My phone rang before I could ponder much. ‘‘Oh, sorry,’’ I said as the pilot, a dragon who had been in conversation with Drake, frowned over at me. ‘‘I’ll turn it off. I just . . . Oh, thank the gods.’’ I was about to turn off my phone, but the caller ID number blinking at me was a familiar one. ‘‘Cy? Where are you?’’
‘‘Oh, Mayling, good, you haven’t left yet . . .’’ A loud roar from what sounded like a truck drowned out the rest of her sentence. ‘‘. . . kidnapped me, which was just about the most . . . me of all people!’’
‘‘What? Cy, I can’t hear you. Where are you? And what’s that about a kidnapping?’’
I held the phone a few inches away from my head as a loud truck horn threatened to deafen me. The pilot and Drake both glared at me.
‘‘I’m sorry, May, but you will have to turn off your mobile phone,’’ the latter said.
‘‘What’s wrong?’’ Gabriel asked at the same time, cleverly picking up on the fact that all was not well.
‘‘I don’t quite know. It’s Cy, and she’s evidently standing in the middle of some horrible traffic trying to tell me something . . . What’s that?’’
‘‘. . . the blackmailer! Can you hear me now? He’s . . .’’ More sounds of engines cut off what she was saying. ‘‘. . . horrible man! I tried to fight him off, but . . . please, I’m begging you . . .’’
‘‘Where are you?’’ I yelled into the phone, hoping she could hear me.
‘‘Is it Kostya? Has he attacked her again?’’ Gabriel asked, half rising out of his seat.
My hope was in vain. I could hear Cy attempting to speak over the noise, but couldn’t make out the words. Suddenly, the connection went dead and all was silence.
Everyone in the plane was looking at me. I ignored them to turn to the one person to whom I knew I wouldn’t have to explain. ‘‘No, it’s not Kostya. Cyrene needs my help with something else, a personal matter.’’
His silver eyes searched mine. I was torn between the need to help Cy and the urgency presented by the situation with the phylactery, but with Cyrene’s plea for help still echoing in my head, there was only one thing I could do.
‘‘I’m very sorry, Gabriel, but I can’t go to Paris.’’ I grabbed the small backpack I used as a purse and rose.
Gabriel’s face was a study in emotion as frustration, anger, and irritation all took a turn, but as he nodded and stood, concern was all that was left. ‘‘I understand. Your twin must come first.’’
‘‘You go to Paris. I’ll use a portaling company to get there as soon as I find Cyrene.’’
Regret filled his lovely eyes for a moment before it was blinked away. He turned to Drake. ‘‘We will join you as soon as possible. I assume you will do everything in your power to keep the phylactery from falling into Kostya’s possession again.’’
Drake’s lips quirked. ‘‘You would trust me with it?’’ he asked.
Gabriel was silent for a moment before giving him a sharp nod. The pilot had opened the door and lowered the stairs; Gabriel and I hurried down them, heading toward the nearest hangar.
‘‘You don’t have to come with me,’’ I told him as the plane taxied off.
He said nothing until we were in the back of a cab.
‘‘Where is she?’’ he asked as we got in.
‘‘We should go to Drake’s house. That’s where she was last.’’
He gave the instructions to the driver before sitting next to me.
‘‘Gabriel . . . you don’t have to do this.’’
‘‘Your twin is in danger. That must take precedence over the phylactery,’’ he interrupted.
I looked at the strong planes of his face, the high cheekbones sculpting lines that made my stomach tighten with happiness. The brown, elegant slashes of eyebrow set off his eyes so that they just about glowed with emotion. The phylactery was everything to Gabriel— if Kostya regained it, I knew without the slightest doubt that he would use it against the silver dragons. It was of tantamount importance that we get to it before he did . . . and yet Gabriel was willing to set aside his need to protect his people in order to help me with Cyrene.
My heart heaved a little sigh of resignation and allowed itself to do what it had wanted to do from the very beginning—I fell in love with Gabriel.
‘‘I think that is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,’’ I said once I could manage to speak around the lump in my throat.
He gave another short nod, acknowledging the fact that I recognized his sacrifice.
‘‘Would it upset all sorts of dragon etiquette if I was to kiss you silly in a taxicab?’’ I asked him.
One dimple started to show despite his serious expression. ‘‘Not in the least.’’
‘‘Good. Because I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop myself,’’ I said, smiling into his mouth. The second my lips touched his, fire swept through me. Mindful of the surroundings—and not wanting to have to explain to a startled cab driver why the backseat of his vehicle was engulfed in flames—I controlled the dragon fire, allowing it to pass back into Gabriel.
‘‘You taste so good,’’ he murmured, his hands hard on my hips as he tried to pull me over his lap. ‘‘You taste of the cool water that hides deep in a stream. You taste of the night air, soft and scented and mysterious. The taste of you drives me wild. I want to be with you, be inside you, shout to the world that you are mine at the same time I want to keep you hidden where you will exist only for me. You make me feel invincible, little bird.’’
‘‘You are invincible,’’ I whispered, nibbling his delicious lower lip. ‘‘You are my dragon in shining armor who will slay that pesky Saint George for me.’’
His dimples deepened even though he sighed with frustration as, aware the cabby was watching us in his rearview mirror, I settled back down on the seat next to Gabriel.
‘‘Saint George?’’ he asked.
‘‘Well, his name is Porter, and he’s not a saint, but I can tell you that he has stepped over the line and done something very foolish.’’
‘‘You think the blackmailer kidnapped your twin?’’
"Can you think of anyone else who would do something so crazy?"
Gabriel shook his head. ‘‘No. It does seem to be an attempt to manipulate you by holding Cyrene hostage.’’
‘‘Exactly. I guess he figured I needed a little push into stealing the phylactery back for him.’’
‘‘You should have told me about this from the first. I would have taken care of him for you,’’ Gabriel said with smug self-assurance that grated.
The look I gave him should have, by rights, left him babbling in apology. ‘‘Certainly not! I’m insulted you think I’m so feeble I can’t deal with one little blackmailer on my own. I didn’t mean you should actually slay him for me, you know. I can take care of that all right.’’
Gabriel grinned at the annoyed expression on my face. ‘‘Such a fierce little bird.’’
‘‘I may be little, but I pack a hell of a punch,’’ I said, nodding toward my ankle where the dagger was strapped.
‘‘I have no doubt of that, just as I have no doubt that so long as I am around, you will never have need to prove that. What do you plan to do about the thief taker Porter?’’
‘‘I hadn’t thought beyond making sure Cyrene is safe. I guess we’ll have to deal with him now.’’
‘‘I will take care of him for you,’’ Gabriel said calmly. ‘‘We will rescue your twin, and then see to it this thief taker does not bother you again. After that, we will be free to move on to more important matters.’’
‘‘About that . . .’’ I took his hand in mine. ‘‘I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me that you’d be willing to forgo the phylactery in order to help my twin, but there’s a little problem—’’
He brushed his thumb across my lips. I bit it.
‘‘There is no problem. I am not giving up the phylactery.’’
‘‘You’re letting Drake go off to Paris without you. He’ll get to it first—hopefully—which means he’ll probably keep it. I know he won’t use it against you like his brother would, but I assumed it would rankle somewhat that Drake would get it rather than you.’’
‘‘It is not yet noon,’’ he answered with a smile.
‘‘What does the time of day have to do with it?’’
"The vault of the L’au-delà lies within Suffrage House, the same building in which you were imprisoned. It is closely guarded, as you might expect, but there is added protection during the day in the form of all the employees who conduct routine committee business.’’
‘‘Ah. So you weren’t going to try breaking in during the day?’’
He shook his head. ‘‘It would be folly to even try. We will attempt it this evening—which means I have a few hours that can be spent taking care of the problem with Cyrene.’’
A smidgen of the guilt roiling around inside me eased, but what I had to say next canceled any feelings of relief. ‘‘I’m afraid that wasn’t the only problem I had in mind. Gabriel, I’m—oh, here we are.’’
The taxi pulled up outside of Drake’s house. I used the few seconds while we got out and Gabriel paid off the driver to work out what I was going to say.
‘‘Gabriel, you know that I’m a doppelganger,’’ I said once the taxi pulled off. He had tried to gently push me toward the front door, but I resisted.
‘‘That point hadn’t escaped me,’’ he said with a flash of his dimples.
‘‘I don’t know how much you know about doppelgangers—not much, I suspect, since there are only a handful of us around—but there’s more to doppelgangers than shadow walking.’’
‘‘Is there?’’
‘‘Yes. We can also enter the shadow world.’’
Gabriel’s eyebrows arched. ‘‘Shadow world?’’
‘‘That’s the doppelganger name for it. It’s a sort of separate plane that coexists with our reality, rather like an overlay. It’s hard to describe what it looks like, but things in it are slightly . . . off.’’
‘‘Ah, you’re talking about the beyond.’’ Gabriel nodded. ‘‘I thought that was the realm of elves and the fey.’’
‘‘They make up the larger population of inhabitants. As a doppelganger, I’m one of the others who can also enter it, despite the fact that I’m bound to Magoth.’’
‘‘I understand, but what does that have to do with this situation?’’
‘‘I don’t know where Cyrene is. I couldn’t hear nine-tenths of what she said, which means I’m going to have to track her down.’’
Bright man that he is, Gabriel instantly guessed where it was all going. ‘‘And you can only do so while you are in the beyond?’’
‘‘Yes. And I can’t take you with me.’’
His brows arched. ‘‘You just said others can enter the beyond.’’
‘‘Some people can, yes. Elves act as kind of a conduit— they can bring people into it, but doppelgangers . . .’’ I sighed. ‘‘We’re just shadows ourselves, really, so we can slip into and out of it easily, but we can’t take anyone with us. The best I can do is to track down Cy and call you when I’ve found her. I don’t mind saying I’d like to have you with me to deal with the blackmailer, but I’m afraid I don’t know of any other way.’’
‘‘How will you trail her?’’ he asked.
‘‘How? Oh . . . she’s an elemental being. She leaves a faint trail wherever she goes. It’s not visible in our world, but in the beyond, faint traces linger for a few hours. So I should be able to track her from here to wherever she is, so long as too much time hasn’t passed.’’
‘‘Interesting.’’ He looked curious. ‘‘Do dragons leave signs, as well?’’
I smiled. ‘‘Yes. Dragon scales glitter like . . . well, glitter in the beyond. And much as I hate to offend you . . .’’ I ran my hand down his bared neck, showing him my palm. The faintest iridescent sparkle showed on it. ‘‘You shed. Quite a lot, actually.’’
‘‘I don’t know whether to be offended or to make a suggestive comment about rubbing my scales all over your naked body,’’ he said with a flash of his silver eyes. ‘‘Proceed, little bird.’’
I glanced around. No one was near us on the street. ‘‘I’ll call you as soon as I find her, I promise.’’
He said nothing, just watched as I slipped into the shadow world and set off down the road.
Chapter Twenty-one
The trail was there on the ground, faint but still visible slightly darkened footprints, as if Cyrene had been walking with wet feet across a dry floor. There were other elemental beings in the area leaving tracks as well—London was headquarters to several Otherworld groups, including a lot of elementalists—but it was easy enough to pick Cyrene’s trail apart from the others.
It wasn’t until I was three blocks away that an uncomfortable feeling started pricking between my shoulder blades. I spun around to see who was following me, and gawked openmouthed at the man standing immediately behind me. ‘‘How?’’ I asked, poking him in the chest to be sure he was real.
My hand went right through his chest as if nothing was there. ‘‘OK, change that
how
to
what?
What’s going on, Gabriel? How is it you’re in the beyond?’’
‘‘Beyond, shadow world, the Dreaming . . . all different names for the same thing,’’ he answered, his dimples showing as I waved a hand through his chest. ‘‘I told you that my mother was a shaman.’’
‘‘You said that’s why you could occasionally read my mind. That doesn’t explain why you’re a . . . what, shade? Image? You’re not really here, are you?’’
‘‘No. I’m in Drake’s house. Or rather, my body is. I can walk in the Dreaming, but I can’t interact with anything. My mother said it was because I was part dragon.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘I won’t be able to touch things as you can, but I can accompany you.’’
‘‘Do you see Cyrene’s tracks?’’ I asked, pointing to the ground.
He squinted. ‘‘Faintly. You look different in here.’’
‘‘Different? I do?’’ I was a bit taken aback. I knew most things looked different when viewed from the shadow world, but I was part of this world—I shouldn’t look different. ‘‘How so?’’
‘‘There is a glow about you. A sort of silver glow.’’ He smiled. ‘‘It is the sign you are part of my sept. It pleases me that you manifest that as an aura.’’
I looked down at my arms. ‘‘Good gods, you’re right. I’m May the Amazing Glowing Woman. How very odd . . . but we don’t have time to explore my glowiness, I’m afraid. Cy’s trail is starting to fade.’’