“It’s fine,” said Mike.

I felt a flash of resentment. I should be grateful that he was helping with my plan, but this was my city, and I didn’t need him taking over. I forced the resentment down just as quickly as it came. Pride is for people who can afford it.

“Good,” said Kitty. “Candy? You’re the Nest-mother. Is five thousand a month acceptable?”

Candy glowered. “She can’t stay forever,” she said.

“Six-month lease with an option to renew if the Covenant is still in town at the end of that period,” said Kitty.

If the Covenant was still in town in six months, there wouldn’t be a Nest for me to rent. That kind of stay would mean that the purge was well and truly in progress. The dragons might survive, if they went underground fast enough, sealed all the doors and got lucky in every possible way—because they couldn’t run, could they? Out of all the dragons in the world, the dragons of Manhattan were the ones with something they had to defend.

“No,” said Candy coldly. “No, she can’t have our Nest. Six months is too long. Six hours is too long.”

Something inside of me snapped. Without a safe place to go, I was as good as done—and while I’m not quite arrogant enough to think that Manhattan was doomed without me, the cryptid population was going to be in a lot more trouble if they had to wait for the next wave of defense to arrive. Assuming the family even sent another team. Assuming they didn’t just call one ally and one daughter a big enough price to pay, pull Sarah out, and wash their hands of the matter.

We’re not heroes. We’re not gods, no matter what the mice may think. We’re just people trying to do a job, and that sometimes means admitting that the job is too big to finish. I’d be added to the family history as one more soul we couldn’t save, and the rest of them would go on trying to survive. That’s what we do. That’s what we’ve been doing since Alexander and Enid Healy walked away from the Covenant of St. George.

Sometimes I get awfully tired of just surviving.

“How far along are you, Candy?” I asked quietly. She flinched. “I’m guessing you’re about eight weeks. Nearing the end of your first trimester. Do dragons have trimesters?”

“We carry the eggs for six months, and then we incubate them for six more,” she said, voice just above a whisper.

“Do you want the Covenant to find your eggs? I bet they’d be fascinated. They haven’t had dragon eggs to play with in so long. Oh, and there’s your sisters to think about. I mean, back in the day, there was no way to really tie you guys biologically to the males of your species. That level of sexual dimorphism is really unusual outside of deep sea fish. But science doesn’t play favorites. The Covenant has science, too. They’ll crack a couple of those eggs open, find some scaly little boys and pink-skinned little girls, and then they’ll figure it out. You’ve survived because they haven’t been hunting you. They haven’t considered you worth hunting. How do you think the league of dragon hunters will take it when they find out that they’ve been ignoring their mission statement all these years? I think it’ll be like Christmas for their twisted little hearts.”

Candy glanced frantically at Kitty, who shook her head.

“You want me to tell her to stop being mean, I can tell,” she said. “I’m not going to do that, because she’s not being mean. Mean would be threatening to call the Covenant on you if you didn’t do what she wants. She’s just pointing out that being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn doesn’t get you anything but killed.”

“Why are you on her side?” demanded Candy.

“Because, Candice, I’d like to live,” said Kitty. She planted her hands on her hips and glared. Her Sesame Street pajamas undermined her intimidation factor a bit, but her gray skin and subtly inhuman bone structure balanced it. “I know you don’t like the Prices, although I sort of thought we were getting past that, with the whole ‘here, have your scaly Prince Charming’ stunt they pulled last year. I don’t care. You’re going to let Verity use your Nest as long as she needs it, as long as the Covenant is here in town. I’m going to pay you five thousand dollars for every month that she’s there. And you’re not going to say one more bad word about it. You’re just going to go back to your sisters and your husband and let them know that the Prices are moving in.”

Candy stared at her. Then she stiffened, and said coldly, “I never thought you’d side with humans over your own kind, Kitty.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, Kitty burst out laughing. “Seriously, Candy? Seriously? You’re going to pull the cryptid solidarity card on me? Honey, you’re not even a mammal. Verity is a closer relative of mine than you are, and frankly, I will side with whoever keeps me, and the rest of the city’s bogey community, breathing. Understand me?”

“Yes,” said Candy coldly. She turned to me. “I’ll go get you the keys. It may take a while. I hope you don’t shoot me for making you wait.” Then she turned and stomped off down the hall, not looking back.

I sighed. “That could have gone better.”

“I’ve done a lot of negotiating with dragons,” said Kitty. “Trust me, no, it couldn’t have. Besides, now you’ve got a place to go. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Can you send Ryan over with the keys when Candy finally comes back? I need to go pack.”

“Sure,” said Kitty. “And Verity—trust me. It’s going to be okay.”

I laughed a little. “At least one of us thinks so.”

Ten

“Bang bang. You’re dead.”

—Frances Brown

The Meatpacking District, which is nicer than it sounds, inside a converted warehouse (which is a more pleasant way of saying “slaughterhouse”)

THE HIDEBEHIND GLAMOUR that had once hidden the true contents of the converted slaughterhouse that held the dragons’ Nest was gone. We had been able to see the true structure of the building from the minute we walked through the front door. (This had been more difficult than I expected it to be, since the dragons’ overpriced bodega was also gone, and that was the only easy ground floor entrance to the slaughterhouse courtyard. Luckily, Mike and I had both been picking locks since before we could tie our shoes, but it would have been nice to have a little warning.)