Samira. “Can you do that?”
Samira doesn’t speak. She’s not even looking at him.
“Didn’t think so,” Randall says triumphantly. The Sire chuckles, and Randall practically floats with delight, until the Sire shifts his attention back to Takeshi.
“Do you understand your orders?” the Sire asks.
Takeshi pulls my father to his feet. “I won’t fail you.”
“Don’t do this!” I plead, still writhing in vain. “Punish me any other way, but please let my father go. He’s done nothing to you!”
The Sire shushes me. “Your hysterics will accomplish nothing. Besides, he won’t die just yet.” He looks at Papi. “Outside, Mr. Torres. I’ll see you soon.”
Papi hangs his head low. He’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are far too wide and alert, as if he’s terrified of what could happen to me with him gone. Takeshi grips him tightly and ushers him along, dagger still pressed against Papi’s throat.
“Te amo, mija. Stay strong, okay? I’ll be with you soon.” Papi’s voice is trembling.
“Te amo …” I don’t promise to stay strong. I don’t know what that looks like anymore.
“Hikaru’s memory deserves better than this. Your mother deserves better, too!” Andrew yells. “You’re a disgrace, Takeshi. You were once everything to a lot of people, and I regret ever being one of them. Rot in hell.” He’s ripped the words right out of my heart. They sound sharper, colder when Andrew says them.
Takeshi guides my father to the elevator, as if Andrew had spoken to the wind.
They disappear in total silence.
The Sire walks closer to me. He reaches down to my hair, removing a lock from my face. I tremble despite his leather glove’s warmth. I can see him just fine. This jerk is only trying to make me squirm. He says, “My Anchor was slimy enough to attempt to enter my consciousness undetected. But I allowed him a glimpse so he could locate me. I gave him just enough to set a trap for those bureau worms.” He glances at the floor, standing even taller, a king surveying his court. “You have brought me precisely what I desired, Lana.”
I furrow my brow, no longer writhing. “What the hell have I brought you?”
The Sire drifts toward Randall. He slips a hand into his coat’s pocket, then pulls out something white and glimmering. The Fire Drake’s crystal heart.
So he was in Sweden searching for his missing ingredient! The thought of that poor dragon injured and deprived of something so valuable wrecks me. She wasn’t as protected as the bureau wanted me to believe. Neither was my father. This has all been a colossal failure.
“Did you kill the Fire Drake?” The words are glass in my throat.
“Takeshi retrieved the heart while I led the bureau on a wild-goose chase.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
The Sire pinches my cheek, winking. I’m seconds away from emptying a whole week’s worth of meals onto his shoes. “Do you know why this object matters so much?”
“It has powerful magical properties,” Samira replies. “It can grant wishes but only to its rider.” She hesitates. “Who isn’t you.”
“That’s where he comes in.” I narrow my gaze at Randall. “He’ll force the crystal heart to help you get what you’re after.”
The Sire smiles. “What am I after, Lana?”
Samira recites, “Regeneration. Body. Magic. Blood. You want to break your curse, but you don’t have all the ingredients.”
I nod. “The crystal heart will replace the blood you need.”
The Sire raises his eyebrows. “Randall, look at them! Such smart girls, are they not?”
Randall is the least excited I’ve seen him. He’s hunched over, his weary gaze glued to me. “Yes, Sire, but she’s wrong,” he snarls.
“She is.” The Sire steps closer, hiding the crystal heart behind his back. “Regeneration. Body. Magic. The Hydra and the Pluma de Muerte I rescued were kind enough to offer me their hearts. A small sacrifice for what I did to save them.”
“Small sacrifice?” Andrew scoffs. “Unbelievable. You killed two dragons. Or, I should say, your loyal dog over there killed two dragons with his Gold magic.”
“Wrong again,” Randall fumes. “Both dragons volunteered their hearts to my master.”
So Samira and I were right. The rescued dragons were just supposed to be sacrifices.
“You’re still killers. Both of you,” Andrew says. “You saved those dragons only because you needed something from them. Same thing with you.” He motions to Randall. “Your master doesn’t give a crap about you, mate. He’s using you.”
“Andrew, stop.” I can’t say more; everything in my head is an expletive. I’m half expecting Randall to blast him dead right there. Instead, he keeps that foul glare aimed at Andrew, casually showing off his wand from inside his coat.
“He’s your magic,” Samira says. “He’ll perform the reverse curse.”
“A favor I will reward him for,” says the Sire.
“Then where is Lana wrong? You don’t have the blood, so the crystal heart must act as a substitute through your wish.”
The Sire taps the tip of her nose, which makes Samira wince. “No.”
She’s as confused as I am, but I do the talking this time. “So if the crystal heart isn’t for the reverse curse, why go through all the trouble of stealing it?”
The Sire backs away from Samira. He’s doing that side-to-side walk again. “Blood is forever binding. Not even a wish from a crystal heart can break it. I mourn the misguided dragons who gave my former master their hearts. They were fooled into his deluded efforts to end me.” He stops, admiring the pale stone. “Just like the mother of his child.”
“Edward Barnes never had children,” Samira says with great confidence.
“He did. A single child.” The Sire tosses the crystal heart into the air. It hovers a few feet above him, rotating in slow circles, glowing brighter and brighter. “Randall kindly bent the crystal heart to my will. My wish was simple. I didn’t know whether I would see anyone, but I had to try. So I said the one thing I have been waiting to say for the last twenty years. Allow me to share my findings with you.” He speaks to the stone. “Show me the heir of Edward Barnes.”
The habitat fills up with the whitest light, forcing me to shut my eyes. The brightness dies down, and when I check the stone again, it’s projecting a thin, golden screen.
Edward Barnes hugs a woman in front of a quaint cottage overlooking the sea.
There’s a winding road behind the cottage, but no traffic or pedestrians. There aren’t other houses nearby. The ocean’s waves are dead, too, and the sky is a faded pink with no clouds in sight. This is an Other Place. Edward Barnes seems to be the same age he was when he died. The woman’s back is to the screen. He’s much taller than she is, which makes her seem even frailer. They cling to each other as if this is the last time they’ll meet.
“I will always love you,” he whispers in her ear, “but I have to do this.”
He kisses her cheek goodbye, then vanishes with the Transport Charm.
The images blur together, then rearrange into another scene. The woman’s back is still turned. She tilts a bit. Even though her face is obscured, her baby bump isn’t. She must be five or six months pregnant. Behind her, a TV shows the breaking news of Barnes’s death and the Sire’s defeat. The woman sniffles in her living room, cradling her baby bump as she cries.
Another whirlwind. Another scene. I still can’t see the pregnant woman’s face, and it’s even worse because of the pitch darkness of the night. She lurks in the shadows at the edge of an alley, the sound of punk-rock music blaring from the building to the left. I catch the heavy thud of footsteps drawing closer to the darkness, then the flick of a cigarette lighter. The woman pulls out her Silver wand as a broad-shouldered figure stumbles toward her. His lighter illuminates the lower half of his face, showing off the patchy brown stubble on his chin, then the red-rimmed eyes of someone who’s been drinking for hours. They widen when he spots the tip of a wand aimed at him. The cigarette falls from the white man’s lips. He’s about to shout when a blinding flash shoots out of the woman’s wand. The spell hits him in the chest, shocks him into trembling.
“He is my son,” the man says hoarsely. “But I hate him. I must stay away forever.”
Then he face-plants to the ground.
As the woman leaves him unconscious in the alley, the scene changes yet again.
Now she’s sitting on a rocking chair inside a living room with sea-shell-white walls. I can see that dead ocean and the faded pink sky from the windows. She’s back at the Other Place. The woman holds a pudgy bundle of white blankets in her arms. Her baby. As the little one cries, the woman’s face is finally visible, as if I’m looking up at her from the baby’s vantage point.
“You’ve nothing to worry about, my beautiful boy. I’m going to keep you safe. He will never find you. This is my promise,” says a smiling Lucy Galloway.
She’s smiling down at a baby Andrew.
No, no, no, no, no.
I had been right. Andrew Galloway is the heir of Edward Barnes.
I’m heaving what little air I can, but the habitat feels drier and drier. My lungs fail me completely when I glance over at Andrew. He’s a paper-white version of himself. He must recognize that cottage by the sea, that seashell-white living room. He must’ve seen endless pictures of himself as that baby. He must remember that broad-shouldered drunk as the man he confronted in Aberdeen. A stranger who had been charmed into thinking he was Andrew’s father when his defenses had been at their lowest.
The crystal heart flashes its white light twice, then the screen disappears.
The stone descends back into the Sire’s grasp. He hides it in his pocket while Andrew presses his eyes shut. “Rest assured, young man. Your father died before he ever knew you were on the way. I doubt he would’ve been much of a father, had he known. You dodged a bullet, Andrew Galloway. Or I should say, Andrew Barnes.”
The way he says it makes the truth sound colder, crueler. My tears come back, falling faster. A headache drills into my skull. Still, nothing hurts worse than knowing how powerless I am. I’m not a Gold Wand. I can’t get Andrew the hell out of here.
This shouldn’t be how he dies. This can’t be how he dies.
If I stall long enough, my teammates will arrive before the Sire lays a hand on Andrew.
“The man your mother cursed had been in her sights for months,” the Sire continues. “Everything she told you about their relationship was a lie. They were never together.” He nods to me. “And you, Lana Torres, are the one I wish to thank for today’s victory. I could have used Lucy Galloway as my hostage to lure Andrew here, but she’s been in hiding ever since her son’s protest. I suspect she’s in her Other Place. Plan B had been simple enough—tell my Anchor to bring Andrew to me. Then I saw how close you two were getting.” The Sire bends over until our eyes are level with each other’s. “Ask me why it had to happen this way, Lana.”
Stall as long as you can.
I whisper through my tears, “Please don’t kill him. Please. Maybe Randall can make the crystal heart finish the spell for you. It could replace the blood and—”
“Ask me why it had to happen this way.”
Andrew still has his eyes closed. Why isn’t he begging for his life? Maybe the truth has stunned him into silence? I refuse to believe he’s accepted his death so easily.
“He doesn’t have to die. There’s another way you can break the curse,” I say.
“I could help you find an alternative,” Samira offers tearfully. “I’m not as strong as Randall, but I’m smart. I swear I’ll help you. Just don’t hurt Andrew.”
“Yes!” I say. “She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Let her—”
“Ask him the bloody question, Lana,” Andrew says. There’s an emptiness in his voice. Like his fighting spirit has been buried miles-deep in snow. He’s convinced I won’t be able to save him—that today is his last day on earth.
“Shut up, okay? Just let me handle this.”
“You’re not handling anything,” the Sire says coolly. If he’s irritated, he’s hiding it behind a smirk. “Now ask me why it had to happen this way.”
Stalling has worked. I should keep baiting him. “Why are you controlling the Cup?”
Samira’s jaw almost hits the floor. Even Andrew is finally looking at me, tears drowning those beautiful hazel-green eyes.
“What?” he asks.
“The Sire has been playing both sides for years,” I say. “He bound President Turner to his every whim when he was still a dragon. He bound us the moment we signed our contracts.”
Andrew blushes furiously, but I suspect it’s more out of rage than shame. He’s sizing up the Sire, as if he’s readying himself to beat his ass. “Prisoners,” he says. “All along.”
With a sigh, the Sire taps me on the forehead twice. “Such an inquisitive mind.”
I’m as unmoving as the marble dragon sculptures on the Blazewrath stadium walls. “Are you trying to break every competing dragon’s Bond?”
The Sire’s hand freezes in midair. He laughs humorlessly. “You clever girl.” He drops his hand with a flourish. “Every dragon deserves to be free. Even if they can’t see a better life without their humans, I will make them accept it. They’ll join my army once they see the light.”
So my theory’s right. “You only want soldiers? Or will you use them in other ways?”
“Ask Master the right question!” Randall watches me like he’s desperate to dip me into a vat of frying oil.
“Now, now, Randall. Let the clever girl speak.” The Sire steps back without looking away from me. “I don’t fully understand your team’s dragons yet, but I know they’re not Transporting. If my Anchor were in a normal Other Place, I could still feel him in our world. But it’s as if he no longer exists. No Other Place can remove magic. If that is indeed what the Sol de Noches are doing, then their abilities could play a critical role in destroying others’ Bonds.”
No. My teammates are going to roast him and Randall any second. He won’t win.
“I answered your questions,” the Sire says. “Now ask mine.”
Fine. “Why did it have to happen this way?”
The Sire spreads his arms wide. He exhales like he’s been offered a lifetime of free vacations. “You had to be involved in Andrew’s death. This is your punishment, Lana—living with this memory.”
This sick bastard’s right. If Andrew dies here—which he won’t—his blood will be on my hands. I’m the one who asked him to come.
“Takeshi … he agreed to this …” Andrew’s voice quivers. He’s staring at the floor with those drowning eyes. Every ragged breath seems like a challenge for him.
The Sire pauses to drink in Andrew’s quiet despair. Then he waves Randall forward. “Our time with our guest of honor has ended. Kill him.”
“No!” Samira and I are one voice, but it doesn’t matter.
Randall whips out his wand. He conjures a metal cauldron as dark as his cloak. The cauldron lands inches away from Andrew. Randall then conjures the dragon hearts. Both are faded crimson, as if their vibrancy lessened after removal from their hosts’ bodies. Randall moves his wand in a complicated pattern, aiming it at the cauldron. A cloud of red smoke billows out of its edges. He tosses the hearts into the cauldron, which makes the smoke grow thicker.
The air reeks of fresh blood.
“Don’t hurt him!” I try to launch myself at Randall. The Paralysis Charm’s grip is relentless, even though he’s distracted. Each attempted thrash sends a sharp pain into my ribs, my shoulder blades. I’m screaming and crying and hoping my teammates can hear me.
But they don’t come.
Randall holds out his wand to Andrew.
“Do everything you can to get yourselves out of here,” Andrew says, his tearful gaze fixed on Randall’s wand. He might speak firmly, but his expression is as heavy as a soldier who’s lost the battle for his whole regiment. His hopelessness is tenfold now. “This isn’t on you, Lana. Forget what he said. This will never be on you. Just tell my mum that I—”
A golden lightning rod hits Andrew in the chest.
“ANDREW!” I roar till all I know is the incessant stabbing at my sides from trying to reach for him, the weight of his blood on my hands, the ashes of memories we’ll never make.
He’s doubled over, screaming as more lightning pours out of the wand’s tip. Andrew’s whole body shakes. His suit’s magic is no match for Randall’s powers. The golden lightning shifts to red, seeping out of Andrew as if he’s being drained of blood. Randall shapes the lightning into a steady stream of crimson tendrils. He spills them into the smoking cauldron, which hisses upon contact. The bigger the red cloud grows, the fainter Andrew’s screams get. I pray for him to fight this, to keep living, but he’s shrinking into a ghostly pale shell of himself.
The crimson tendrils stop coming.
Randall dumps what’s left into the cauldron. It bubbles and hisses as the cloud thickens.
Andrew lands with a thud on the floor. He’s facing me. Both eyes are pressed shut, with tears running down his sallow cheeks. No matter how hard I beg him to move, he doesn’t.
The heir of Edward Barnes is dead.
I’m a thunderstorm of cracked wails. Andrew should be meeting with reporters right now, talking about my team’s disappearance. He should be boasting about us being too afraid to play his team. He should be nagging the IBF to cancel the Cup. He should still be alive.
A dozen little explosions spark. The red smoke flies out of the cauldron, swirling up to where the Sire floats in midair. Limbs sprout from the back of his coat. His silver scales elongate on either side of him, a much frailer netting piecing them together. He has his wings back. He unfurls them as his face morphs. He keeps getting bigger and bigger until he’s the largest dragon I’ve ever seen. His hands are claws, and a tail grows out from behind him, whipping side to side. He aims his fire propeller at the ceiling.
There’s a diamond-covered dragon where the Sire once was.
He’s burning a crater into the ceiling. As soon as the hole’s big enough for him to fit through, the flames disappear. The Sire flies away, announcing his return as a dragon with a mighty roar.