49. Maggie

49

Maggie

They're coming back!

Maggie shrieked and shrieked until someone paid attention to her. That someone was Mathis, who thought she was hungry. She wasn't hungry! They were coming back! Carol and Moss had been gone for millions of years , and everyone else was cooped up in the house being grumpy and serious, and now they were coming back and no one was listening to her.

She ate the snacks anyway, because food , and then got back to the very, very important job of being loud until someone did what she wanted.

Keeley picked her up to try and calm her down, and Maggie did her best impression of a spinning top until she took her to the window. There! Maggie wanted to shriek. Except, not really there , because they were still too far away to see.

She didn't need to see them. She could feel them, the same way she'd felt the big dragon before he got too far away. But they didn't feel like the big dragon. They felt happy. So happy it made her wriggle with joy.

"Prrp pp pree pree PROOP ," she insisted, tugging on Keeley's hair.

Keeley's eyebrows drew together, and she called Lance over.

"She's seen something."

"What?"

"I don't know—" Lance swore. Yay! He'd seen it too! "Can you feel that?"

Keeley turned her frown on him. "Feel what? Other than the tiny daggers in my scalp."

"My snow leopard's fur is standing on end. Whatever's out there…"

"Let me guess. You've got a bad feeling about it?"

"That part of me does." He stepped closer to the window as Keeley juggled Maggie onto one shoulder to dig in a cabinet. "Pass me those binoculars?"

"After I've had a look." Keeley paused. "Holy shit."

"What?"

"I think I know why your snow leopard has a bad feeling about this."

She handed him the binoculars. Lance swore and called for the others to come over.

Maggie chittered happily. This was going to be so much fun .

They all gathered down on the beach. Maggie was meant to stay inside in case there was another fight, but she squeezed through the gaps in the world until she was down on the sand, too. Mathis shot her a look and sighed.

"Should have guessed keeping you away was a losing battle," he muttered. "Lance—what the hell is that?"

Maggie scampered up his leg and perched on top of his head. He huffed at her, distracted. "That's a ship, right?"

Lance still had the binoculars. "Going backwards. Fast. Like something's pulling it."

Silence fell across the beach. For a moment there was only the sound of waves crashing on the sand and seagulls crying to each other on the wind.

It wasn't just a ship coming towards them at top speed. Waves rippled over a huge creature, so big she could feel the others' minds struggling with believing what they were seeing.

"That's impossible," Mathis muttered. "What is it—some sort of dragon?"

Not a dragon. Definitely not a dragon. Maggie whipped her tail in agitation. When were people going to start listening to her properly? She could tell them who it was.

The waves became higher as the ship and the creature hauling it got closer. It stopped where it was still deep enough that most of it was hidden—and exactly how much of it there was to hide became clear.

"What the fuck ," Chloe stated, then covered her mouth with a guilty look at Maggie. Maggie trilled at her. "Sorry, Mags. But—is that what I think it is?"

"I don't know what the hell you think it is. I know what I think it is." Lance tipped his head to one side, sniffing the air. His eyes narrowed. "He said his form was too big to risk shifting on the coast, but this…"

It's Moss , Maggie tried to tell them. Moss and Carol! "Pree ree ree! Pree ree ree!"

"There he is. Our little cousin. Not so little now."

Maggie's head whipped around. The eely ladies were standing back from the crowd, staring out to sea with pride in their eyes. She bristled with jealousy. Imagine having someone look at you like that!

"Is it still him, though?" Lance asked grimly. "The three of you keep saying the kraken's this murderous monstrosity. So which is it we're looking at? Who's in control? The man, or—"

"Pree!"

"Maggie—" Lance tsked with frustration as she leapt onto his head, which, fine, he really didn't have enough hair for her to hold on to, and she had to dig in with her claws a tiiiiiny bit. He bundled her into his arms, and she blew a raspberry at him. "Maggie, it's time for you to go away with Keeley. We don't know if what's coming is Moss or—"

"Pree! Eee !" she insisted.

"—or—you trying to tell me something, Maggie?" Lance frowned down at her, his snow leopard peeping out from behind his eyes. Ooh. It had been DAYS since she tried to catch the snow leopard's tail! When was he going to shift again and let her play?

Why did all the others spend so much time in their boring human shapes?

"Maggie?"

Huh?

"We'd better go now," Keeley was saying. She glanced up at Lance with an expression that made Maggie furious and happy at the same time. "I hate this, you know? Running away and leaving you to take all the risks."

Lance's mouth twisted. "Taking off with a baby dragon is its own risk."

"Tell me something I don't know." She touched his face briefly, then turned to Maggie. "Okay, you sweet little terror. Time to pack out."

What? No! Maggie hissed—unhappily, this time. Keeley's eyes softened. "I know you liked hanging out with Moss, but we don't know if—"

"Sssss!"

Keeley's eyes narrowed. She looked almost as cunning as a dragon. " We don't know. But do you know?"

" Ssss !" Ugh! Why wasn't Pointy Teeth Lady here? She would understand!

Ugh.

Ughhhh.

Maggie waited patiently until Keeley and Lance and everyone else looked at her, and then—okay, she was going to do this, she was going to stoop to communicating in their language —nodded her head.

Mathis blinked. "Did she just—"

"Guess that answers that question." Lance's eyes creased. "You pointed us towards your uncle, so we already know you can sense things further away than we can. You're sure it's Moss out there?"

What sort of a question was that? Of course it was Moss.

"Hah!" one of the eely ladies cried out. "Took him long enough to say hi."

"Maybe he was distracted?" her sister suggested quietly.

Maggie sputtered. Because Carol was with him! Obviously! How could they not see that?

"He's… fine," the eely lady continued. "He's still him. He found Carol, and she's with him, too."

Everyone relaxed, finally. Maggie stretched up high so she could get the best view.

Out in the water, Moss extended one giant tentacle and wrapped it carefully once, twice, around the ship. Timber and metal creaked as he half-lifted it from the waves. Water poured down its sides. Distant shouts reached the beach.

The kraken coiled one last tentacle around the ship—and deposited it on the rocks.

Maggie sighed happily. She was so glad she'd claimed him for her hoard while he was still human-shaped. There was no way he would fit in her treasure chest like this.