“Jim!” Cyrene shoved it aside, hastily tucking her phone into her pocket. “It’s illegal to read someone’s text messages!”
“In town here, yes,” May repeated, dragging her gaze off her twin.
“Is Brom with him?” I asked, worried that Brom might somehow get involved with my plans.
“No, he’s still in London with Maata and Tipene. I believe they were going to have a mummy movie marathon tonight. We thought it was best he stay there until you pick him up tomorrow. You didn’t want Gabriel to bring him, did you?”
“No. Not that I think there’s going to be any trouble, but I’m much more comfortable knowing he’s out of the blast zone, so to speak.”
May took in our worried expressions. “Don’t worry that Gabriel’s going to do anything to interfere with our plans. He realizes that this is probably our best shot of getting Baltic to lift the curse. Plus he never really saw the reasoning in keeping Thala prisoner any longer.”
“A sane voice in a crowd of maniacs,” I murmured.
To my surprise, Aisling laughed. “If you knew how often I’ve thought that about dragons . . . But you gotta love them despite their archaic rules.”
Aisling, May, and I smiled. I thought of Baltic, so infuriating at times that he made me want to pull out my hair, and yet so filled with love that just thinking about what he’d been through had the power to bring tears to my eyes.
“Why don’t you try your magic now?” May suggested as Cyrene rejoined us, Jim following her. “We’ve still got nine minutes. It would be a good opportunity to see if this Grace Dr. Kostich gave you will help.”
“Good idea.” I looked around for something upon which I could cast a spell.
“Oooh, magic!” Cyrene said. “I love magic. Can you change Jim into something? Like a toad?”
“Hey!” Jim protested, backing away from her.
“Tempting, but I think I should start smaller.” I narrowed my attention on a small rock that was partially visible in the soil at the base of a nearby willow tree. “I’ll do a simple spell to turn that rock into a tongue stone.”
“What on earth is a tongue stone?” Aisling asked, moving next to me to watch as I picked up the rock and dusted off the bits of grass and dirt that clung to it.
“It’s something that was taught to me by a member of a Serbian Romany tribe. They are traditionally made from small meteorites or, alternately, lightning-struck stones, and are highly charged with power that is used for divination purposes. Anyone can make a tongue stone, but since it’s made by burying it and urinating on it”—I gave Jim a sharp look as its ears perked up—“I’ll use the magical equivalent.”
“Mage pee? Ew,” Jim said, snuffling my hand as I passed my hand over the stone, drawing a pattern in the air.
“I’ve never actually seen a mage work,” Aisling whispered to May. “I thought they did spoken spells, not wards.”
“There are elements of both in mage work,” I said, trying to find the place in my mind from which the magic flowed. I knew if I could just find it, I’d be able to cast the spell, but it seemed to be obscured by Baltic’s dragon fire. I’d just have to use that instead.
“From the farthest star, to the deepest earth, stone borne of lightning, to me you will speak.” I held the stone over my head, drawing on the fire to imbue the stone with the power of divination. “Lightning-borne, wrought in fire, plunged in water, buried in earth. The elements combine in thee; reveal your true nature now!”
There was an instantaneous flash of blue-white light, thankfully silent. I lowered my hand, aware almost immediately that something had gone wrong.
“Er . . .” Aisling pursed her lips.
“That doesn’t look right,” May agreed.
I stared in surprise at the small brown and white rabbit that sat equally astonished on the palm of my hand. “Well, crap.”
“A bunny!” Cyrene said happily, taking it from me.
Jim shouldered me aside to get to her. “You mean dinner! Yum.”
“You even
“It’s not real,” Jim objected. “It’s really a rock. Right, Soldy?”
I went over the spell again, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. “No, it was all correct. That should have done it,” I said, shaking my head. “The tongue stone spell isn’t anything at all like a polymorph spell. It should have worked. Why aren’t you a stone?” I asked the rabbit.
It twitched its nose at me, then leaped from Cyrene’s arms to scurry off into the night.
“You guys are no fun at all,” Jim grumbled, watching it leave with much sadness.
“I think it’s probably safe to say that your magic is still affected,” May said, hesitating before she continued. “Perhaps we should do this another time, when it’s been restored?”
“I don’t know when I’m going to have another opportunity,” Aisling said. “Drake doesn’t like leaving the babies for long, and with all due respect to Gabriel, he won’t entertain the subject of letting Thala go. I’m afraid that for Jim and me at least, it’s going to have to be tonight.”
“It’ll be all right,” I said after some thought. “I think the problem is that I had to use Baltic’s fire, and not my happy place. That no doubt caused the spell to go a bit wonky.”
“Your happy place? Is that anything like a door in your head that you open to see things differently?” Aisling asked.
“Not really. It’s the place in my mind where my magic comes from. It’s calm there, and filled with light, and I use that light to make things happen. The problem is that I haven’t been able to find it since I came out of that last fugue, but I’m sure that’s because of everything that’s happened. Dr. Kostich used to tell us apprentices that we might occasionally lose track of our happy place, but we never lost it for long.”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I would give good money to see Dr. Kostich say the words ‘find your happy place’ to someone,” Jim said.
May laughed. “Me, too.”
“You’re sure your magic is up to this?” Aisling asked me. “If not, we can sacrifice Jim or something in order to get the same effect.”
“Hey! Ixnay on the acrificesay!”
“It’ll be fine,” I reassured her, not feeling quite as confident. A lot was riding on my ability to break down the various protective spells that were no doubt covering all entrances to the house.
“Right.” She consulted her watch. “We’re almost at the zero hour. Everyone ready?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“I hope I get to use my Taser,” Cyrene whispered to me as we followed May, who as the official shadow walker, took the lead to watch for any stray guards we hadn’t pinpointed earlier. “I’ve been dying to try it out, but Kostya is just completely unreasonable and won’t let me use it on one of his people.”
I slid her a quick look, but said nothing other than that if everything went as we planned, we wouldn’t need the Taser.
May waved us forward. We skulked along the edges of the eerie hedges, my unease not at all lessened by proximity with the hulking black shapes, but the thought of Cyrene at my back with a primed Taser gave me enough peace of mind to get past them to the side of the huge stone house. At the far corner of the house, the shadow of a man could be seen, no doubt one of the guards waiting to be relieved.
“This is interesting,” Aisling said softly as she paused next to a window.
“What is?” I asked.
“That’s a bane.” She pointed at the window, sketching out a shape. “I assumed Drake wouldn’t use them since the dragons need to get in and out of the house daily. But if he ordered up banes on all the entrances . . .”
“We’re up excrement creek without a flotation device, not to mention a paddle,” Jim finished. “You aren’t thinking of using me for that bane, are you, Ash? Sweetie? Honey? Baby? You wouldn’t do that, would you? ’Cause I just got my coat looking the way I like, and if you go and make me break that bane, it’ll destroy my fabulous form, and—”
“And you won’t stop bitching about that for months. Yes, we know,” Aisling interrupted, patting the demon
