Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons (30 page)

I was silent for a few minutes, the soft sounds of the night surrounding us. An owl hooted in the distance. A low drone indicated a car passing on the borders of our property. A high-pitched whine warned of a mosquito in search for a warm meal. At last I said, “I assume you told all of this to Savian?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to, because I felt it would add unnecessary stress to…things.”

“A relationship?” I asked with arched brows.

Even in the dim light of the camping lamp, I could see a faint stain of color on her cheeks. “Such as it is, yes. But when I got this message, I knew I had to get some help.”

She pulled out her phone, punched a few buttons, and showed me a text message that read simply “You’re out of time. You have eight hours to find it, or your mother will pay.”

I handed back the phone. “That sounds like Thala. How long ago did you get it?”

“About two hours ago. It took me some time to get here. I was in St. Petersburg.”

“Why there?” I asked, wondering if everyone was in St. Petersburg at that moment.

“Thala told me that was where she thought the sepulcher was. There or outside of Moscow, but she felt St. Petersburg was the better choice due to the number of watch members in the area.”

I bit my lower lip in thought, then patted her hand in a reassuring fashion. “Don’t worry. We still have six hours, and we’re going to make the most of them.” I got to my feet and gathered up my bag.

“If Savian couldn’t find it in the three days he said he’s been looking—” she started to say.

“We don’t have time for that. I don’t say he wouldn’t find it, but he himself would be the first to admit that sometimes it takes a while to locate objects that have been hidden well. No, we’re going to go to the source for the information.”

“The source?” Her forehead wrinkled as she followed me back into the house. “What source?”

“Dr. Kostich.”

She put a hand on my arm to stop me. “Ysolde, I just told you—”

“I know what you told me, and I also know what your grandfather didn’t say. I may not have many memories, but I know this—he loves your mother, and there’s no way he’d sit around and not take any action when her life was threatened. We just have to get around that whole “no negotiation with terrorists” thing, and I’m confident we can do that.”

“How?” she asked, standing in the doorway to the kitchen when I headed up the back stairs.

“Leave that to me,” I said with calm reassurance, and
hastily trotted up the stairs before she could ask me for details.

The truth was, I hadn’t a clue how I was going to get Dr. Kostich to give me the location of the sepulcher. I just knew that somehow it had to be done.

“E
xplain to me why I must do this.”

Ten minutes after my conversation with Maura, I sat on Baltic’s lap to keep him from getting out of the chair and leaving the room, as he had threatened to do just a moment before.

“Because it’s important to me. Surely that is enough?”

“The archimage’s daughter is nothing to me.”

“No, but Violet is my friend, and she helped me before, so I’m not going to turn my back on either her or her daughter.”

“The same daughter who led the attack on us at Dauva,” he pointed out.

“She’s explained that, and apologized, so move on.” I kissed the tip of his nose. “It’s important to me, Baltic. But mostly, it’s important to
us
.”

He frowned. “How is taking a portal to St. Petersburg to locate my mage sword important to us? You do not like the sword. You are jealous of it because Antonia was my lover when she gave it to me. You told me that you
would skewer me with it yourself if I ever so much as thought of her, which was ridiculous since I have never thought of any woman but you since I took you from the humans.”

“I miss my parents,” I said, suddenly homesick for a home that hadn’t been mine in five hundred years. “They may have been human, but they were very nice people. Wait…When did I tell you I’d stab you with it?”

He gave a little half shrug. “When I moved it from my lair in Dauva to the one in England. It was a half century before we were killed. You accused me of wanting to be with Antonia again, and threatened, amongst other atrocities, to geld me with it.”

“Boy, I had a serious jealousy issue back then,” I mused, but couldn’t keep from wondering if there wasn’t a reason I’d been jealous. I eyed Baltic suspiciously until he laughed and kissed me soundly.

“You have exactly the same look on your face that you did when you threatened the gelding. Must I reassure you again, mate?”

“No. Well…another time. Right now we have to get our butts to St. Petersburg to intercept Dr. Kostich. Maura called him and told him of Thala’s ultimatum, and of the deadline.”

“Why then must we go?” He was back to looking disgruntled.

“Because Dr. Kostich told Maura there was nothing he could do. He was lying, of course. Or not so much lying as avoiding the strict truth. I know how he thinks—he doesn’t want to involve her, and he can’t go against the laws of the L’au-dela, so he’s going to find a way to slip the information about the location to Thala, and be on hand when she arrives at the sepulcher.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know he will proceed in that manner?”

“Because it’s what I’d do, and, like I said, I know how
he thinks. The man is a master at getting around rules and finding loopholes. Come on. If we get out of here in the next half hour, that will leave us with four hours to lurk around the portal office in St. Petersburg so we can follow Dr. Kostich when he arrives, plus it will give Drake and Aisling time to get there.”

I started to get off his lap, but he pulled me back down onto it. “You will tell me now why the green wyvern is involved.”

“Oh, are we playing sharing time? Excellent. I will tell you just what problem I’ve asked for Drake’s help with, and you can tell me a number of things, starting with how Constantine got your talisman to make his own sept, to how you got it back, how you’re going to get it back from Thala, and what you know about the location of Gareth and Ruth. And don’t deny you know something, because Pavel told me you had people looking into it for you. Do we have a deal?”

He growled deep in his chest, a little puff of smoke lazily wafting from one nostril. But after a moment’s silence, he said, “It’s the light sword. You know I desire to possess it again. Green dragons are notable thieves; therefore, you’ve asked Drake to steal the sword for you.”

“Dammit,” I snapped, getting off his lap and marching to the door in a fine approximation of someone in high dudgeon. “I just hate it when you figure things out! I’m going to call Aisling and tell her to meet us in St. Petersburg. I hope you can be ready to go in twenty minutes, because that’s when I told Pavel to have the cars ready.”

I closed the door on the sound of his swearing in Zilant, smiling to myself. I never doubted that the moment he found out that Drake had something to do with my plans for the sepulcher, he’d realize that the mage sword was my goal. But what he didn’t realize was how I intended on returning it to him. “And I just pray he doesn’t find out until it’s too late.”

“Until what’s too late?” Brom emerged from his room pulling a wheeled suitcase behind him. He looked at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. You said I had to be in bed by ten on weeknights. How come we’re going somewhere now?”

“I’m sorry about keeping you up late, but you can sleep in late in the morning. How would you like to stay with Aisling and Jim for a day or two?”

He shot me a puzzled look. “I like Jim. Aisling makes me play with her babies. All they do is crawl around, put everything in their mouths, and get slobber on it. And they spit their food onto the floor. It’s gross.”

“Babies are notorious for both their slobber and finicky eating habits, and you, my dumpling of delight, were no different. I may not have many memories of the past nine years, but I distinctly remember someone objecting to his strained carrots by spewing them all over his father.”

Brom grinned. “I bet Gareth was pissed.”

I ruffled his hair and smiled with him. “Extremely so. He was just about to leave to meet an important client, as I recall, and had to change his suit. It really was one of your finest baby moments.”

“How come I can’t go with you and Baltic?”

I walked downstairs with him to where a bag with a few hastily tossed-together items waited. “Because I’m not sure how long we’ll be, and Thala is most likely going to be present. When Aisling was here earlier, she offered to have you stay with her and Drake in their house in Moscow, with Jim as company. I thought you’d like that for a day or possibly two.”

His expression turned sober as he gave me a long look. “OK, but it’s not going to be like last time, is it?”

“No,” I reassured him. “Baltic and I won’t be alone with Thala. We’ll have others with us to keep us safe, all right?”

“OK,” he repeated, and dropped his bag at the door,
next to the three others already waiting. “I’m going to go see if there’s any more owl barf before we go.”

“I want you back inside in ten minutes. Ten minutes!” I yelled after his swiftly retreating form.

A quick phone call to Aisling later, I was upstairs to inform Cyrene of the plans. “Do you wish to come with us?”

“To St. Petersburg? Are you kidding? That’s where that slimy, scaly, horrible naiad-hater lives,” she said with haughty grandeur. “I’d rather die than let him think I was chasing after him. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave in the morning. I think I need a vacation from all this stress and negativity. So thank you, but no. I will go to the Riviera, instead, and be with nice people, not insane black dragons.”

I left her to her own plans, and made a fast perusal of my mental checklist of what needed to be done before we left. I was about to go into the kitchen to see if Pavel was there, but a low moan of pain caught the very edge of my hearing, causing me to whirl around and run for the small, damp sitting room. “Brom?” I threw open the door and came to a skidding halt in the middle of the room, my eyes wide with surprise.

Two people locked together in an embrace on the sofa flung themselves apart with such energy that one of them ended up on the floor.

“Oh,” I said, trying not to grin as Maura hastily tucked one exposed breast back into her shirt. Savian, on the floor, also had an open shirt…and lipstick marks down his chest to his belt line, where they stopped. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Savian was just…was helping me with…He was—” Maura began an explanation that all three of us knew wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“Give it up, love; she’s cannier than that,” Savian said, buttoning his shirt while winking at me.

“I suppose it is going to be kind of hard to explain why you had your mouth on my boob when she came in,” Maura said, her face beet red. She finished tidying herself up and cleared her throat. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of this to Emile, though, Ysolde.”

“Really? Why? Is Dr. Kostich that protective of you?”

Savian rubbed his whiskery cheek and put an arm around Maura. “It’s more that he has a bit of a grudge against me.”

“You’re a thief-taker. One who works for the Committee. Why would he have a grudge against you?”

“He found out I was taking jobs on the side for May and Gabriel, and he felt it was a conflict of interest. The truth is…” He glanced at Maura. Wearily, she nodded. “The truth is, I’ve been stricken off the thief-takers’ roll. I’m freelance now.”

“Ah. So he wouldn’t welcome the news that you and Maura…” I nodded. “Gotcha. I assume those are your bags out in the hall?”

“Yes, we’re ready to go,” Maura said, brushing a hand down her shirt.

“Some of us are more than ready,” Savian growled in her ear.

“Mmm, well, perhaps you can hold that thought until a more suitable time. We’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. You got all the information you needed from Aisling, I assume?”

“I did. I think I’ll go see if there is such a thing as bubble wrap in the house,” Maura said, the sentence ending an octave higher than it started when Savian’s hand slid down her back to her behind.

“Why bubble wrap?” I asked as I pulled out my cell phone.

She paused at the door and made a little face. “If I have to take a portal to Nepal, which is where your friend Aisling says the aerie is, then I’m going to want a
restorative when I get there. If I wrap a bottle of dragon’s blood and hold it tight to my chest, I should be able to bring it through the portal with me.” She looked sadly at Savian. “I just wish you could come with me.”

“I’ll be there just as soon as I locate the sepulcher for Ysolde,” he promised. “I’ll take the first portal out to you and help you beat the daylights out of the dragons holding your mum.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle all the dragons by yourself?” I asked her, worried that our plan wasn’t as well thought out as it should be.

“They’re the least of my concerns,” she said with a little smile. “One of the dragons at the
castillo
told me there were only two guards at the aerie simply because it’s so impossible to get to…and get out of.”

“I hope Aisling’s directions were enough to get you there in time.”

“Actually, I’m using her wyvern’s directions. Evidently when Aisling went to the aerie, she took a longer route. It should take me only two hours of climbing, which leaves me enough time to disable the guards and get Mum out of there before Thala can call and order them to hurt her.”

“I’d be happy to send Pavel with you,” I offered for a second time.

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine on my own. You need everyone to capture Thala. She won’t have time to order anyone to harm my mother if she’s fighting off an attack.”

I said nothing but worried nonetheless.

“I’ll help her find some packing for the bottle,” Savian said, following Maura out of the room. He winked as he passed me.

“I just bet you will,” I murmured to myself, then rang up Aisling, apologizing for the second call within ten minutes.

“That’s fine. The twins don’t want to go down for the
night, so we’re trying to wear them out. Iarliath and I are having a rousing game of ‘fling the toys against the wall and laugh hysterically when they bounce.’ What’s up? Need more info about the aerie?”