The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

“Tough choice, eh, little Mack?” Risky taunted. “Hold on to the spell and die choking, or break it and die when the tower falls. Either one is good for me.”

And that’s when the third dragon swept by. Its wing tip grazed Risky. She wobbled. She cursed. She made a very angry, frustrated face.

And she fell backward into the air.

The tower was a hundred feet off the ground. Which meant the railing itself was about five hundred feet up in the air, round numbers.

Risky fell, but she glared hatred up at Mack. “The golem will kill everyone you loooooove!” she wailed.

And then, the dragon took aim and breathed a blast that was an inferno.

Risky’s body burned, twisted, shriveled to something made out of charcoal dust, and then blew away on the breeze.

“She’s dead!” Charlie exulted.

“Yeah, but not permanently,” Jarrah said. “She’ll be back.”

The dragon returned and hovered in midair, obviously trying to avoid blowing them onto their backs. “Greetings, eastern cousin,” it said in a strained, unnatural voice that sounded like a garbage truck lifting a Dumpster.

“Greetings, western cousin,” Xiao said.

“This violation of the treaty was not our doing.”

Xiao bowed her head slightly. “You seem to have rectified the situation.”

The dragon … well, you wouldn’t want to say he smiled because it was way too creepy to be a smile. In any case he said, “Rectified. Yes. Our eastern cousins are always good with words.”

“Go in peace,” Xiao said.

“For now,” the dragon rumbled. Then he turned and swept back across the city, knocking down the people who had just gotten up.

“We must set this tower down,” Sylvie said. “Let us place it in the Tuileries.” When she saw blank looks, she said, “Over there, in the large garden beside the river.”

Thus it came to pass that the Eiffel Tower, which had stood on the Left Bank of the Seine for more than a century, was relocated to the Right Bank.39

It’s actually much more convenient.

And no one—not even conspiracy nuts—would be able to deny that something impossible, amazing, and absolutely magical had occurred.

The world would never be the same.

But at this particular moment, all of that meant very little to Mack.

With shaking fingers and his heart in his throat, he called the golem.

* * *

Twenty-eight

* * *

MEANWHILE …

“Hey,” Camaro said. “Don’t be tearing up the school!”

To which the golem replied, “Gaaarrrrggh!”

“Seriously: if anyone is tearing up the school, it’s going to be me,” Camaro insisted.