Only one of those risks stood a chance of leading me to the dragon. If I didn’t find the dragon before Dominic did, an entire species might go extinct. Mustering the most sincere “I’m here to help” expression I could, I asked, “Can you show me where you found the blood?”

Sunil and Rochak led me out the back door of the café and down the street to a tiny hole-in-the-wall bodega. There was a faded sign propped in the window, advertising a two-for-one sale on canned tomatoes, and a milk crate of sad-looking apples was doing double duty as a doorstop. “Here,” said Sunil, indicating a reddish smear on the wall next to the bodega’s window. It looked more like thickened sap than blood. I leaned closer, and the overpowering sweetness of it hit me. It was like pine resin mixed with molasses, with only the slightest hint of copper to confirm the mammalian origins of the one who’d lost it.

“We knew it was dangerous to let her go out alone, but she said she felt perfectly safe; she said nothing would touch her with a Price this close.” The accusation in Rochak’s eyes was impossible to bear. I focused my attention on the bloodstain instead, trying to pretend I knew anything about blood splatter analysis that hadn’t been learned from watching reruns of Dexter. “I suppose she was incorrect.”

“Guess so,” I mumbled. Glancing to Sunil, I asked, “Did she make it into the bodega?”

He nodded. “The clerk said that she had been in and out right around ten. That she was in good spirits.”

Neither one of us was going to mention the fact that the clerk might have been the last one to speak to Piyusha before she was grabbed, hauled underground, and sacrificed to a giant sleeping lizard that really couldn’t have cared less. “So we have a window on when she went missing. That’s something at least.” I straightened, moving back until I could no longer smell the cloyingly sugary scent of Piyusha’s blood. “Thank you for showing me this. I’ll look for her, and if I find anything—”

“You won’t,” said Rochak, quietly.

“Maybe not, but you’ll still be the first to know.” I shrugged. “It’s all I can offer. Stay together. If you have any other sisters, don’t let them go to the store by themselves.”

“You’ll really look for her?” asked Sunil.

I nodded. “I really will.”

“How do we know that we can trust you?” asked Rochak.

“You don’t. But right now, I think I’m about the best chance your sister’s got.” All three of us looked at the smear on the wall. None of us said anything after that. No one really needed to.

Things that I am: impulsive, foolhardy, occasionally too convinced of my own invulnerability. Things that I am not: completely stupid. After I bid Piyusha’s brothers good-bye, I scaled the nearest fire escape, got myself back up to rooftop level, and pulled out my cell phone. Leaning against the side of an ornately-carved gargoyle (after first checking to make sure it wasn’t a real gargoyle taking a nap), I called home. The answering machine picked up: fifteen seconds of silence followed by an ear-shattering “beep.” Another safety precaution.

“Hey, guys, it’s me. Pick up.” I waited a few seconds. No one picked up. “Come on, if you’re there, pick up.” No one picked up. I sighed deeply. “You’d better not all be dead right now. I’ll try your cells. If you don’t hear from me again, send reinforcements. With tanks, if at all possible.” I hung up.

Calling Mom, Dad, and Antimony’s phones got the same result: a quick ring to a blank voicemail prompt. I left basically the same message with all three of them, and considered calling Uncle Ted. They’d been going on a basilisk hunt…

And those can take days, I reminded myself firmly, and someone would have called me if things had gone wrong. Maybe just Aunt Jane, but still. Someone. I sighed, pushing my concern as far into the back of my mind as I could, and dialed the person I’d been trying to avoid calling. My brother.

Unlike the rest of the family, Alex has always stayed in the habit of answering his phone. That’s because he’s the only one—apart from me—at least pretending to have a life outside the family business, and since his job comes with nine-to-five hours and an actual paycheck, when the phone rings, he’s there to answer it. True to form, the phone only had time to ring three times before it was picked up on the other end. I smothered a small sigh of relief.

“Alexander Preston’s phone, Alexander Preston speaking.” My brother, as always, sounded distracted. He probably had a book in one hand, some kind of lizard in the other, and the phone on speaker.

“Hi, Alex,” I said. “It’s your best-beloved baby sister. You got a moment to chat?”

“Verity?” His tone turned wary. I could practically feel the full force of his attention being turned in my direction. “Where are you?”

“Still in Manhattan. Dad keeping you posted on the local news, or do I need to bring you up to speed before I start asking for your help?”

“You mean the part where you’re claiming you may have an actual dragon on your hands? Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“Oh, see, you haven’t heard the best part. My dragon’s been upgraded from ‘may have’ to ‘absolutely have.’ It’s here. It’s sleeping, which is the good part, but, well. There are a few bad parts.”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“If I have to take a guess? Because Mom wasn’t in the practice of bouncing you off the pavement when you were a baby. Bad part number one, I think we’ve got a snake cult. Or, well, whatever you call it when you have a bunch of idiots worshiping a reptile that isn’t actually a snake. Dragons have legs, right?”

“Yes, dragons have legs,” said Alex, slowly. “They’re like very large lizards. What makes you think you have a snake cult?”

“Didn’t Dad tell you about the virgin sacrifices?”

There was a long pause before Alex spoke again—long enough for him to count silently to ten. I know that pause very well. He’s been incorporating that pause into basically every conversation we’ve had since I turned twelve. “No, he didn’t tell me about the virgin sacrifices. Verity, why are you calling?”

“Because I’m about to do something really stupid.” Silence greeted my proclamation. I sighed. “The snake cult—dragon cult—whatever—it’s been snagging cryptids all over the city. Maybe humans too, for all I know. They’ve taken a Madhura I know, a girl named Piyusha. I have to at least try to get her back.”