tipped with dragon fire.
Instantly, Drake and Gabriel sprang into action, shoving their respective mates down behind various substantial pieces of furniture, despite the women’s squawks of objection.
Kostya looked around for a moment, realized he had no one to protect, and with an annoyed noise, started toward me, clearly bent on stopping my spell.
Baltic leaped past me toward him, and the two of them went down.
“Bring forth wisdom in place of fear . . .”
Drake and Gabriel hurled themselves toward me, Aisling yelling something about wards, while May disappeared into thin air.
The light from my hands grew until it surrounded me, bathing me in the warmth of the dragon fire and the strength of the arcane power.
“. . . tolerance where there is only hate . . .”
Drake and Gabriel struggled to reach me, but the light held them back. Baltic slammed Kostya up against one of the glass-fronted cases, shattering the glass, his furious words punctuated by the gentle tinkle of shards striking the hardwood floor. “No one touches my mate!” he snarled.
“May!” Gabriel yelled. “Do not touch her! She will destroy you!”
Behind me, a shadow flickered, but I ignored it, focusing every iota of my being on the spell.
“. . . serenity where there resides anger.”
“I’ll slap a ward on her. Effrijim, I summon thee!”
“Oh, sure, now you summon me—hey, what’s going on?” The human form of Jim popped up into the range of my vision for a moment, before being yanked aside as Drake shoved both the demon and Aisling back to a large leather couch. “Why’s Ysolde lit up like a Christmas tree? Oh, man, she’s casting a spell that’s going to blow us all to Abaddon, isn’t she? Her hair’s standing all on end!”
I brought together my hands in a clap that resounded with such volume that the windows rattled. “By my grace, this I cast!”
For two seconds, everyone froze. No one so much as blinked while they all waited to see what was going to happen. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was of that group myself, praying that my magic would have returned to me.
The light expanded to fill the room, then suddenly contracted upon itself with a whipcrack sound, forming itself into the small round shape of an extremely surprised turtle. It fell a few inches to the table next to me, blinking in surprise at everyone standing frozen in the room.
I glared at the turtle for a moment, then kicked the chair nearest me. “Well, that is just the most disappointing thing yet! A turtle? Really? I put every ounce of intention I could into that spell, and all I get for it is a turtle? I could just scream!”
May emerged from nothing behind me, reaching out to touch the turtle. “It’s real,” she said, glancing at me with speculation. “Might I ask what it was you were trying to do to us?”
I slumped down into the chair. “I was trying to cast a clarity spell on you all, to bring you wisdom and enlightenment, so that you would see that we were telling the truth. A turtle. I made a turtle. Hell.”
“Abaddon,” Jim corrected, pulling out a cell phone to snap a picture of the turtle.
“Turtles are supposed to be wise, aren’t they?” Aisling asked Drake. “Maybe your spell made a wise turtle instead of bringing us wisdom.”
“I thought that was owls,” May said when Drake, with a quelling look at his mate, righted a few pieces of furniture that had been knocked over.
“Could be worse, Soldy,” Jim told me.
“I don’t see how,” I said, rubbing my forehead.
“Could be an elephant. So, what’s been going on? Why is Baltic holding Kostya by the scruff of his neck? Hey, Drake’s missing a tooth. Man, I miss all the good meetings!”
Chapter Thirteen
“I think it’s just rude of Gabriel and Drake to do this to me.”
Baltic, seated opposite me, raised an eyebrow. “I am a wyvern. It is beneath me to point out that I was right and you were wrong.”
My lips thinned in irritation.
“However, I was correct,” he continued, just as I knew he would. No one can resist a good I-told-you-so gloat. “They believe only what they want to believe, mate. It should no longer surprise you to be treated as if you were guilty.”
I looked over his head to where Maata and Tipene stood against the door. Pavel was seated by the window, while the other windows were guarded by a man who had been introduced to me as Mikhail, the son of a black dragon who had survived Constantine’s slaughter. Mikhail watched me with an incredulous intensity that made me vaguely uncomfortable.
Evidently, the noise of my spell backfiring had brought all the guards on the run. “Maata, do you think I would hurt May and Gabriel? Really hurt them? No, you don’t—It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? And yet those pigheaded wyverns insist that I have to be kept separate lest I cast another spell while they talk things over. As if I’d hurt anyone! Well, all right, at this moment I am sorely tempted to turn a couple of dragons into bananas, but I would change them back. Probably.”
“Hey,” Jim said, poking its head in through the door as it bumped Maata and Tipene on their backs. “Balters, Drake says you’re supposed to come and talk with them.”
“It’s about time,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Just Baltic,” Jim said with a grin. “They say you’re too prone to flying off the hook, Ysolde, which when you consider Baltic’s tenuous grasp on sanity, is really saying a lot.”
Baltic glanced at the demon, and set its shoes on fire.
“Argh! Not the shoes! They’re Italian! Cost me a whole month’s allowance!” Jim danced around, slapping at its shoes.
“If Drake has something to say to me, he can say it in front of Ysolde,” Baltic said.
“Yes! Absolutely! We’re not stupid, you know! They just want to separate us so they can do mean things to Baltic. I’m not going to allow that.”
“Ash said you and her and May could talk about your little problem on the verandah,” Jim added once it had stuffed its shoes under a couch cushion to extinguish the flames. “Man, and I thought demon lords had hairtrigger tempers.”
“What problem do you have with the verandah?” Baltic asked me, looking mildly confused.
“I don’t have a problem with any form of architectural structure, not that I know of, at least. Jim, what in the name of all that is good and glorious are you talking about?”
Jim sighed. “Next time I’ll brush up on grammar, OK? Aisling wants to talk to you on the verandah. About your little problem.”
Both Baltic and I looked with incomprehension at the demon.
“What, I have to draw you a picture?” It waved its hands around in the air. “Your oblempray with Ostichkay’s awnspay.”
“Oh.” I glanced at Baltic. “Er . . . perhaps you should talk to the dragons, Baltic. After all, we are here to clear your name.”
“That is your goal, not mine.” His dark, deeply mysterious eyes considered me for a minute. “What problem do you have with Kostich?”
“Nothing. Not personally. I have a little job I have to do for him, but that’s all.”
“What sort of job?”
I avoided the penetrating look that was attempting to bore into my head. “Just something I agreed to do in order to have him lift the interdict.”
“You will tell me about this job.” That was an order, not a request, and luckily, Baltic knew well that I didn’t
