Chapter Eleven
“Y solde, you insult me. Again .”
I gave my hair an annoyed flip while passing Baltic, who was seated in the chair in the hallway, a newly purchased laptop on his knees. “You’re the only one who thinks that checking on Brom is insulting to you.”
“I will not allow harm to come to my son again.” He looked up from the laptop and leveled a frown at me. “The first time you checked on him was forgivable. This is the third time.”
“I’m a mother. I worry. It’s what I do best, all right? You’re just going to have to learn to deal with it.”
“You will trust that I will protect you and Brom, and return to bed where you should be,” he announced, his gaze once again on the laptop screen. “And you are incorrect.”
“I am?” I hesitated at the door to our room. “About what?”
A little smile curled the edges of his mouth, although he didn’t look up. “Worry is not what you are best at.”
I blushed at the heat in his voice and returned to bed, intending on going over again the plans for Constantine, but despite my nagging need to repeatedly check that Brom was safe, sleep once again claimed me until morning.
It took some doing to get Savian up, washed, and dressed, but we managed it in the end.
“Of all the embarrassing, annoying things I’ve ever had to do,” Maura grumbled as she climbed out of the bathroom window, tucking her shirt into her jeans.
“Look, you wanted privacy, and having one of us stand right outside the window while the other does her business is the best we can do. It’s my turn now, so I’d appreciate it if you turned on the radio, because I have an extremely shy bladder.”
“Mind your owies,” I told Savian as he hoisted himself up and into the bathroom. “They look much better, thanks to the healer’s attentions, but you’re not fully healed up yet.”
He gave me a stern look down the long length of his nose. “I am not Brom, Ysolde. I do not have owies .”
“My apologies. Just mind your wounds.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment, and with a glare at Maura, pushed the window down until it was just wide enough for her arm to dangle inside.
“Radio!” we heard him bellow.
“How about I talk to her instead?” I yelled back.
“All right, but no stopping to listen. My bladder can’t take it.”
Maura rolled her eyes, a little giggle escaping her. “Just when I think I can’t stand another minute of it, and I’m ready to kill him, he says something funny.”
I laughed. “I know the feeling.”
“I’m sure you do, although…this may sound rude, and I don’t in any way intend for it to be so, but Baltic has such a sinister reputation. I’ve heard him referred to my entire life as the ‘dread wyvern Baltic,’ and yet he doesn’t seem that bad to me. I mean, a man who would sit up for half the night just so that you wouldn’t worry about your son doesn’t scream badass to me.”
“He isn’t bad, but he can be very protective.” I thought for a moment. “How did you know he was sitting up for four hours?”
“Eh? Oh.” To my surprise, she blushed. “I…er…He came to check on us once. Er…” She cleared her throat, not meeting my gaze.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, sensing a mystery. I loved mysteries! “I told him before he went to relieve Pavel that Savian had fallen right asleep when I tucked you in for the night.”
Her blush deepened. “Savian was making…noises.”
“What sort of noises?”
“Just noises! Does it matter what sort of noises? A noise is a noise is a noise!” She took a deep breath.
I eyed her, wondering what was going on, but decided now was not the moment to press her. Not when I had other things to discuss. “He wasn’t in pain, was he?”
“Not in the way you think.” The words sounded as if they were being ground through her teeth. How very intriguing this was. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
I let her change the subject, making a mental note to ask Baltic later about what he heard. “You’re not going to like it.”
“What else is new?” she said with a slump of one shoulder.
“It’s about Thala….I know you’re probably going to resent my questions, and I think you know me well enough now to be aware I wouldn’t wish to cause you undue distress, but my son’s welfare is at stake here, as well as everyone else’s. I know full well that you are bound in loyalty to Thala and the other dragons in your tribe. I’m not trying to undermine the sense of camaraderie or friendship that you feel with them. And I know it’s going to be a difficult thing for you to go against everything you swore to uphold with the tribe, but I really have to ask if you know where Thala is right now, and if she has any intention of trying to harm Brom or the rest of us.”
“Ysolde, I don’t—” Maura started to say, but I lifted a hand to interrupt her. I knew she wouldn’t betray her tribe unless I gave her a very good reason to do so.
“Let me just add that I am well aware that there is a price on your head, and that if something doesn’t change very soon, thief-takers the world over will be looking for you and the rest of your tribe of ouroboros dragons because you guys broke into the L’au-dela vault in Paris.”
She blinked in surprise. “You know about that? How—oh, Emile.”
I nodded. “Actually, it was your mother who mentioned it, but your grandfather was very angry with her for telling me about it. She had to, though, in order to bring me up to speed if I wanted to help you.” I looked thoughtfully at her. “Which I failed to do, but loyalty to Violet prompts me to again make the offer of assistance I made two months ago in Ziema: I will help you return to your family, and I can just about guarantee that if you promise to leave Thala and the tribe, Dr. Kostich will remove the bounty for your capture that he swore he was going to put into place if you didn’t return the things your tribe stole.”
“Ysolde, I think you—yeouch!” Maura’s arm was jerked painfully against the windowsill, causing her to glare at the window, the privacy glass making it impossible to see in. She slapped a hand on the glass. “Hey!”
“Sorry,” came the reply. “I normally use that hand to—never mind.”
“Thank the saints you can heal bruises quickly,” I commented when she rubbed the abused part of her arm.
“If he thinks he can get anywhere with that sort of treatment—what? Oh yes.” She stopped grumbling to herself and gave me a long look. “What I was going to say is that you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”
“I do?” I stopped considering her and Savian as a couple and wondered where the flaw in my reasoning lay. “How so?”
“I am not beholden to Thala. I do not feel a sense of obligation to her, or loyalty, or, in fact, any of those things you mentioned.” My disbelief must have been obvious because she gave me a weak smile. “I’ve split from the tribe. I’m no longer a part of their plans—at least not in the sense you think—and have nothing to do with whatever it is Thala is now up to. And no, I don’t know where she is right now, although I suspect…” She hesitated a moment, her expression thoughtful as her gaze drifted over my shoulder.
“You suspect what?”
“I suspect she’s going to Russia.”
“You said that earlier.” That was uncomfortably close to Latvia, and Dauva. “Whereabouts in Russia? Moscow?”
Maura shrugged. “I don’t know. Wherever the sepulcher is.”
“The light sword,” I said softly, my mind whirling with a thousand things to say to Baltic. Part of me wanted to demand we leave the country immediately and go somewhere safe, but I knew that if I did get him to take Brom and me elsewhere, he’d return to oversee the building of Dauva. Not even the pain of temporary separation would keep him from that. And that would only leave him exposed to whatever foul plans Thala had for us. “Far better for us to stay together,” I murmured.
“Safety in numbers,” Maura agreed.
My gaze slid back to her. “If you’re no longer working for Thala, then why were you in the Spanish castillo with her tribe of dragons?”
She glanced at the window, slapping her hand on the glass again.
“What?” Savian responded with annoyance.
“How much longer are you going to be in there?”
“I’m trying to shave. Stop moving your arm or I’ll cut my throat. And don’t say what you’re going to say, and yes, I know you’re thinking it.”
Maura gave me another considering look, then made a short nod, as if she’d come to a decision. “Mum said you were her friend for many decades, so I’ll trust you. When I returned to Spain from Ziema two months ago, I was appalled and shocked at Thala’s plans for you. I told her so. I objected to the fact that she had undermined my authority with men who were placed in my charge, but more, I objected to her plan of violence. Thala told me I had no voice in the matter, and my job was simply to get the location of the sepulcher from Emile, and that she’d had her plans in place for too long for them to be messed up by the likes of me, and…and…oh, just buckets more of that sort of thing. I was never comfortable having to use my family like that, but the violence against you and Baltic was the final straw. The end result was that I renounced the tribe and prepared to leave them.”
She stopped, the fingers of her free hand playing with the belt loops on her jeans.
“I’m glad to know you weren’t a part of the plan to harm us,” I said somewhat dryly. “And I’m sure Dr. Kostich will be relieved to know you won’t be pumping him for information that he surely would not tell you.”
Pain flashed across her face as she leaned against the house. “That’s just the trouble—he’s got to tell me where it is.”
“So you can tell Thala?”
She nodded, her eyes closed, her face weary.
I studied her for a moment, trying to piece together the bits of what was puzzling me. “Is Thala blackmailing you for it?”
She nodded again.
“What, exactly, is she—”
“Ysolde!”
The roar that carried my name from the other side of the house was a familiar one, the fury in it warning me that it would be folly to remain where I was in order to pin down Maura for more information.
“My beloved! Do not heed the traitorous one. He is weak, as he has always been.”
“Traitorous!” Birds squawked like crazy as they flew out of the nearby trees in protest of Baltic’s bellow. It was amazing how well the sound carried. I imagined the people in town some four miles away could hear him. “I am not the traitor here!”
“You stole the black sept from me!”
“I challenged you and won it from you! You lost!”
“Because you cheated!”
“Sadly, that voice is also familiar,” I said, sighing.
“You shouldn’t have had me summon him, then,” Maura said with a wry smile.
“Hindsight, twenty-twenty, and all that,” I told her, heading off to interrupt what was sounding like a huge fight between Baltic and Constantine. “We’ll continue this discussion later.”
Unfortunately, that hindsight didn’t just fail me when it came to the subject of resurrecting spirits—it also let me down with regard to Maura.
It took a good hour to get Constantine out of our hair, and by then, Savian had taken off for parts unknown with Maura in tow. Pavel left shortly after that to return to England in order to gather up our belongings, leaving Holland to complete his recovery with us.
Duty-bound, I tried calling Maura’s mother, but for the third time in a week, I wasn’t able to reach her. After some thought, I decided that I owed it to Violet to contact her father. Again. “He’d just better not try to turn me into anything this—hello?”
“Yes,” a sharp voice snapped into the phone. “What do you want?”
“Good morning, Dr. Kostich. It’s Ysolde de Bouchier, again. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Violet, but I wanted to tell her that Maura is with us, in case she’s worried about Maura running around in Spain with a bunch of nutball ouroboros dragons.”
“I still have nothing to say to you, dragon.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing, but I thought—”
The phone clicked in my ear.
I sighed and hung up. “Evidently you don’t want to know how your own granddaughter is. You rotter.”
Between getting the monstrous house into a habitable state, doing copious amounts of shopping in town with Brom firmly at my side—much to his disgust, until Baltic and I took him into Riga to buy equipment for his new lab—keeping Baltic and Constantine separated (not to mention focusing the latter on locating Kostya’s lair), and generally trying to settle into a new home, two days passed during which I didn’t have time to do much beyond collapsing exhaustedly into bed each night.
“You are working too hard,” Baltic told me the morning of the third day, watching me chop basil for the bacon and goat cheese frittata I was making for breakfast. “You have dark circles under your eyes. I do not like this. You will take more naps.”
I glanced up at him, startled for a second. “ More naps?”
“Yes. The ones you are taking are too short, and you are restless at night, and not sleeping well.” He frowned. “Are you still worried about the safety of our son? The electronic security system put into place yesterday is more than adequate, mate, and I will engage a firm of Guardians to place wards on the house every few days. Thala will not be able to do us any harm here.”
“I’m not worried about that any longer. At least, I am worried, but not to the point I was. You’ll notice that last night I didn’t get up once to check on Brom.”
“I noticed. You still did not sleep well. You are doing too much.”
“Not since you hired a veritable platoon of cleaning ladies to scrub down this mausoleum. But as we’re on the subject of things I should do, I’ve been thinking about what you told me.” I cut a quarter of the frittata and placed it on a waiting plate, alongside some fresh berries, chicken apple sausage made locally, and two croissants. Baltic accepted the plate with a murmur of thanks. I picked up a small walkie-talkie. “Moonbase one to Brom. Breakfast is ready, and your attendance is required pronto.”
His response, somewhat crackly, was immediate. “I’m just setting up my draining table. I’ll eat later.”
“You’ll eat now, and thank you very much for putting the image of a draining table in my mind when I’m about to have breakfast. I expect you to be washed up and in here in five minutes.”
“Aw, Sullivan…” Luckily, he stopped transmitting before continuing. I yelled up the stairs to Nico and Holland that breakfast was ready, and started on the second frittata when Baltic, his attention now happily diverted to breakfast, asked, “Where is the thief-taker?”
“He and Maura went into town to get some clothing. They should be back soon.”
“Ah. What is it you believe you should do?”
I listened for a moment but didn’t hear anyone coming down the stairs. “It’s about that last vision, when your mother was being sepultured.”
“Sepulture is not a verb,” was all he said before he slathered his croissant with grapefruit marmalade. I grimaced at the action—Baltic had an insatiable sweet tooth, but that was no reason to ruin a perfectly lovely croissant.
“I know it’s not; I was just being quirky. You love it when I’m quirky. But that’s beside the point. The other night you said that the First Dragon blamed you for your mother’s death. That’s got to be the death of the innocent that he was referring to when he told me I had to redeem your honor.”
Baltic sighed, just as I knew he would. “Still you insist on listening to that foolishness. I have told you many times that my honor does not need your attentions, despite what the First Dragon would have you believe. I grow tired of repeating myself, and if you continue to make me do so, I will be forced to take action.”
“What sort of action?” I was unable to resist asking.
“Perhaps I will punish you as I did a week ago.”
I thought for a few seconds. “That wasn’t punishment! That was you being bossy as usual, and making incredibly hot love to me outside when everyone in the pub was asleep. And don’t you even think you can distract me with thoughts of just how wonderful that outdoor interlude was, because it won’t work.”
Baltic set down his fork and raised one eyebrow.
“All right, it’s working a little bit, in so much as I think I’ll take a couple of blankets out to the north ruins, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Baltic, whether you want to or not, I’m going to restore your honor to such a state as will make your father happy, and by the saints, you will help me!”
He frowned as he took the last bite of frittata. “I do not care what the First Dragon thinks of me.”
“He’s your father!”
“And about this, he is wrong. I have explained that to you.” His black eyes glittered dangerously at me, but I knew that underneath his anger, a little morsel of pain existed.
I pulled the second frittata off the stove and went over to sit on Baltic’s lap, gently kissing his face and smoothing back his hair as I said, “My love, I do not doubt that you are right. The First Dragon is wrong to blame you, but he is the First Dragon. He is the ancestor of us all, and he has placed a task upon my shoulders. Would you have me fail when he has done so much for us?”
“He has done nothing but give us grief all our lives.” Baltic’s fingers tightened on my legs as he turned his face into my neck, kissing all those spots that made me shiver with delight.
“He resurrected me twice, and for that I will be eternally thankful, because it meant that you and Brom are in my life. I can’t refuse to do what he asks, not when it concerns you. I know you think this is nothing but folly, and I don’t blame you in the least for being offended that you’re in this position, but please, my love, my most adorable love, do it for me.”
His sigh ruffled my hair, but dragon fire wrapped around us. “What is it you wish for me to do?”
“I think the First Dragon wants you to pay penance for your mother’s death. No, don’t say it. I know you weren’t responsible, and you shouldn’t have to do it, but if it will make him happy and fulfill the task he’s bound to me, then you’re just going to have to do it.”
“Bah,” he snorted, gently pushing me from his lap and giving my behind a swift pat in the process. “If I do what you ask of me, you will understand that it is for your sake alone that I do so.”
“I understand.” I smiled up at him as he stood and stretched, enjoying, as I always did, the sight of his shirt pulled tight across his impressive chest. I fought the need to stroke that chest, reminding myself that this was more important.
“What must I do in order to fulfill this penance?”
“Well…” I thought for a moment. “I’d say in this case it was to make reparation for the damage done. When your mother died, you killed Chuan Ren’s guards, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
I kissed his chin and returned to finish the frittata. “Which prompted her to attack the black dragons?”
“In a way. She declared war against us and the green dragons, and within six months, the entire weyr was at war with one another.”
“Right, so really, I think the First Dragon wants you to pay for that, for causing the Endless War.”
“I didn’t cause it!”
“Of course you didn’t! As much as I hate to speak ill of the dead, Chuan Ren was a vindictive woman, and one, I suspect, who loved to be at war. I have no doubt she set you up to provide her ample reason to declare a weyr-wide war. But your father obviously views things differently, and thus, you’re going to have to make reparations for that.”
He thinned his lips and stood with his hands on his hips. “How do you expect me to do that?”
“A good start would be to lift the curse off the silver dragons.”
“No.”
“It would show everyone—the First Dragon included—that you were sorry for how things turned out.”
“I will not lift it. I have no reason to do so.”
“But—”
“No!” He marched over to the door, obviously about to leave, but paused and sent me a scathing look. “If that is all you have to suggest, then I will go into town and meet the builders. They are arriving today, and I must take them to Dauva.”
“Wait a second. I’m not done talking about this.” I yanked the frittata off the burner again and ran after him as he left the house and started for the car. “If you won’t lift the curse, then what about the light dragons joining the weyr? Then you can formally apologize to everyone for the events of the past, and maybe even, I don’t know, set up some sort of a fund for needy dragons whose families were decimated by the war. I think that might placate the First Dragon.”
“We do not need to join the weyr. They have nothing to do with us.”
“Because you won’t let them. Baltic, I really would like for us to be a part of the weyr.”
He stopped at the car, gave me a swift, hard kiss, and yet another pat on the behind, and said simply, “We do not need them,” before hopping in the car and leaving.
“Gah!” I yelled, wishing for a moment that I knew some sort of spell to make dragons less stubborn.
“Are you going to yell at me because it’s been six minutes instead of five?” a voice asked behind me.
I gave my own little sigh and turned to usher Brom into the house. “No, as long as you washed your hands.”
“I did.”
I looked at his hands. “They don’t look any too clean to me. What did you do—hold them near water but not actually in it?”
He sighed the put-upon sigh common to those under the age of ten. “I found some owl pellets out back and had to collect them so I can dissect them later. You can’t do that without getting a little dirty, but I washed off most of it at the faucet outside.”
I stared in horror at the child I had borne. “You did…No, Brom, just no! It’s bad enough that you make mummies from whatever dead things you can find. That, I suppose, has some sort of scientific value, although just what escapes me at the moment. But I draw the line at your collecting owl poop!”
“Owl pellets, not poop,” Brom said, and with blithe disregard to my reaction, he took his plate and started shoveling eggs into his mouth before nodding toward the two men who entered the kitchen. “Nico, Sullivan thinks an owl pellet is poop. It’s not, though.”
“No, it’s not,” Nico said with a bright smile. He accepted the plate of food I handed him with an appreciative sniff. “Owl pellets contain the undigested food that owls regurgitate once they are done consuming their prey. Brom has long wished to study them, but I wanted to wait until we were settled to find a local source for them.”
“Uh-huh.” I gave Holland a swift, assessing glance, but he appeared to be wholly healed. He thanked me as I gave him a plate, taking his place at the table with the others.
“I assure you, Ysolde, they’re fascinating objects, and there are several companies who make pellet dissection kits available to children. Am I to take it that Brom found one on his own?”
“Yeah. It’s a big one, too. I bet it used to be a cat or something.”
“You are an unnatural child,” I told Brom, and took my own plate to the far side of the kitchen table, where I proceeded to ignore the discussion of just what gruesome things one might find in owl barf.
Pavel arrived soon after that, driving a large moving truck that I greeted with cries of happiness. It took a few hours to unload and put away our things, but by the time that had been done, and the day’s squad of cleaning women had worked their way through the remainder of the house that previously had been left uncleaned, I was beginning to feel more at home.
“Well, it’s certainly not anywhere I’d like to spend the rest of my life, but at least it’s habitable,” I said aloud to no one as I stood in the empty front hall, looking around for traces of cobwebs or dust that had been missed. The cleaning ladies knew their stuff, however, and if the house wasn’t attractive, at least it was no longer caked in dirt and grime.
“Was that a moving truck I saw leaving the road?”
I turned at the voice and smiled. Maura’s color was very high as she and Savian entered the house, while his hair was tousled, and his shirt buttoned up incorrectly.
“Yes, Pavel got here with our things. Including…” I pulled a small jeweler’s box from my pocket. “Ta da! The spare key to your handcuffs that your landlady allowed Pavel to retrieve.”
“Ergh,” Savian said, looking sideways at Maura. “My…uh…landlady. Yes. Just so.”
“I’m sure you two will be delighted to finally have them off,” I said, my expression innocent as I handed over the key. “I know how wearing it’s been to be constantly together, day and night, every single moment, with no privacy, just the two of you. Especially since we haven’t seen much of you these last few days while you’ve been out doing…What is it you’ve been out doing?”
Maura shot me a startled look. “Savian has been doing some research for a job he says you hired him for, but he won’t let me see the computer screen while he’s doing it, so I have no idea what is going on other than I’ve been forced to forgo all of my plans and spend every day doing what he wants.”
Savian grinned wickedly at her for a second, then cast a glance toward me, cleared his throat, and said, “In part, I’ve been trying to locate your ex-husband, but I lost his trail somewhere in Switzerland, and just haven’t had a lot of time to devote to that because you told me the other project was to take priority.”
“It is the more important of the two, yes,” I said, watching them, hesitating to tell Maura that we, too, were searching for the location of the sepulcher. I had no idea with what Thala was blackmailing her, but I would never let the light sword go, not while I had such a desperate need for such a valuable object.
“And then we…got a bit…distracted.” Maura fidgeted uncomfortably.
Savian seemed to realize just how obvious she was being, for he murmured something noncommittal before using the key to unlock three different sections of the handcuff.
It opened with a loud click, and a louder sigh of relief from Maura. She rubbed her wrist, and with an unreadable look at Savian, excused herself. “I’m going to take a shower by myself for a change.”
My eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
She blushed and stammered, “Not that Savian and I have taken a shower together.”
“That’s not quite the truth, princess,” Savian said to her with a wink. “Just yesterday you were taking a shower with me.”
“Not with you,” she said, a tad desperately, I thought. “It’s not like that at all, Ysolde. Savian was in the room with me, but not in the shower!”
“I know that full well,” I said, taking pity on her face, which was now beet red. “I brought in some towels while you were having your shower.” My gaze slid to Savian. I’d caught him peeking in through the shower curtain, but decided their budding romance—if they were destined for one—would benefit from a blind eye turned once in a while.
She shot Savian another look and ran up the stairs.
I turned my attention to him.
“There are no flies on you, are there?” he asked.
“No. I’m very fond of her mother, though, and would not take kindly to anyone toying with Maura.”
“Oh, but there’s so much to toy with.” He grinned unashamedly for a second.
“I take it you haven’t found the sepulcher yet?” I asked.
His grin faded. “Not yet, although I’m down to just four possible locations. I hope to narrow it down further tomorrow.”
“The sooner, the better. I don’t know if Maura’s told you, but Thala is on the hunt for it, as well, and we need to get there before her.”
He saluted. “Aye aye, mon capitaine.” His expression sobered as he rubbed his chin, saying thoughtfully, “My landlady, eh? I’ll have to see to her before—”
I waited for him to finish, but he simply thanked me for the key, and, whistling to himself, slowly mounted the stairs.
An hour later, I tracked down Pavel already at work in the kitchen, Holland at his side. “Can I see you for a minute?” I asked Pavel, gesturing toward a dark pantry that sat off the kitchen.
He followed, giving me a curious glance as I clutched a plastic shopping bag to my chest.
“I want to know three things, and I expect you to answer them, and not give me the usual dragon runaround.”
“I will do my best,” he answered, looking as if he wanted to smile.
“First of all, do you have any idea why Thala would want Baltic’s talisman? The one the First Dragon gave him?”
“The talisman?” He rubbed his ear and looked thoughtful. “She is not a full-blooded dragon. If her mother had been a mortal human, then yes, I would understand. But Antonia von Endres was an archimage, and thus her daughter’s blood was not pure by dragon standards.”
“Why would you understand if Antonia had been mortal?”
“You remember about wyverns, yes?”
“I know they have to have one human parent, if that’s what you mean. Except Baltic, of course, but that’s because his father was the First Dragon.”
Pavel nodded. “All of the First Dragon’s first generation children founded septs, including Baltic. They were able to do so because they bore the talisman.”
A little chill ran down my spine. “It has that much power?”
“Not power so much as it is an artifact recognized by the weyr. If the bearer is a dragon, he or she can form a sept and no one in the weyr can deny its existence. Have you never wondered why ouroboros dragons did not form their own septs rather than tribes?”
“They didn’t have a talisman,” I said slowly.
“Hence they can only form tribes,” he agreed.
“But…” I bit my lip in thought. “But Constantine formed his own sept, and he didn’t have a talisman.”
“Didn’t he?”
I narrowed my eyes at Pavel. “He isn’t one of Baltic’s brothers, if that’s what you’re implying. Baltic said all his siblings were dead, and besides, Constantine told me his father had died many centuries ago.”
“No, no, I did not mean that he formed the silver sept because he was the child of the First Dragon. I meant simply that he did possess a talisman in order to create the sept.”
A flash of insight struck me. “He stole Baltic’s talisman, too? Or did he take one from some other dragon? Are the talismans handed down to wyverns, like the dragon heart shards are?”
“I do not know—I am not privy to the intimate details of other septs.”
“Baltic must have gotten it back from Constantine,” I mused, wondering if the day would come that my memory would ever return to me. Then again, perhaps Baltic—not the most forthcoming of individuals when it concerned private things—had never told me about the theft of his talisman. “Did I know about this before I was killed?”
He shrugged. “You would have to ask Baltic that.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do me.” I made a face at the wall. “He hates answering questions about the past.”
“What were the other two things you wanted to speak to me about?” Pavel glanced toward the door behind him. “I was about to put the rib of beef into the oven, and I wished to put a rub on it first.”
“Oh, I wanted to ask you…Rib of beef? How are you cooking it?”
“Just roasting it with thyme, potatoes, and some root vegetables.”
“Thyme? What an excellent idea. Would you like me to make a salad?”
“If you wish to, although I’d planned on grilling some courgette, and tossing it with feta, mint, and pine nuts as the salad.”
I started salivating at the thought. “No, no, you go ahead with that. Um. What was it I wanted to ask…oh, Baltic said when we came here that he was having someone in England try to locate where Gareth and Ruth went when they left the castillo . Did you happen to find out if they’ve been tracked?”
“I did, and they haven’t.” He made a little gesture. “I’m sorry, Ysolde. I told Baltic yesterday that the tracker reported they disappeared after going to Geneva.”
“Damn. That matches what Savian said.” I let myself dwell with much satisfaction on what I wanted to do to Gareth once we did find him again.
“And the third thing? I really must baste the vegetables before they are put in with the beef.”
With an effort, I pulled my attention back from thoughts of a cattle prod being applied to Gareth. “Hmm? Oh, this.” I held out the bag. “I bought these in London the day Brom was taken, and I meant to give them to you to use with Holland, but things went to hell in a handbasket that night, and they got shoved into the wardrobe with my things.”
Pavel pulled out the toys I’d purchased for him, his eyes widening at the sight of the bed restraint system. “The cuffs alone would have been enough,” he said, then blinked as he pulled out the C-shaped item. “Christos.”
“I didn’t know whether you like that sort of thing or not, so I got a couple of different ones,” I said, pulling out a stimulator. “This one is ribbed. I assume that’s good, although I wouldn’t want…never mind. And this wand can be used by two people at the same time, which I thought was pretty handy. Now, the electric jobby is brand-new, and Dido, the lady at the sex store, says it’s a huge hit with gentlemen, although you have to be sure to attach both electrodes before turning it on. Oh, and she said because of the shape, there’s a special way to…er…use it. She said you need to lie on your side—”
“Thank you,” Pavel said quickly, snatching the toy from me and stuffing it into the bag along with the others. “You’ve been more than generous, but I believe I will be able to work out how to use everything.”
I beamed at him, pleased that he was so enthusiastic. “I hope you enjoy them. And Holland enjoys them, too. Do let me know how that bed restraint goes, and whether or not the electric thing works as well as Dido said it does.”
I swear he choked as he hurried out of the pantry, but I put it down to his being overwhelmed with the number of toys I’d brought. “Now, if I can just get Baltic to agree to play with the toys I bought for us, we’ll be set.”