‘‘Do not interfere in matters concerning my mate,’’ Gabriel growled, his normally lovely voice pitched low with warning as he struggled with the two green dragons.
‘‘I would not dream of doing anything of the kind, but this attack was not prompted by May. Kostya, if you do not behave in a civilized manner, I will allow Aisling to perform as many wards upon you as she can think of, and she has become quite inventive the last few months.’’
Kostya spat out what I assumed were some nasty oaths, but ceased fighting his brother’s hold. I shook the stars from my eyes and ran down the steps to Gabriel, wrapping my arms around him both for comfort and to keep him from attacking Kostya.
‘‘If I said this was getting old, would anyone pay attention to me?’’ Aisling asked as most of the occupants in the room—the dragon occupants—stood seething and glaring at one another.
‘‘No,’’ Gabriel answered at the same time Drake did.
‘‘Well,’’ she said with an injured sniff, ‘‘it is. I’m certainly getting tired of the dragon brand of testosterone, and I imagine May and Cyrene are as well.’’
Gabriel’s muscles relaxed slightly, enough that he slid his arms around me. ‘‘Your brother-in-law seems to make a habit of assaulting my mate, Aisling. I will not tolerate that.’’
‘‘You began this when you stole my phylactery!’’ Kostya yelled, shoving his brother aside. ‘‘The black dragons will regain that—’’
‘‘Oh, no,’’ Jim moaned, shaking its head. ‘‘He’s gone off on his Braveheart speech again.’’
‘‘—which we once held but was taken from us.’’ Both green dragons instantly leaped in front of him as Gabriel tried to move me out of the way.
‘‘Aisling’s right,’’ I said, digging in my heels to keep him standing still. ‘‘This is getting old.’’
‘‘We will face death to restore to the sept the pride, the glory, the true essence, of what it once was!’’ Kostya yelled.
I gave him a look so sharp it should have drilled a hole in his head. ‘‘Are you through now? Good. I think we need to have a talk, Gabriel.
All
of us. Without anyone assaulting anyone.’’
‘‘Amen,’’ Aisling said. ‘‘Jim, escort Kostya to the living room. If he makes any sort of move toward Gabriel or May, take him down.’’
‘‘You got that, bad boy?’’ Jim said, nudging the back of Kostya’s leg. ‘‘I’m going straight for the noogies, too. Just so you know.’’
The look Kostya shot the demon was almost comical in its indignation, but I didn’t feel much like laughing. It took a few minutes more of cajoling, reasoning, and outright threats from Aisling before the entire party was settled in a pleasant living room.
‘‘May is absolutely right. We need to have a talk, but since Drake has been nagging me to learn to delegate—’’
‘‘I do not nag,’’ Drake interrupted, a thin trickle of smoke emerging from his nostril as he shot his wife a quelling look. ‘‘I am a dragon. We do not nag. We suggest.’’
‘‘As Drake has been suggesting quite heavily, in a repeated fashion that would be nagging in anyone else, that I share tasks with others, I am more than happy for May to take the lead here.’’
‘‘Me?’’ I asked, startled into sitting up straight. I’d been snuggled up against Gabriel, the two of us and Cyrene sharing a couch across from Aisling, who was curled up next to Drake. The two bodyguards leaned against the wall behind them, their faces wary as they alternated between watching Gabriel and Kostya.
The black dragon paced back and forth in front of the windows, reminding me of a caged panther I’d seen in a tired traveling circus many decades before.
‘‘Why me?’’ I asked.
‘‘Well . . . it really is your show. Gabriel’s and yours, that is, but since Gabriel looks like he could happily murder Kostya, you’re clearly the one to take the lead. Don’t worry, we’ll ride shotgun.’’
‘‘Yeah. Shotgun,’’ Jim said, narrowing its eyes at Kostya.
‘‘All right,’’ I said after a moment’s thought. ‘‘I think the first question that needs to be answered is, where are Maata and Tipene?’’
Kostya made a show of sighing. ‘‘I told you I do not know where they are. I have not taken them.’’
‘‘We only have your word that you didn’t,’’ I pointed out.
‘‘You have no proof otherwise,’’ he snapped back.
I thought about that a moment, then admitted, ‘‘He has a point.’’
‘‘He lies,’’ Gabriel said.
‘‘Unless we find some proof to the contrary, I don’t see that standing here arguing about it is going to get us any closer to finding your guards,’’ I said.
‘‘He must have taken them. No one else would,’’ Gabriel insisted.
‘‘I did nothing!’’ Kostya bellowed.
‘‘I think we will come back to that point,’’ I said after the echoes died down. ‘‘The next question is whether the man named Porter is in your employ.’’ I had a hard time figuring out why Kostya would hire me to steal something he already held, but I figured we needed to exclude as many possibilities as we could.
‘‘Who?’’ Kostya asked.
I looked at Gabriel. ‘‘Truth or lie, do you think?’’
Kostya made a wordless noise of displeasure that I would call his statement into question.
‘‘Truth, I’m afraid,’’ Gabriel said with reluctance.
‘‘I second that,’’ Aisling said. ‘‘I’m pretty good at telling when people are lying, and Kostya isn’t. Not that he usually does,’’ she added quickly at a sharp look from her brother-in-law.
‘‘I agree with the consensus,’’ I said. ‘‘The next question concerns the phylactery.’’
‘‘Why you deny taking it when I caught you in my lair, you mean?’’ Kostya growled.
‘‘No, that’s not the question,’’ I answered.
‘‘Why Kostya insists you took it when he still has it?’’ Aisling asked.
I shook my head. ‘‘No, although that’s part of it.’’
Kostya snorted and continued pacing.
‘‘Where the phylactery is right now?’’ Drake asked slowly.
‘‘That’s not an issue right now, either,’’ I said, sliding a glance to Gabriel.
He watched Kostya pace with half-closed eyes, deceptive in their appearance. Beside me, his body was tight with tension, as if he was going to spring at any moment. I put my hand on his leg and squeezed it gently to remind him of his party manners.
‘‘Is the question why Kostya couldn’t tell the difference between May and me when I clearly wear my hair differently?’’ Cyrene asked with a righteous jerk of her blanket.
Everyone pretty much ignored that.
‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘The answer I want is why Kostya kept the phylactery in an unlocked chest.’’
That stopped him dead in his tracks. He spun around to look at me, surprise clearly evident in his dark eyes. ‘‘What? What unlocked chest?’’
‘‘There were three chests in your lair.’’
It was his turn for a little bit of smoke to escape him. I leaned into Gabriel and asked softly, ‘‘Can you do that too?’’
His eyes never left Kostya, but his lips parted slightly. A tiny curl of smoke emerged. For some reason, it delighted me, but that delight was short-lived.
‘‘You admit you were in there!’’ Kostya said, storming toward me. ‘‘You admit you stole my phylactery!’’
Instantly Gabriel was on his feet in front of me, István and Pál moving in. I stopped Gabriel as Kostya backed off, snarling.
‘‘Yes, I did take it,’’ I said with a little glance at Gabriel. ‘‘But I didn’t know what it was at the time.’’
‘‘I think perhaps you’d better explain again what happened while you were in the lair,’’ Drake said slowly.
‘‘It’s nothing beyond what I told you before. But those alarms were disabled, and someone had to do it. I can’t see Porter doing that without just taking the phylactery for himself.’’
Kostya shot me a fierce look. ‘‘That’s ridiculous! That alarm is always set! You lie.’’
‘‘Mayling never lies! Well, almost never,’’ Cyrene said with a cutting look.
‘‘Thanks for the support,’’ I murmured, my lips twitching wryly before I continued. ‘‘I found it hard to believe that you’d leave the window unprotected that way. But when I looked at the alarm, it had been disabled.’’
‘‘You disabled it!’’ Kostya accused.
I shook my head. ‘‘I didn’t. I couldn’t—it’s inside the window.’’
That stopped him for a moment.
‘‘But there’s more than the window alarm that doesn’t make sense. Why did you leave the phylactery in an unlocked chest?’’
‘‘I don’t
have
an unlocked chest. You broke the wards binding it, and unlocked it three nights ago, when you stole the phylactery.’’
‘‘Three nights ago I was in Greece,’’ I said thoughtfully.
‘‘You stole the phylactery then!’’ he insisted. ‘‘Then you returned to steal more of my treasures. I found the chest you’d broken into days earlier nearly empty after you leaped out of the window,’’ he snapped, making short, jerky little motions with his hands as he paced back and forth in front of the window. ‘‘You stole many things from me that night, but it’s the phylactery that matters the most. I want it returned!’’
‘‘If May is speaking the truth—and I do not doubt for a moment she is—then I begin to see the point of her question,’’ Drake said. ‘‘Kostya claims the phylactery was stolen three days ago. You are certain of that, brother?’’
Kostya snapped a ‘‘yes’’ at Drake.
Aisling breathed a little ‘‘ahhh’’ of enlightenment. ‘‘So, if the phylactery was stolen when we were all in Greece, then someone else must have taken it.’’
‘‘And if May didn’t disengage the alarm and unlock the chest, and likewise Kostya didn’t . . .’’ Cyrene said, frowning in puzzlement.
‘‘Then who did?’’ I asked, looking around the room. ‘‘And is the person who burgled Kostya the night I paid his lair a visit the same one who took the phylactery? Was it Porter? If it was him, why did he blackmail me? How did the phylactery get back into an unlocked chest? Why was it returned? And most importantly, is the person who did all that also responsible for the disappearance of Gabriel’s guards?’’
‘‘I don’t believe these lies,’’ Kostya said, shooting me an evil look. ‘‘She is the thief Mei Ling. She admits to taking my phylactery. She has concocted this smoke-screen to hide her actions.’’
‘‘If May had given me the phylactery, do you think I’d be sitting here now tolerating your abuse of her?’’ Gabriel asked, his muscles tensing up again.
Kostya was about to answer, but stopped, clearly baffled.
‘‘Despite my better judgment, I am willing to concede that I was wrong about Kostya,’’ Gabriel continued. ‘‘At least so far as him having the phylactery was concerned, although I reserve judgment about Maata and Tipene. It would seem that there is another player to this drama, one who has not yet unveiled himself. Someone who first removed the phylactery from Kostya’s lair, then returned it for some unknown reason. Someone who has employed the thief taker Porter, although whether he ordered Porter to retrieve the phylactery is not known. It could be Porter was acting on his own. Whoever is behind it, he had no difficulty in disabling either Kostya’s alarms or the protections he bound into the chest containing the phylactery. In other words, someone who appears to be manipulating us all without our knowing it.’’
‘‘Who?’’ Cyrene asked.
The dragons all exchanged glances.
‘‘No,’’ Drake said, shaking his head. ‘‘What you suggest is impossible.’’
‘‘Who?’’ Aisling asked, pinching the back of Drake’s hand. He covered her hand with his, still shaking his head at Gabriel.
‘‘It is not impossible. You found signs in Fiat’s house,’’ Gabriel said.
‘‘Signs of whom?’’ I asked Gabriel.
‘‘He’s dead,’’ Drake said, still shaking his head. ‘‘We all know he’s dead . . . Kostya most of all.’’
Kostya looked frozen, his face a mask. The two bodyguards had a similar frozen look. Who was it who could make two wyverns and a couple of dragons react in such a manner?
‘‘Who?’’ Cyrene and I said at the same time.
The dragons were silent.
‘‘I’ll say it if no one else will,’’ Jim announced, standing up and shaking itself. ‘‘The person in question is a wyvern, reportedly killed a couple hundred years ago by his right-hand man and heir to the wyvern throne, and is, in fact, the same wyvern who stole a silver dragon’s mate and made her his own. He is also the one responsible for the deaths of thousands of dragons, and not incidentally the one who cursed the silver sept. Yes, it’s the big kahuna, the whole enchilada, the dread wyvern himself—Baltic.’’
Chapter Nineteen
‘‘Baltic is dead. Kostya cleaved him in two long ago.’’ Drake’s voice, pleasant enough although not even close to being as delicious as Gabriel’s, seemed to hang in the thick silence that followed Jim’s statement.
‘‘That would seem to me to be pretty final,’’ I agreed. ‘‘I haven’t known anyone who could survive it.’’
‘‘That doesn’t explain the fact that someone is manipulating events to his wishes,’’ Gabriel said.
‘‘I don’t claim it does, but it doesn’t necessarily imply that the person behind the recent movements of the phylactery is Baltic,’’ Drake answered.
‘‘There is someone out there leading a group of dragons with no known sept or affiliation. You know that yourself, since you and Kostya were held prisoner by them,’’ Gabriel said.
I looked with wonder at Drake and Kostya. ‘‘Someone held you both prisoner?’’
Drake made an impatient gesture. ‘‘That was an isolated incident.’’
‘‘They were up a mountain without a paddle,’’ Jim said with blithe disregard. ‘‘Aisling had to save their butts.’’
‘‘It’s my job,’’ Aisling said with a humble smile. ‘‘I’m a professional.’’
‘‘You do it well,’’ Cyrene said. ‘‘I wonder if I could have your autograph later?’’
Aisling looked pleased.
‘‘So who are these dragons, then?’’ I asked the room at large.
Silence weighed heavy before Gabriel spoke. ‘‘No one knows. I thought they were ouroboros—outcasts, septless dragons who banded together for strength— but now I am not so sure. The way they took over Kostya’s aerie, the manner in which they dealt with Drake, and now this matter of the phylactery . . . it would take more than a small group of lawless dragons to coordinate those activities. There must be someone guiding the group, Drake, someone with a wyvern’s experience at leadership. It has to be Baltic—it can be no one else.’’