Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

see if the portal is ready yet,” Pavel said, and slipped away.
    “I should check the area outside to make sure no pursuing dragons, liches, or negrets are about to descend upon us,” Savian said, groaning out loud when he limped forward. “Come along, princess. You can pick up any of my body parts that happen to fall off.”
    “Oh, for the love of the good green earth,” Maura said, snapping the handcuffs in an annoyed manner. “You’re such a big baby! You don’t have nearly the number of wounds that poor knocker has, and you’re making a much bigger fuss about them than he is.”
    “You’re going to drive me barking mad until I can get these cuffs off, aren’t you?” Savian asked her as they left the waiting room.
    “A girl has to have some fun.”
    “Did you get everything in order?” I asked Baltic as he tucked away his phone. “Did you arrange to have a healer standing by when we get back to England? I don’t like the looks of Holland’s injuries, even though he says he can heal that severed arm.”
    “We’re not going to England,” Baltic said, taking my arm with one hand, and Brom with the other.
    “We’re not?” I asked as he ushered us out of the room and into the portalling chamber. “Where are we going?”
    “Home.”
    “Home is England, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    “Then where are we going?”
    “Going? Right, this is where I make my last stand. I absolutely refuse to leave,” Maura said as Savian and she reentered the building. “I have told you people and told you people-I can’t leave. There are things I must do, and I cannot do them if Thala finds me missing. I’ll just have to do them with this giant pain in the ass attached to me.”
    “Like hell you will,” Savian growled. “I’m not staying here to be chewed to shreds by that red-haired she-devil. You’re coming with us whether you want to or not.”
    “Please, I can’t leave Spain,” she pleaded as Savian, with a grim expression and a loud groan of pain, bent down and hoisted her onto his shoulder. “Dear goddess! What do you think you’re doing? Put me down!”
    “I know you’re anxious about everything, Maura, but you needn’t be. Once Savian gets the key to his handcuffs, I will talk to your grandfather for you if you like,” I offered as we stepped into the portalling room. “I know how intimidating he can be, and I’m sure with his help, he’ll keep Thala from threatening you, or whatever it is you’re afraid she’ll do to you because we took you away with us.”
    “No, you don’t understand at all ... . It’s not that simple.”
    “Where are we going?” I asked Baltic again as the portal attendant gestured us toward the oval of grey light that twisted upon itself, a never-ending Möbius that sat in the middle of the room. Just looking at it raised the hairs on the back of my neck; it was wrong, somehow, that a tear in the fabric of space should just hang in the air like that. Baltic’s face was grim as he looked at it, and I knew that he and the other dragons were all dreading the experience to come.
    “Latvia,” he answered as Pavel, with an identical expression of complete and utter loathing, stepped into the portal.
    “To Ziema?” I asked, naming the town where the forest that hid Dauva was located. Dammit, I was sure we were going home. I’d have to make another phone call.
    “Riga. Pavel located a house there for us yesterday, before Brom was taken. He was going to have you look at it, but there was no time. We will go there now, and set up defenses so that the usurping bastard will not threaten you or Brom again.”
    I said nothing before I entered the portal other than to reassure the still-protesting Maura that I would help her deal with her grandfather and mother. Baltic waited until Brom and Savian and Maura had been sent through the portal after me before venturing into it himself, the now-comatose Holland in his arms.
    He was just as rumpled and discombobulated coming out the other side as he had been going to Spain. I spent a few minutes fussing over Holland before attending to Baltic. He suffered me to smooth out his shirt, and tidy his hair (which always came undone from its leather tie when he went through a portal) before turning his attention to Pavel.
    “There should be two cars waiting for us.”
    “Where the hell are we?” Savian asked, rubbing his chest with a pained expression on his face. “Did the portal company screw up?”
    “I’ll see that