Jim shrugged, dribbling a bit of blue cheese as it chewed. “I don’t know of any personally, but there were some at Kostya’s aerie, or so Gabriel said, and I don’t know why he’d lie about that unless it was ex–silver dragons holding Kostya prisoner, and I think he’d know if it was.”
“Kostya,” I said slowly, considering Baltic’s former friend. “I’d forgotten that he was holed up in an aerie for so long. Who held him prisoner?”
“Dunno. Drake still hasn’t figured it out, and although he talks about going back to the aerie to look for clues, he’s too busy fawning over Aisling and the spawn to go to Nepal again.”
“What does Drake have to do with it?”
“He went to rescue Kostya and got nabbed himself. Ash and I rounded up a posse and went to rescue them. I lost a couple of toes in the process, but got them back again with my fabulous new form.” Jim looked down at itself with morose dissatisfaction. “My former fabulous new form. When are you going to change me back?”
“I don’t know how to, or even that I could if I did know. So Drake was at the aerie, too? That means he must have seen the ouroboros dragons as well. Hmm. I think I’m going to have to talk to Kostya, since Drake is probably quite angry and not likely to tell me what I want to know.”
Jim cocked an eyebrow and licked a bit of mustard off its upper lip. “And you think Kostya will tell you?”
“Yes,” I said after a moment’s thought. “His animosity toward Baltic aside, yes, I think I can get him to open up. If the dragons who imprisoned Kostya did so before Fiat and his followers were removed from their sept, then that means there must be two separate tribes out there. But who are the second group? And why would they want Kostya imprisoned? Why would they want to steal things from the L’au-dela?”
“You got me. You going to eat that half?” Jim asked, nodding toward the remains of my hamburger.
“Go ahead, but don’t come running to me if you’ve got an upset stomach in the morning.” I shoved the plate across the table to it and rose. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep. Can you keep an eye on Thala until I get up?”
“Aw, man! Why do I get guard duty?”
“Because you’re the only one here other than me, and you’re a demon who doesn’t technically need sleep, whereas I’m human. Er . . . kind of. And I do need sleep.”
“Shows what you know. Demons need sleep just like any other sentient being,” Jim grumbled.
“It’ll just be for a few hours.” I cleaned up the table quickly and started for the back stairs.
“Can I at least have a gun or a Taser like Cyrene had?”
I paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing back at the demon. There was a genuine look of distaste on its face. Insight struck me. “You truly do not want to be near Thala, do you?”
It shook its head.
“Why not?”
“She’s not nice,” it said with a grimace.
“Not nice as in she’s mean to demons? Abuses dogs?” I asked, curious to know why a demon of its power and connections would be so uncomfortable around Thala.
“She’s got a lot of power,” Jim said after a few moments’ pause. “She’s half dragon, you know.”
“I know, but I also know she’s a necromancer, and that has no influence on demons, so there’s no reason for you to be worried about being around her.”
Jim said nothing, but it was clear there was more it could say. I thought for a moment of invoking a demon lord’s privilege to make it speak, but decided that it wasn’t that important. “Take a knife if you’re worried, but don’t hurt her unless you have no other choice.”
“What do I do if she’s gotta pee?” it asked in a plaintive tone as I started up the stairs.
“Undo her handcuffs and let her use the bathroom, silly.”
“But she’ll whomp me!”
I bit back the urge to tell him to whomp her back. “Since she’s hostile toward me, I don’t want her to leave the house until Baltic gets back and can talk to her, so just do your best for a few hours, OK? Wake me at six, and I’ll take over watchdog duty.”
Jim’s grumbles followed me up the stairs. While I got undressed, I eyed the big bed that normally dominated the room. At least it did when Baltic was around, but now it just looked cold and lonely.
I miss you, I texted to him before climbing into the empty bed. I hope everything is going OK at Dauva. Call me when you can. Oh, and I am head over heels in love with you, and wish you were here right now so I could touch you in all sorts of wicked ways.
Smiling to myself that the text should get a response out of him sooner rather than later, I settled down to get a little sleep, not that I expected to get much since I didn’t sleep well when Baltic wasn’t there to keep me warm. Exhaustion claimed me, however, and I slipped into insensibility clutching my phone.
Chapter Seven
“Then we are agreed, are we not?”
I rolled over to see who was talking in my bedroom, only to find I wasn’t in a bedroom.
“Another vision,” I sighed as the fog of sleep dissipated, leaving me standing next to a long, highly polished table around which five people sat. “I don’t suppose anyone can hear or see me?”
“Unless Drake Vireo has anything to add,” a female voice said with sultry smoothness. No one paid the slightest iota of attention to me, so I gathered I was seeing another vision of an event at which I wasn’t present.
“I know that voice.” I turned to consider Chuan Ren and a man at her side who I assumed was her mate. Going by her dress and elegant coiffure, I judged that this event took place around the turn of the twentieth century.
“Drake has, I believe, spoken on the subject, but perhaps he has something else he wishes to say?” The original speaker, a blond man with a lilting Italian accent, asked the question with a polite little nod down the table.
“I do not have anything more to say about the black dragons than I’ve already said.” Drake’s voice was just as urbane as it was now. I looked across the table to where he sat, his two guards behind him. “The sept is destroyed. No black dragons have been seen for almost a hundred years. Constantine Norka conducted the extermination most thoroughly.”
“We had every right to take action against those who would have destroyed us,” a man across the table snapped back. I looked at him, noting he was most definitely not Constantine. This man was dark-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and dark eyes, a tribal tattoo evident on his neck despite the high starched collar and black suit typical of an Edwardian gentleman. To my surprise, behind him stood someone else I knew: Gabriel, also clad in a black suit, but with an embroidered silver vest that almost matched his eyes. The dreadlocks were gone, and he was clean-shaven, but the look of wary caution in his eyes was all too familiar. “Which the green wyvern well knows, since he was at the sárkány that decreed we had the right to pursue our subjugators.”
Drake bowed his head in acknowledgment, but I noticed his jaw was tight. I smiled a little smile at that, wondering how much it had cost him to keep from lashing out at the silver wyvern. Then again, perhaps he knew that Kostya was at that moment alive and well, living in the hidden aerie. I’d have to ask Aisling if she knew.
“As the requisite amount of time has passed since a member of the black sept has been seen, the weyr officially declares the sept to be extinct and, as such, stricken off the rolls.”
The silver wyvern watched Drake closely, but although his eyes glittered with an emerald light, Drake’s face was impassive, as were those of István and Pál, his guards whom I had briefly met some months before.
“The second order of business is the recognition of Sial Fa’amasino as official rather than acting wyvern of the silver sept.” The Italian gave a pointed look at the silver dragons. “Do you have proof of the death of the wyvern Constantine Norka?”
“No. His body has not been discovered, despite our searches for it.” Sial’s voice was steady, but his dark eyes were watchful, as if he half expected trouble.