Maya’s apartment was already thick with the smell of sesame oil and chili when Isla and Tim arrived that evening.
“You’re late,” Maya announced, opening the door with a flourish. “I was five minutes away from making a pact with my houseplants to replace you.”
“You say that like you didn’t already,” Isla said, stepping past her.
Tim sniffed appreciatively.
“God, that smells good,” he said.
“Of course it does,” Maya said. “I ordered from the good place. This is an emergency.”
“This is not an emergency,” Isla protested.
Maya gave her The Look.
“Your job title is now ‘dragon liaison,’” she said. “Your thumb glows. You spent the weekend bleeding on rocks. This is *peak* emergency.”
Tim winced.
“Can we not say ‘bleeding on rocks’ before dinner?” he asked.
Maya shrugged.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll talk about bleeding on rocks *during* dinner.”
They ate on the couch, chopsticks clicking, Netflix playing something forgettable in the background.
For twenty blessed minutes, conversation stayed on the safe side of weird.
Gossip about mutual friends.
Complaints about rent.
Tim’s story about a teenager who’d tried to steal a Roman coin from the ancient coins exhibit by palming it… while standing directly under a camera.
“Did he at least pick a high-value one?” Maya asked.
“Nope,” Tim said. “He went for the ugliest. I think he thought no one would miss it. Joke’s on him; it was the one we use to calibrate the color balance.”
Maya snorted.
“Amateur,” she said.
Isla laughed.
It felt… good.
Like unclenching a muscle she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
After the second round of dumplings, Maya set her chopsticks down with a decisive click.
“Okay,” she said. “Fun time’s over. Fire drill.”
Tim groaned.
“Do we have to?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Because I am tired of being the only one who says the worst thing out loud. We need a plan. A bad one. For worst-case scenarios.”
“Define ‘worst,’” Isla said.
“Crack-thing gets cranky,” Maya said, counting on her fingers. “Leona decides to play Pokémon with dragons. Board finds out you have magical plumbing. Cael loses his shit. Any combination thereof.”
Isla’s dumplings sat uneasily in her stomach.
“We’re… working on it,” she said weakly.
“Working group isn’t a fire plan,” Maya said. “It’s a committee. Committees are where good ideas go to die. We need… contingencies.”
Tim sighed.
“She’s not wrong,” he said. “Emergency procedures exist for a reason. We have them for fires, floods, active shooters. We should have something for… crack breaches.”
“You want me to start a Google Doc called ‘Crack Breach Plan’?” Isla asked.
“Yes,” Maya said. “Color-coded.”
“Color-coded by what?” Isla demanded. “Severity of apocalypse?”
“Sure,” Maya said. “Green for ‘just a little haunting,’ yellow for ‘minor structural instability,’ red for ‘reality ruptured, please evacuate through nearest portal.’”
Tim pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Okay, jokes aside,” he said. “She’s right. We need at least rough answers to some questions. Like: if the crack-thing does make a serious play for the museum, what’s our first move?”
“Evacuate,” Isla said immediately. “People first.”
“Obviously,” Tim said. “But beyond that. We can’t exactly call 911 and say ‘send a wizard.’ Leona’s the closest thing we have to official backup. Do we loop her in? Or try to handle it with Cael and hope she doesn’t notice?”
“Depends on what ‘serious play’ looks like,” Isla said. “If it’s just… more humming and a few light fixtures popping, we keep it in the family. If it’s… walls cracking, relics levitating, Sister Agnès speaking in tongues… we call everyone.”
Maya nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Triage. Next: what if Leona goes rogue? Like, decides the best way to contain this is to trap Cael in a circle and use him as a battery.”
Isla’s heart lurched.
“She’s not—” she began.
“She’s not planning that now,” Maya interrupted. “But if things escalate, she might. Or someone above her might tell her to. We need a line. A thing that, if she crosses it, we stop considering her an ally.”
Tim took a breath.
“If she tries to bind Cael against his will,” he said. “If she starts talking about ‘extracting’ magic instead of redirecting it. If she suggests… sacrificing people. Or places.”
“Like La Boca Del Mundo,” Isla murmured.
He nodded.
“Exactly,” he said. “We already made a choice there. Deliberate. Limited. If she tries to turn that into a template for dropping cracks on ice caps or war zones…”
“War zones might actually need—” Dr. Malik’s voice said faintly in her memory.
She shoved it aside.
“She’s not the only one with a line,” she said. “If Cael breaks his vow? If he kills someone in anger? If he decides my ‘hoard’ is more important than everyone else’s?”
Maya’s gaze sharpened.
“That’s your red line,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Isla said. “If he becomes what the stories say dragons are, not what he’s been trying to be… I can’t… stand with him.”
Saying it hurt.
Like pulling a tooth.
But not saying it felt worse.
Tim nodded slowly.
“Same,” he said. “I like the guy. Against my better judgment. But if he starts seeing people as acceptable collateral…”
Maya sighed.
“Then we’re having a very awkward dragon-slaying conversation,” she said.
Isla flinched.
“He’s not—” she started.
“I know,” Maya said. “I *know.* I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m saying we name it so we know where we stand. Fire drills, remember?”
Isla swallowed.
“I don’t want to live in a world where I have to choose between him and… everyone,” she whispered.
Maya’s expression softened.
“Then we do everything we can to keep it from getting that far,” she said. “We hold him to his promises. We hold ourselves to ours. We don’t let the cracks decide for us.”
Isla thought of the terms she and Cael had begun to write.
*I will not harm your people unless there is no other path.*
*I will not offer you to anyone.*
The ink wasn’t dry.
But it was there.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “No more pretending this is… just happening to us. We make choices. Now. Before it’s all heat-of-the-moment and blood magic.”
Tim nodded.
“I’ll start a document,” he said. “Call it… ‘Anomaly Response Protocol.’ Keep it out of official channels. Share it only with people we trust.”
“Which is a very short list,” Maya said.
“Short is better,” he said. “Less room for leaks.”
“Speaking of leaks,” Maya said, “what about your parents, Reyes?”
Isla stiffened.
“What about them?” she asked.
“At what point do you tell them,” Maya said. “That their daughter is knee-deep in old evils. That the dragon Abuela used to threaten you with is real and living under your job.”
Isla’s throat tightened.
“I don’t…” She stared at her hands. “I don’t know.”
Maya touched her knee.
“You don’t have to decide now,” she said. “But it’s coming. One way or another. Better if they hear it from you before a relic explodes during Mass.”
“Comforting,” Isla muttered.
Tim looked pained.
“You want backup for that?” he asked. “If you decide to tell them.”
She managed a shaky smile.
“You volunteering to explain dragons to my Catholic mother?” she asked.
“I’ve done worse community outreach,” he said dryly.
Maya snorted.
“If you survive that, I’ll start calling you Saint Tim,” she said.
“Please don’t,” he said.
They ate in silence for a bit after that, each chewing on their own thoughts.
The Netflix show babbled in the background, oblivious.
On the screen, some sitcom couple argued about laundry.
Isla watched them wordlessly.
“Do you ever wish,” she said suddenly, “that this was our biggest fight? Who left socks on the floor?”
Tim glanced at the TV.
“Might be nice,” he said.
Maya made a face.
“Boring,” she said. “You two would be divorced in a year.”
Isla laughed.
The sound fell out of her easier now.
“Probably,” she said.
Maya pointed her chopsticks at her.
“You’re not built for small stakes, Reyes,” she said. “Neither is Dragon Drama. Neither is Tim. You’d get restless. You’d go looking for cracks.”
Isla sighed.
“You’re not wrong,” she said.
Tim raised his plastic cup.
“To terrible life choices,” he said.
They clinked.
“To owning them,” Maya corrected.
“To writing our own terms,” Isla added.
They drank.
Outside, the city hummed.
Underneath, two tethers thrummed.
In the coal room, a dragon shifted, listening.
He felt the flare of their improvised toast.
Their vows.
Their fear.
Their stubbornness.
Their strange, fragile, incandescent hope.
He rumbled softly to himself.
“Mine,” he murmured.
Not as possession.
As promise.
***
End of Chapter 23.
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