“I hate the subway,” I muttered.

Candy cast a smugly vicious look in my direction. “I know,” she said.

For the second time in a single day, I started down into the darkness beneath New York City. At least this time, all I’d have to deal with were the people who rode the subway.

Nineteen

“Learning something new about the world in which we live is always a wonderful thing. Unless you’re learning what a wendigo looks like from the inside.”

–Evelyn Baker

The Meatpacking District, which is nicer than it sounds

WE POPPED OUT OF THE SUBWAY in the Meatpacking District, a rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood that used to be devoted almost entirely to, you guessed it, meat. (There are still working slaughterhouses there which is both a real blessing to the city’s cryptid community and something for the tourist bureau to work as industriously as possible on hiding. Somehow, “come to New York for all your goat-slaughtering needs” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.) The lunch crowd was out in force, clogging the sidewalks with tourists and well-dressed business people out to grab a quick bite before diving back into the fast-paced world of whatever kind of job you need to pay for real Manolo Blahnik patent leather heels. I swallowed my drool, resisting the urge to clock a yuppie and make off with her shoes. There wasn’t time to mug passersby for their clothes, no matter how much they were abusing them by grinding the heels against the pavement.

Not that I was one to talk. Candy was impeccable, as always, but my clothing was covered with an exciting mix of sewer slime and three kinds of blood—Neapolitan gore. I could probably pass Piyusha’s blood off as maple syrup, and the blood from the lizard-men as some sort of tar. My own blood couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than what it was, especially since several of my smaller wounds were still leaking. People recoiled as I passed, expressions reflecting everything from confusion to horror. I didn’t stop to reassure them. As long as I kept following Candy, who clearly knew where she was going, it wasn’t likely that anyone would ask if I needed help, and that was good; the last thing I needed at the moment was a Good Samaritan. For one thing, I was too damn tired. The events of the last few days were starting to catch up with me and, no matter what happened with the dragon princesses, I was still going to need to tell Piyusha’s brothers that she was dead.

“All this, and I have to work tonight,” I muttered darkly, dodging around a touristy-looking woman with eighties bangs and a pair of grubby toddlers that seemed to be occupying the majority of her attention.

“What was that?” asked Candy.

“Nothing.”

“Good. We’re here.” She opened the door of a small, spotless bodega crammed between a wine bar and an upscale dog salon. Gesturing for me to follow, she went inside. Lacking any better ideas, I trailed after her.

The aisles in your average New York bodega are narrow enough to inspire claustrophobia in circus acrobats. This bodega seemed to have been designed on the theory that all those other bodegas were wasting valuable shelf space. I wasn’t sure anything even semi-human could have wedged its way into some of those aisles, which rendered the beer and chips effectively unreachable. That would be enough to keep the crowds away, even if they had the best prices in the city—which they clearly didn’t. Every tag in sight showed a markup of at least thirty percent, and sometimes more.

Candy smirked as she caught me eyeing a two dollar pack of gum. “You’d be surprised how many tourists shop here for the ‘authentic experience,’” she said. “Duane Reade would be a lot more ‘authentic,’ since there’s one on every corner, but we’re never going to sneer at profit. Come on.” She wove her way between displays and down one of the wider aisles, moving toward the counter. A drop-dead gorgeous blonde was seated behind it, an expression of profound boredom on her face as she filed her already perfect nails.

The blonde glanced up as we approached, sky-colored eyes narrowing as she took in the disreputable state of my attire. “Is this the Price girl?” she asked, not taking her eyes off me.

“It is,” said Candy. “We need the first aid kit.”

Wordlessly, the other dragon princess—there was nothing else she could be, not with that complexion and that attitude; not unless she was working at Vogue, anyway—put down her file and produced a white box with a familiar red cross on top from behind the counter. She offered it to Candy, who took it and tucked it under her arm.

“Are they ready for us?”

“They are.” The other dragon princess hesitated, glancing to Candy, and asked, “Is it true? What everyone’s saying the Price girl found?”

“The Price girl has a name,” I said.

Candy nodded, ignoring me. “It’s true. I saw the servitors with my own eyes. They were new-made, and they understood me when I spoke to them in the old tongue. It’s really true, Priscilla. It has to be.”

Priscilla pressed a hand against her mouth, eyes growing bright. “Oh,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she added, “Go back. They’re going to have a lot of questions.”

“That’s why I brought her,” said Candy. Gesturing for me to follow again, she ducked around the counter and through the door to the employees-only part of the store. I was starting to feel a bit like a trained poodle, but I followed anyway. I’d come too far to turn back now, and I really wanted to know who “they” were.

The hallway was short, leading to an unlocked rear door. Candy pushed it open, and we exited into a perfect blind canyon that had probably been an alley, once, before construction sealed off the exits. I scanned as we walked across to the opposite wall, noting the places where the brick was uneven enough to let me get a foothold. If necessary, I could go up the wall to reach the fire escape and getting to the rooftops from there would be easy. Knowing that I could get away if I needed to made it easier to keep following.

Candy stopped with her hand on the door into the next building, giving me a hard look. “This used to be a slaughterhouse,” she said. “We bought it back when there was nothing here but slaughterhouses, and it was invisible. Now it’s blocked off by other buildings, and as long as we pay our property taxes, no one remembers that it’s here. We’ve lived here for more than two hundred years.” The underlying message in her voice was clear: Don’t screw this up for us. Bringing me to the Nest meant risking everything. That said a lot about how dedicated they were to finding the dragon. It also said a lot about how important it was for me to keep track of my escape routes. If they changed their mind about the risk I posed … dragon princesses might not have any natural weaponry, but in today’s world, guns level the playing field.