“It was all just a little bit of fun,” I said, putting my arm around Savian. “Wasn’t it, old friend?”
He whimpered and clutched his sides. “My liver! Don’t hurt my liver again!”
“You know Savian, too?” May asked.
“Ow! My neck!”
“Too? You . . . uh . . . know him?” I countered, releasing the pincer hold I had on the back of his neck.
“May and I are old friends. She’s never tried to hurt me,” he said, shooting me a belligerent glare as he shuffled away from me and over to her.
“Oh. Uh . . .” I coughed and tried to think of an excuse to get the man alone for a few minutes. “Isn’t that a coincidence. We’ve known each other for . . . oh, forever.”
“I’ve never seen her before in my life,” Savian told May. “Don’t leave me alone with her. She’s vicious. I think she was trying the Vulcan neck pinch on me.”
“Hmm,” May said. “Why don’t we all go into the house?”
I trailed behind them as they entered the house, thinking furiously.
“So what are you doing here?” May asked Savian as I closed the door behind me.
“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.
I wanted to shove them both in the pond I’d seen a hint of as we stopped in front of the house.
“You made it, I see,” Kostya said somewhat sourly, his gaze flickering between Drake—who I had learned that morning was his brother—and me.
“Shall we go inside?” Gabriel asked, taking May’s hand and leading her up the stairs.
I sent one last poignant glance toward the flower garden, my heart crying at the thought of it in the hands of Cyrene. “It wants someone who understands it, someone who will love it and nurture it,” I murmured as I slowly climbed the five stairs to the door.
“You OK, Sullivan?” Brom asked, waiting for me at the top. “You look kind of funny.”
I smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze as we entered the door. “I just really like this pl—”
The world went black the second my foot crossed the threshold. I heard voices exclaiming, and someone calling my name, but it seemed to come from a long distance away. I turned away from the blackness, moving back out into the sunshine.
Another vision, I thought to myself as I went to the garden without consciously making the decision to do so. I hope this one doesn’t last too long. I’d like to see the garden for real before we have to leave.
As I reached the area where the garden had been, I realized that something was different this time. For one, the flowers and shrubs seemed to shimmer in and out of focus, and nothing like that had happened in the previous visions or dreams. For another, two people stood in the center of a tangle of greenery. As I moved past a young willow tree, I caught sight of a third person standing to my left, a dark shadow unmoving against a tree. A gardener or workman of some sort, I thought, and dismissed him as I turned back to the couple.
It was me . . . or rather, it looked like me, and I realized with a shock that it was the me of the visions, the person whose experiences I had felt and lived. She was smiling up at a man whose back was to me, but I could tell by the love shining in her eyes that it was Baltic.
I moved around to the other side of the willow, wanting to hear what they said, but not wishing to disturb the vision.
“That’s too many,” Baltic said, frowning at the me-Ysolde. She poked him in the arm, and his frown melted into a smile. “You’ll leave me no room for the house. We’ll have nothing but garden.”
I looked behind me. The house was there, but like the flowers and shrubs of the garden, it seemed to shimmer and fade in and out of view.
I was seeing a memory of the land as it was before the house and gardens had been built.
“And here, Madonna lilies and pinks, heartsease and leopard’s-bane. Campion over there, against the wall, and daffodils and violets down by the pond. On that side, we’ll have beds of wallflowers and lavender, marjoram and roses, great long beds of roses of every hue. And we’ll have an orchard, Baltic, with apple trees, pears, plums, and cherries, and on the long summer days, we will sit beneath one and I will love you until you fall asleep in my arms. We will be happy here. At least . . .”
A shadow fell over her face. She looked into the distance for a few seconds.
“Chérie, do not do this to yourself.”
“I can’t help it. What if it was true, Baltic? What if I was his mate?”
“Constantine wanted you as all males want you,” Baltic said, taking her loosely in his arms. “But you were not meant to be his mate.”
“How do you know?” She looked troubled, and I understood the worry and guilt she felt at causing pain in another.
“I just know. If you were to die, I would cease living. That tells me you are my true mate, and no one else’s.”
“But you don’t know—”
“I know,” he said, catching up her hands and kissing her fingers.
She hesitated, and Baltic smiled and brushed a strand of hair off her face before pulling her past me, toward the place where the house now stood. “Enough of these dismal thoughts. I have something that will please you. I have designed the house. If you approve of it, it will be done by Michaelmas.”
“I will get started on the gardens right away,” she answered, smiling up at him again. My throat ached at the joy in her face, at the love that shone so brightly in her eyes. “And there I will pledge my fealty to you, surrounded by the sweet-smelling flowers.”
He growled something in her ear I couldn’t hear, and she ran off ahead of him, laughing, her long hair fluttering in the wind as he chased her out of my sight.
I held on to the tree for a moment, my fingers clutching painfully at the bark, possessed with a sorrow so great it seemed to leach up out of the ground.
A noise caused me to look up, and I noticed the third figure as he took a step away from the tree against which he’d been leaning. He dropped suddenly to his knees, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking as if he’d given in to the most devastating anguish, the grief that racked his body so profound, waves of suffering rolled off him, choking me with his despair and hopelessness. Mindlessly I stepped forward, driven to comfort him by the bond of one living being to another, even knowing as I did that this shadow figure was beyond my reach.
Gravel crunched beneath my foot and the figure looked up, getting clumsily to his feet. He stepped out of the shadows of the trees and my breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding so loudly I thought it would burst out of my chest.
“Ysolde?” His voice was ragged and raw, as if he’d swallowed acid. He stared at me in stark, utter disbelief.
“You’re . . . Baltic?” I asked.
My voice seemed to bring him from his stupor. He took a step toward me, stumbling, his head shaking all the while his eyes were searching me, searching my face, trying to tell if I was real or not. “It cannot be.”
“I saw you in the park. You are Baltic, aren’t you?”
“You . . . live?”
“Yes,” I said, chills running down my arms. He looked nothing like the man in the visions—except for his eyes. Those were the same onyx, glittering like sunlight on a still pond. “My name is Tully now.”
He stopped a few feet from me, reaching out tentatively, as if he wanted to touch me, but was afraid to do so.
“Ysolde?”
A woman’s voice called my name. Baltic froze, then whirled about.
“That sounds like M
ay,” I said, frowning as I gazed back at the house. “I wonder how she got here?”
“Silver mate!” Baltic spat, running a few yards away from me as if he sought something.
May emerged from behind the tree, smiling as she saw me. “There you are. We’ve been looking all over for you. We thought something might have happened to—agathos daimon! It’s Baltic.”
“Yes, he is sharing the vision with me,” I said. “How is it that you’re seeing it, too?”
“Run!” May said, grabbing my arm and pulling me after her as she took to her heels.
“You don’t understand. I need to talk to him—”
“Not here in the shadow world,” she yelled, her grip like steel on my wrist.
“Ysolde!” Baltic’s roar was filled with fury like nothing I’d ever heard.
“This way!” May jerked me brutally as I tried to stop, pulling me so hard I slammed into the side of the car, seeing stars for a few seconds.
“Whoa!” Brom said, hurrying over to me, concern written all over his face. “You just appeared, like, right out of the air! Sullivan?”
“I’m all right. Just a little dazed.”
“Baltic is here,” May gasped, throwing herself on Gabriel. “In the shadow world. He almost had her. We barely escaped.”
“Then he will be”—as Gabriel spoke, the air gathered and twisted upon itself, stretching to form the figure of a man who leaped forward out of nothing—“soon upon us.”
“Don’t hurt him!” I cried as Gabriel and Kostya both jumped on Baltic. “Let me talk to him—”
“Hold him!” Drake ordered, coming around the far side of the car.
“Oh, man, I can’t believe I almost missed this,” Jim said, running down the stairs with Aisling right behind it.
“I’ll put a binding ward on him,” she called as she started to sketch a shape in the air.
“No!” I yelled, catching her hand to stop her. “Why are you people doing this? Stop, all of you! This has to stop!”
Baltic screamed an oath in a Slavic language, shaking off both Kostya and Gabriel. For a moment, for the time it took to pass from one second to another, his gaze met mine. Anger and hope and pain were in it, but before I could blink, he was gone.