“Savian!” I said, interrupting the man as he was about to answer. I smiled brightly and took his arm, dragging him toward the room I knew to be a small, unused study. “We have so much to talk about! Why don’t we go in here and have a cozy little chat, just the two of us, all nice and private-like.” “Help! She’s going to smite my testicles!” Savian shrieked.
“You can bet I will if you keep up all that whining,” I said through gritted teeth as he fought me. “Stop struggling and you won’t get hurt.” “Famous last words!” he said, trying to pry my fingers off his arm. “Damn, lady, you have a grip like a… like a…” “Dragon?” May asked.
“Yeah, like a…” He stopped struggling and gave me a long look, squinting at me slightly. “Hey. She doesn’t look like a dragon.” “That’s because I’m not one,” I said, flinging open the door. “Now let’s have a little chat about this business.” “What business? Have you hired Savian to do something?” May asked, standing in the doorway.
“Not Sullivan, Gareth,” Brom piped up from the hall, unloading the books he had purchased from the book-shop where we’d spent the last hour. “He’s trying to save us from some bad dragons.” “Go and play with your mummies!” I ordered, pointing toward the back of the house.
“You said I couldn’t!”
“Don’t do as I said — do as I say!”
He rolled his eyes and mumbled something about people not making any sense, but he duly trotted away toward the depths of the basement.
“Maybe we’d all better have a little chat,” May said, giving me a long look as she entered the room. “I’d like to hear about the bad dragons.” “Who is bad?” Gabriel asked, following her in. “Savian! What brings you to our humble abode?” I sighed and slumped into a heavy leather chair. “Well, I tried.” “Yes, you did. Despite your best attempts at mutilation, my liver will live another day,” Savian said, groaning pitifully as he eased himself onto a long, low leather couch.
Gabriel looked at May. “What’s wrong with him?” “Evidently Ysolde was trying to turn his testicles into warts.” “Eyebrows to warts, testicles to turnips,” I corrected wearily. I lifted a languid hand toward Savian. “Go ahead. Tell them. Ruin what remains of my life.” He ignored me, speaking to Gabriel. “I was sent to rescue a fair maiden and her small bundle of boyish joy from the clutches of a gang of murderous dragons. No one told me that the maiden had the strength of a dragon, and an unnatural interest in my balls.” “I have no interest in your balls. I never had an interest in your balls, other than wanting them to go away, preferably with you attached.” “Our clutches?” May said, looking appalled.
“It’s not like it sounds,” I said hurriedly, before she and Gabriel were insulted.
“Who hired you?” May asked Savian.
“Man by the name of Gareth Hunt.”
I glared at him, and his hand moved protectively over his crotch.
“Why would your husband feel you needed rescuing?” Gabriel asked in a soft, completely misleading voice. The air positively crackled with anger.
“You see what you’ve done? Are you happy now? Everyone is mad at me,” I told Savian.
“When you go around threatening to smite people’s balls, I don’t blame them!” “Ysolde?” Gabriel asked, clearly expecting some sort of an explanation.
“I’m going to remember you,” I told Savian before I turned to Gabriel. “Gareth called me a few days ago, and warned me that I was in danger if I continued to stay with you. I told him that you had been nothing but generous and attentive in your care of me while I was asleep, and even brought Brom to me, but he… well, Gareth is very single-minded. Once he gets an idea, he clings to it with the tenacity of a terrier with lockjaw. I assure you that I have absolutely no complaints about your hospitality, and I do not intend to be stolen away. That’s what I was doing when May found us. I was trying to get rid of this annoying man.” “I am roguishly charming, and not at all annoying!” Savian protested.
May and Gabriel exchanged a loaded glance.
“Fine, you’re the most charming man I’ve ever met. Now please consider yourself unemployed. You can keep whatever my husband paid you — he deserves to lose the money for doing something like this against my wishes.” “Since you are at a loose end,” Gabriel said to him, opening the door and gesturing, “perhaps I could speak to you about doing a little job for us. Ysolde believes she’s seen Baltic in town, and I’d like for you to find him.” “I’m not going to get my head bashed in again, am I?” Savian asked, grunting as he rolled off the couch and onto his feet. He slid me a glance as he followed Gabriel out of the room. “Or my liver ruptured?” The door closed quietly behind him.
I looked at May. “You think he can find Baltic?” “He works as a thief taker for the L’au-dela,” she answered with a wry little twist to her lips. “That’s how I met him. But sometimes he freelances, and he’s a very good tracker. If anyone can find Baltic, Savian can. Are you going to be ready to go in an hour?” I nodded.
“Good. We’ll all go down together. It should prove to be interesting, eh?” She left me with a little smile that made me wonder what she knew.
“Oh,” I said three hours later as the car rounded one last gentle curve and cleared the willow and lime trees that formed a half circle in front of a magnificent house. “Oh, my. It’s…” Words simply failed me.
“I know,” May said, sighing as she gazed upon the redbricked front of the Tudor mansion. “Isn’t it just? I would try to get it away from Kostya, but I suppose if anyone has a right to it, you do.” “It’s perfect,” I said, my face pressed to the window as I tried to take it all in. The house itself was perched on a gentle hill, a typical example of Tudor architecture, with a center square tower that rose with stately grace over the rest of the house, mullioned windows, stone quoins, and parapets that seemed to sweep upward to the sky. “Just…” “Perfect,” May finished the sentence, nodding her head. “The very words I said when I first saw it. But Ysolde, there’s more. There’s a maze. And gardens.” “Gardens?” I craned my neck to look around Gabriel, who was sitting in the seat opposite May and me. “Where?” “Over there. You can just see a little splash of color.” “Ooh,” I breathed in a heady sigh.
“Sullivan likes plants,” Brom told May with a tolerant look at me.
“She was born a silver dragon. All silver dragons like plants,” Gabriel said, opening the door as the car stopped. He held out his hand first for May, then for me. I stepped out and my heart was suddenly lightened.
“I feel like I should be singing,” I said, turning slowly in a circle to take in the lovely soft velvety lawns that spread out endlessly before us.
“I know just how you feel. I was the same way,” May said.
A yew maze was at the right, casting coolly intriguing shadows in its pathway. To the left of the house was a formal garden, and I took three steps toward it before I remembered I wasn’t here to see it.
“Sorry,” I said, turning back to the others.
May laughed and said, “Don’t worry. We understand.” A second car pulled up behind ours, a sleek antique Rolls-Royce that disgorged Aisling, Drake, and Jim, along with Drake’s two redheaded guards.
“Wow!” Aisling said, leaning back to look to the top of the tower. “This is a heck of a house! No wonder you like it so much, May. It’s absolutely gorgeous! Is that a maze? Jim! Don’t do that right there!” “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” the demon complained, but lowered its leg and wandered off to a less central shrub, saying as it went, “Don’t let Ysolde turn into a dragon and go all psycho, or blow up the house, or whatever it is she’s going to do, until I’m back.” “You’re going to blow up this house?” Brom asked, looking around him with curiosity, but nothing else. “With what?” “Nothing. Ignore Jim — it’s deranged. Your mom isn’t going to blow up anything, least of all this house,” Aisling said as she started up the low front stairs. The double doors opened and Kostya and Cyrene came out, very much the lord and lady of the manor.