“Great Caesar’s gob!” I exclaimed, wanting to do something to help him, but unable to think of anything. “That fire burned you.”
“I noticed.” His voice was gravelly as he took a couple of deep breaths.
“But… but… how? You touched my hand with fire in that restaurant in Germany and it didn’t burn me. It just felt warm. Why is this different?”
“I don’t know.” His face reflected the pain of the burn. I turned around, desperately seeking something or someone to help him. “Perhaps because it’s Duat fire and not fire from our reality. It’s not deep, probably about waist high, but we definitely won’t be able to swim through it.”
“What about your arm?” I said, doing a little dance of frustration when a spasm caused his lips to tighten.
“Gabriel said all dragons can heal themselves,” he said slowly, taking another couple of deep breaths. “Although the silver dragons are evidently the best at it. He said it’s just a matter of focusing on the hurt part.”
“Do it,” I said, putting my hands on his non-injured arm as if that would help him heal. “Just go to your calm place, and then focus on your arm.”
He stared sightlessly into the distance, his breath evening out, and after a few minutes of silence, the blisters began to sink back into his flesh and disappear. I watched in amazement as the redness and welts also faded away. Five minutes after he started, he waggled his fingers and sighed in relief. “Well, that’s a handy skill to have. I wish I’d known how to do that before. I once had an insect bite on my calf turn septic, and I spent a week in a Sao Paulo hospital before I could walk again.”
I gently took his injured hand, turning it over to make sure there wasn’t any residual burning or scarring, but it was just as hale and hearty as before he stuck his hand in the fire. “I’m going to be sure to send a thank-you note to the First Dragon just as soon as we get back to the normal world. But the question remains—how are we going to get back there? And just where is everyone else? Why aren’t they stuck out here with us?”
“Only one person on the boat has to successfully complete the challenges,” he said, eyeing the shore on the opposite side. “I suspect the rest of the passengers are quite content to let us do all the work.”
“That’s well and fine, but unless you’ve got a couple of asbestos blankets hidden on your person, I don’t see how we’re going to beat this one.”
He looked thoughtful. “Why would Mrs. P want a dragon for this job if the fire was going to be harmful to us?”
“I don’t know.” I was silent for a moment as I mulled that over. “It must be because we can do something no one else can do. Change into a scaly beast?”
“Possibly. What are dragons known for?”
“Love of gold,” I said, ticking the items off on my fingers. “Breathing fire. An interest in virgins.”
One side of Rowan’s mouth quirked upward. “Give me a lusty brunette widow any day.”
“You get an extra fondle on your noogies for that. Later, that is.” I bit my lower lip as I continued to dredge through my memory. “You can heal yourself, but there’s no way you can walk through that fire, let alone me do the same.”
“Fire,” he said thoughtfully, and with a face filled with concentration, set his hand on fire.
“That’s your fire,” I said, clicking my tongue at my inanity. “Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but that’s not the same fire as what’s all around us.”
“No, but this fire doesn’t hurt us. And it’s what dragonkin are known for, right? So perhaps this is the answer.”
“You’re going to try burning the fire in the lake with dragon fire?” I asked, confused.
“No. I’m going to use my fire as an asbestos blanket.” He took a deep breath and flashed me a smile. “Ready?”
“For what—Rowan!” I screeched, and tried to grab his arm when he plunged it back into the fire. This time he didn’t yelp and he didn’t pull his arm out instantly. He swished it around a few times, then stood up straight and held the arm out for me to examine.
It was uninjured.
I stared at it for a few minutes, then looked into his eyes. Quiet triumph was there, tinged with some well-deserved pride. “You’re a genius. Except… can you cover your lower half with fire?”
His brows pulled together in concentration. Fire sprang up at his feet, spreading upward over his knees, and continuing to spiral up to his waist. He let it get as high as his stomach, then looked at me speculatively. “Can you do this?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. The best I’ve done is the ball I had to splash repeatedly on your neck.” I closed my eyes and tried to find a place in my head that would allow me to access Rowan’s fire.
Three tiny little lemon-sized balls formed in my hands. I tried to smear them on my bare legs, but they just went out.
“That answers that question.” Rowan looked out at the shore. “We’re just going to have to risk it.”
“Risk what? You carrying me?”
He nodded. “Actually, I’m going to put you up on my shoulders. Just pretend you’re a small child trying to see over the heads of others.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, looking from his shoulders to the fiery inferno all around us. “I’ll crush you into the fire and then we’ll both burn to death. And I won’t be able to heal up. Not that, obviously, you can heal yourself from death. At least I don’t think you can. Can you?”
He laughed, and kissed me so swiftly I wasn’t able to respond before it was over. “I appreciate you thinking I can conquer death, but no, I’m certain that even wyverns can’t do that. We are both immortal now; according to Gabriel, you became so the second you accepted either your husband as your mate—assuming you had time enough to do that—or accepted me. And since I know you did the latter, you, my adorable half-naked nymph, are practically immortal.”
“But we can both still be killed, right?”
“Yes. It just takes a lot more to accomplish that.”
I gestured to the fire. “Seems to me that would do it.”
His smile faded. “It would if we didn’t have my fire. Ready?”
“Not even remotely,” I said, shaking my head and backing up the one step that was all the available landscape.
“I won’t let you get hurt,” he promised. I smiled a little to myself—that was most definitely the wyvern talking. The question was, did I trust his newfound wyvern abilities to handle this seemingly impossible position?
“All right, but if you drop me and I die horribly in the fire, I’m going to haunt you ’til the end of your days.”
“I should hope so. Up you go.”
It took a bit of time to get me hoisted up onto his shoulders, and then my balance was so wobbly I had to clutch his head.
“Sophea, I can’t see if you’re going to cover my eyes like that,” he pointed out.
“Oh. Sorry.” I adjusted my grip, my legs tucked back underneath his arms as if we were in a pool playing chicken fight.
“Here we go. Flame on!”
“Ha ha ha, very funny. I just hope—aiee!”
Rowan stepped down into the fire, his body up to his adorable belly covered in dragon fire. I curled my toes into his sides and clutched his hair as he walked toward the far shore, praying to any and all gods I could think of (including the First Dragon, should he be listening) that the lake got no deeper.
It didn’t.
“Well now,” Rowan said twenty-three minutes later when he deposited me on the bank at the other side of the lake. He leaped up to join me, the sweat beading on his brow the only sign that he was as nervous as I was. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I stared at him. “It’s as if you are a normal person, and yet you’re speaking utter and complete tripe. Not so bad, Rowan? Not so bad? We could have died out there! Immortally died!” I clutched the dried grasses of the bank and contemplated just what we’d been through. “I almost fell off you seven times.”
?
??Six. I wouldn’t count the time I stumbled as being your fault.”
I held up my foot, which was now sans one tennis shoe. “I’m lucky that it was only my shoe that got it when you almost fell and I slid around the front of you.”
He had the nerve to smile when he pulled me to my feet, wrapping an arm around my waist and turning me so the fire lake was to our backs. “Ah, but I greatly enjoyed you twisting around my body to get back into place. I would have liked it more if you’d done as I suggested and gone commando.”
I glared at him and limped forward. “It’s bad enough I’m just wearing your shirt, and don’t you think I’m not going to have a lot more to say to you about your fantasy about me going commando, but right now, I just want to get back to the ship, take a very cool shower, put on my Xena outfit—assuming the laundry people finally got to it—and make sure that hussy Mrs. P and her gaggle of sexy girls haven’t had some horrible accident while we were stranded. Following which I may lie down and refuse to deal with any more shenanigans of this type.”
Rowan took my hand, whistling softly to himself. Part of me was annoyed that he wasn’t as traumatized by our near miss as I had been, while the other part was filled with admiration. I hadn’t been sure when we started across the lake, but now I had every confidence that Rowan would make an admirable wyvern. If the man could handle walking through a fiery hell with a panicky woman clinging to his head and still make it out alive, then he could handle anything other dragons threw at him.
The bank rose in a gentle slope, and as we crested it, we could see the ship sitting placidly on the river some two hundred feet away.
Cheering broke out on board the ship as we approached, all the passengers lining the upper deck waving and calling congratulations at yet another challenge bested. I glared at them all, making a mental note to speak to them about someone else taking a turn, but realized as we entered the relative coolness of the lowest level of the ship that the final challenge was personal to each individual.
And as soon as it was over, Mrs. P would present the ring to her boyfriend.
As we stepped on board, the captain greeted us, saying, “You completed the challenge.”
“We did,” Rowan said, and I felt a little flame of ire within him.
I couldn’t blame him. The way the captain stated the obvious made my hackles go up a bit. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he would have liked us to fail.
Captain Kherty watched us for a moment, his expression completely unreadable, before giving a brief nod, and gesturing us toward the stairs. “You will no doubt wish to celebrate your accomplishment at the party later this evening. You will be my guests of honor.”
It was a statement, not a question, and although I wanted to tell him that we might have other plans, I reminded myself that antagonizing a man who could quite probably toss us off his ship wasn’t the best policy.
Besides, I had a couple of questions for him.
“One moment, please,” I said, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. “Have you found out who killed Ipy?”
“No.” His black eyes were as unreadable as his face. “We have not discovered a weapon or motive for the assault. The lady’s spirit has returned to the ship, and she herself does not know who her attacker is.”
“Doesn’t that concern you?” Rowan asked. “Were I in your shoes, I’d be more than a little worried about a murderer running rampant on my ship.”
“But you are not in my shoes,” the captain replied. “And this is Duat. All who travel here—all who are rightfully here—are not among the living. What is another death when you are already in spirit form?”
“Ipy wasn’t dead,” I argued. “Neither are any of the other priestesses, or Mrs. P, or May and Gabriel, and of course Rowan and me. There’s lots of non-dead people here, and as one of them, I’d sure as shooting appreciate it if you could get off your ass and find the mad decapitator, so he can’t go around lopping off anyone else’s head.”
“Get off my ass?” the captain asked, his voice filled with menace. “You dare speak to me thusly? I will not have it!”
Instantly, Rowan kicked into high dragon gear. He moved in front of me, his body language reading irritated aggression. “Do you threaten my mate?”
“I will not be addressed in that manner. I am captain of this ship.”
“Then do your job and keep your passengers safe,” Rowan snapped.
The captain growled and took a step forward.
Rowan’s body tensed, as if he was getting ready to spring.
“Whoa now,” I said, realizing that my ill-advised comments had pushed things too far. I insinuated myself between the two men, using my body to force Rowan back a few steps. “I may have been a little rude with the ‘get off your ass’ comment. If so, I apologize. Tempers are a bit frayed what with the whole escaping near-death in a lake of fire situation, so why don’t we all just agree to move past this, hmm?”
The captain glowered at Rowan, but after a moment in which I thought the two men were going to get into a physical altercation, the captain gave a sharp nod. “Your apology is accepted. The party starts at eight p.m. I will expect you there.”
I tugged Rowan up the stairs, ignoring his rude comments toward the captain. “Sorry to get you riled up. I was just so angry about the way no one sees Ipy’s death as being a big deal.”
He took a deep breath. “We have to remember that these aren’t mortal people, and we are not in the mortal world. Death here has a different meaning.”
“Gotcha.”
Ahead of us, Mrs. P and her team passed by an intersection of the hallway, singing a song in a language I didn’t understand. I was heartened to see Ipy in their group. Gilly spied us and ran down the hall to give Rowan and me big hugs.
“I’m so happy to see you both safe again! I bet the challenge was awful. The captain said you likely wouldn’t make it and someone else would have to go out to do the job.”
Ken and Barbie rounded a corner at the same time that the captain, behind us, emerged from the stairs, and with a smoldering look our way, proceeded up the next flight.
“I’d like to say it wasn’t that bad, but it was hideous,” I told Gilly, suffering her to give me another bear hug. “But honestly, all the credit goes to Rowan. He was downright magnificent in the way he problem-solved.”
Rowan looked modest. “I was inspired to beat the situation.”
Gilly eyed my unconventional garb and burst into laughter. “I can see that you were. I’ll let you go. I’m sure you want to… debrief.”
“Cute,” I said when she snickered. “I see Ipy is back.”
“Yes, her spirit is.” She glanced over her shoulder when Ken yoo-hooed us midway down the hall. “She says she didn’t see who lopped off her head, but she’s sworn vengeance on him or her. Luckily, her Ka is still intact, so she’ll be able to leave Duat, although she’ll always be a spirit.”
“Kinda puts a crimp on your day, I would imagine.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze before she dashed up the stairs.
“Hello again!” Ken called, bustling up to us before we could follow Gilly. “Hail the conquering heroes. I would ask you how the challenge went, but the very fact that you are here tells me what I want to know.”
“It was pretty frightening,” I told them, a little irritated at having to stay and make small talk when I wanted to think over the afternoon’s events.
“I imagine so, oh, I can imagine it was very frightening. And your employer there, she looked so very happy to see you unharmed.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” Rowan said before I could straighten out Ken’s misimpression, “we are a bit tired, and I know Sophea would like to get cleaned up and changed into something a little less revealing.”
“Of course you would. Oh, you poor thing, having to traipse around in your… er… shirt.”
“Lucky you weren’t fried to a crisp,” Barbie said with her usual gruff manne
r.
I forced a smile to my lips, then allowed Rowan to pull me up the stairs to our cabin.
“Not that I don’t like them, but thank you. Standing there dissecting the challenge is the last thing I want to do right now.”
“Good,” he said with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows. “I have other plans for you, anyway.”
We entered the cabin, but all the ladies were in Mrs. P’s room, evidently toasting our success (or the return of Ipy in ghost form) if the cries of happiness audible through the closed door were accurate.
Oddly, melancholy gripped me as we entered my room. “The cruise is due to end tomorrow.”
Rowan unloaded his pockets, dumping his small notebook, a couple of pens, the three bits of broken pinkish glass, and his cell phone onto the nightstand. The face he turned to me was as grim as my heart. “That’s right.”
I swallowed back a lump in my throat. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any insight as to what we can do to stop the ring’s doohickey from falling into demon hands?”
He shook his head. “There’s one last person I can contact in the morning. He’s an archimage, and has more than a little passing interest in alchemy. He’s also in charge of the group that polices the Otherworld, so he’s difficult to get hold of. I’ve been told he might answer a call from me in the morning.”
I sighed and plopped down on the bed. “That seems very last chance, but I don’t suppose we have an alternative.”
“None,” he said, sitting next to me. His shoulders slumped just a little, making me scoot over until I was pressed against him. He put his arm around me, and we sat like that for a long time, looking out of the porthole as the ship got underway again.
There just didn’t seem to be much more to say.
Seventeen
“Goddess above, below, and behind!”
Rowan looked up from his notebook when Sophea stormed into their cabin, slamming the door behind her. In her hand she held two bags. “Problems, my sweet?”