Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons (26 page)

“Oh dear.” I panicked just a little bit.

“We should be there in about half an hour. Drake insists that we take back roads so Kostya won’t see us.”

“All right. How did you know he was here?”

She giggled. “Drake is having him followed. For his own good, of course.”

“Of course.” She hung up with another giggle, leaving me struck mute with mingled horror and worry.

Pavel, who was on his way through the hall to one of the back rooms, paused as he strolled past me. “Are you all right? You look upset.”

Slowly, I put my phone back into my pocket. “Drake and Aisling are on their way out to get some information from me, and I don’t have it.”

“Information about what?”

I hesitated, torn with conflicting emotions. I trusted Pavel completely, but his devotion and dedication to Baltic were absolute. It just wouldn’t be fair for me to tell him something he knew Baltic would be desirous of knowing but wouldn’t be able to impart. “If I said I couldn’t tell you, would you be annoyed?”

“No.” He smiled suddenly. “Is it something that will enrage Baltic?”

I couldn’t help but sigh. “I’m sure it will, although that’s not anyone’s intention. I’m just trying to fix things.”

He inclined his head in a little bow. “Then I will wish you Godspeed. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Other than spread dinner for another”—I counted mentally—“four people and one hungry demon, no. Plus Cyrene. And possibly Kostya, if he’s here for Constantine’s challenge.”

Pavel’s mouth worked a couple of times before he said, “Constantine has challenged Kostya for the black dragon sept?”

“Yes. Kostya named Baltic as his second.” I nibbled on my lower lip for a few moments. “Maybe I should make a few snacks for the prechallenge part of the evening—”

“Ysolde!” An indignant Constantine appeared behind me, in the doorway. “You said you wish to have a tête-à-tête with me!”

“My apologies,” I said, soothingly. “I was caught up in the thought of canapés. Pavel, can you—”

“Holland will help me put together something, and do not worry about the dinner—it will be enough for everyone.”

“Bless you,” I said, and meant it.

“W
ell, isn’t this…nice.”

“Man, what a hole. And I thought Aisling used to stay in some crappy places.”

“Jim!” Aisling stopped looking around the entryway of the house and whapped the demon on its head, giving me an apologetic smile in the process. “I’m sorry, Ysolde. Jim swore it was going to be on its best behavior, because
it knows what will happen to it if it’s not.
”

The emphasis on the last few words was not lost on Jim, who winked at me. “Soldy knows I’m just teasing. It’s a great house if you like the Addams family. I especially like that tarantula over there in those cobwebs. Very atmospheric. Hey.” The demon sniffed the air a couple of times. “Is that dinner I smell?”

“We are not staying for dinner,” Aisling said quickly, giving Jim a stern look before preceding me into the sitting room when I gestured toward it. “We just came to…er…you know.”

“Of course you’re staying for dinner. Pavel’s cooking, and there’s plenty for everyone.”

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” Jim said, plopping itself down on a couch before Aisling shoved its butt off and pointed to the floor.

“Is Baltic here?” Drake asked as he followed us into the room, trailed by his two redheaded bodyguards.

“He’s at Dauva, although”—I glanced at my watch—“he should be back in the next hour or so. Dragon’s blood, anyone?”

I handed out the fiery drink at the polite murmurs of assent, pouring a bit of Perrier into a bowl for Jim.

“Oooh, fancy, lemon slices,” it said, slurping at the water. “Any time you want to dump me on Solders and Baltic is fine with me, Ash.”

“One more, and you’re out,” Aisling warned the demon.

“Sheesh. Bully much?”

“We would like to extend greetings to Pavel,” István said as I handed him a glass of the dragon’s blood wine. “Is it allowed that we do so?”

“Of course. He’s in the kitchen, but I’m sure he would welcome the opportunity to exchange greetings with you, as well.” I made sure to keep my language as formal as István’s, despite the urge to giggle. So far as social niceties went, dragons preferred to cling to the old ways, and that meant elite guards of one wyvern had to present their greetings to the elite guards of other wyverns in a very formalized way.

Pál and István took themselves off with a nod from Drake, who, after a somewhat scurrilous look at the battered and dismal couch that I hadn’t yet had time to replace, sat down next to Aisling.

“So!” Aisling said brightly, leaning a bit into Drake as he put his arm across her shoulders. “Here we all are.
Drake’s like a cat on a hot tin roof, just about dancing with anticipation, so the sooner he gets started on breaking into the sepulcher, the better.”

“Kincsem,”
Drake said sternly, shooting her an emerald-eyed glare. “I am a wyvern. You do not tell people I dance over any emotion, and certainly not anticipation.”

“My apologies.” She patted his leg, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Although you are an incredibly good dancer. That last dream you sent me, where you taught me to dance the sevillana, and you spun me around so hard my dress came off, and we ended up—er—yes. We’ll just leave it at you’re an excellent dancer.”

“You have visions with Drake, too?” I asked in surprise, correcting myself when both Drake and Aisling turned startled faces to me. “That is, you have visions about your wyvern, too?”

“They’re not really visions, no, not like that one you had at the
sárkány
, or a few months ago when you tried to stab Drake in that vision. Drake and I share an ability to have, for lack of a better term, lucid dreams. Extremely lucid dreams. So much so that—” Drake made an abbreviated gesture, causing Aisling to clear her throat. “Yes, well, we’ve strayed from the original point, which was that we are both very eager to undertake the job you spoke about. So, where is the sepulcher?”

“Er…” My brain, normally a pretty reliable organ, just shrugged and told me I was on my own when it came to thinking up an excuse as to why I hadn’t yet found the location of the sepulcher. “That’s a really good question. And the answer is that…erm…Why don’t we save that discussion for after dinner?”

They exchanged glances.

“If you desire,” Drake said in a smooth voice, his fingers gently stroking Aisling’s shoulder in a way that had her shivering, and shooting him a heated look. “About
the recompense you will be providing me for these services. I take it you have in your possession the valuable object that you indicated earlier?”

“Not in so many words,” I said, thinking back to the hurried conversation I had had with Constantine a short while before. He’d assured me that he had found Kostya’s lair, and getting into it, and removing the shard, would be no problem. I had been obliged to persuade him that I needed it now, rather than waiting for him to take over the sept, when it would be his to hand over to me, but after a few minutes of persuasion, he had agreed to retrieve it. “But I should before tomorrow, assuming everything goes as planned.”

“Oh man, if that isn’t jinxing us, I don’t know what is,” Jim said, flopping down on the floor, coughing loudly when a cloud of dust rose around him.

“Don’t be silly. I don’t believe in jinxes,” Aisling said firmly. “I do, however, believe in accidents, and derailments of best laid plans, etc. So you’ll be sure to tell us if something goes awry, won’t you, Ysolde?”

“Of course.”

“What, exactly, is this object?” Drake asked, his fingers now tangled in Aisling’s hair. She kept sending him little glances that should have steamed his eyebrows.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that I would like to hold off on telling you about that until I have it in hand.”

“And I would prefer to know now.”

I sat up a little straighter at the tone in Drake’s voice. “I’m sure you would, but I am not comfortable with explaining the whys and hows of the object to you just yet.”

“Not comfortable?” he asked, his green-eyed gaze sharpening on me. “What about it makes you uncomfortable?”

“That’s really none of your business,” I said, growing rather annoyed. While I was willing to admit he had a right to know what he was bartering his services for, he
also had to know I wasn’t going to try to cheat him. “I will tell you tomorrow, once I have the item in my possession.”

Drake was silent for a moment, then said in a drawling voice, “You forget my consequence, Ysolde. I must insist on knowing what object you use to barter with before I risk myself and my men. You will tell me what it is now, or I will not go forward with this agreement.”

“Drake Fekete,” I said, deliberately using his original name in an attempt to remind him of his place, “I am well aware of your consequence, your history,
and
the terms of our agreement. It is you who have forgotten that you agreed to do the job based on my word alone. I have said I will describe the object tomorrow, and so I shall. Either you will honor our agreement, or you will renege on it.” I rose while making an imperious gesture. “But I will waste no more time on this. Decide now.”

My heart was beating like crazy as I basically bluffed Drake, part of me worried sick what I’d do if he called that bluff, and left me without a thief, but the other part, the one who had absorbed much from Baltic’s dealings with other dragons, told me that there were times when arrogance had its place, and that time was now.

“Oooh,” Jim said on a big breath, its expression watchful as it turned to see how Drake would respond.

Drake’s eyes flashed molten green fire, his body tense, as if he was going to storm out of the room. Aisling opened her mouth to say something but evidently thought better of it, for she just put her hand on Drake’s and raised her eyebrows at him.

After a moment’s silence that seemed to last a thousand years, Drake gave a sharp nod. “Very well. I will wait until tomorrow. But that is as long as I will wait.”

“You won’t regret that decision,” I assured him. “You may think I’m trying to blow smoke up your…er…but I’m not. You’ll see that tomorrow—”

A sudden crash from the hallway came at the perfect moment…perfect for lessening the tension so rampant in the room, that is. On every other front, it caused me no end of worry. I fretted, as I leaped up and ran for the door, over whether a wall had caved in, or the stairway collapsed, or any of the million other forms of destruction that seemed to hang like a particularly brooding miasma over the house.

“By the rood!” I yelled, charging out to the hall. “What is going on—really, Constantine? You have to do this now? It’s almost time for dinner!”

Two dragons, identical expressions of chagrin on their faces, stood before me, one covered in shiny black scales, the other in glittering silver. The silver of Constantine’s chest was splattered crimson, blood from the three slashes dripping down onto the floor.

Constantine’s nostrils flared. “We are conducting a challenge for the black sept, Ysolde. This is a sacred fight, one honored by all dragonkin since the First Dragon set forth the laws of the weyr, and it will not be stopped by something so mundane as a mere meal.”

“You clearly haven’t tasted Pavel’s cooking,” I told him with a glare, pointing to the floor. “And you’re dripping all over the tile. I just hope you plan on cleaning that up, because it took the cleaning ladies three hours yesterday to scrub off all the muck and dirt, and I’m not having the tile stained again.”

Constantine straightened his shoulders and looked down his long dragon snout. “I am wyvern! I do not clean floors! Now, stand aside so that I might beat my godson into submission and reclaim that which should have been mine in the first place.”

“I grow weary of hearing you make such ridiculous claims about the black dragons,” Kostya said, whipping his tail around in an annoyed manner. It caught the edge
of a small occasional table, knocking it against the wall, and sending a small, ugly ceramic vase to the floor.

“Now you know how we feel,” Aisling said, sotto voce. Jim snickered. Drake shot her a long-suffering look.

I transferred my glare from Constantine to the vase where it lay smashed on the tile floor. “Konstantin Fekete!” I bellowed, marching over to him.

“Uh-oh, someone’s in trouble with Mom,” Jim said. “Again, since the last time you did something to piss her off, she had exactly that same look on her face.”

Kostya backed up a couple of steps before he obviously remembered he was a wyvern. “My apologies, Ysolde, but it is only a small vase.”

“One that I particularly liked!”

“I thought you said it looked like something a donkey pooped,” Brom said from the safety of the doorway to the small, damp sitting room.

“That is beside the point.” I took a deep breath and couldn’t keep from adding, “I really don’t think a challenge is suitable for you to witness. If you’re through mucking about in your lab, you can go wash your hands and face. Dinner will be ready shortly.”

“Boy, I didn’t think it was possible, but she out-bosses even you,” Jim told Aisling.