Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

Jim.
    “Oooh, fancy, lemon slices,” it said, slurping at the water. “Any time you want to dump me on Solders and Baltic is fine with me, Ash.”
    “One more, and you’re out,” Aisling warned the demon.
    “Sheesh. Bully much?”
    “We would like to extend greetings to Pavel,” István said as I handed him a glass of the dragon’s blood wine. “Is it allowed that we do so?”
    “Of course. He’s in the kitchen, but I’m sure he would welcome the opportunity to exchange greetings with you, as well.” I made sure to keep my language as formal as István’s, despite the urge to giggle. So far as social niceties went, dragons preferred to cling to the old ways, and that meant elite guards of one wyvern had to present their greetings to the elite guards of other wyverns in a very formalized way.
    Pál and István took themselves off with a nod from Drake, who, after a somewhat scurrilous look at the battered and dismal couch that I hadn’t yet had time to replace, sat down next to Aisling.
    “So!” Aisling said brightly, leaning a bit into Drake as he put his arm across her shoulders. “Here we all are. Drake’s like a cat on a hot tin roof, just about dancing with anticipation, so the sooner he gets started on breaking into the sepulcher, the better.”
    “Kincsem,” Drake said sternly, shooting her an emerald-eyed glare. “I am a wyvern. You do not tell people I dance over any emotion, and certainly not anticipation.”
    “My apologies.” She patted his leg, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Although you are an incredibly good dancer. That last dream you sent me, where you taught me to dance the sevillana, and you spun me around so hard my dress came off, and we ended up-er-yes. We’ll just leave it at you’re an excellent dancer.”
    “You have visions with Drake, too?” I asked in surprise, correcting myself when both Drake and Aisling turned startled faces to me. “That is, you have visions about your wyvern, too?”
    “They’re not really visions, no, not like that one you had at the sárkány , or a few months ago when you tried to stab Drake in that vision. Drake and I share an ability to have, for lack of a better term, lucid dreams. Extremely lucid dreams. So much so that-” Drake made an abbreviated gesture, causing Aisling to clear her throat. “Yes, well, we’ve strayed from the original point, which was that we are both very eager to undertake the job you spoke about. So, where is the sepulcher?”
    “Er ... ” My brain, normally a pretty reliable organ, just shrugged and told me I was on my own when it came to thinking up an excuse as to why I hadn’t yet found the location of the sepulcher. “That’s a really good question. And the answer is that ... erm ... Why don’t we save that discussion for after dinner?”
    They exchanged glances.
    “If you desire,” Drake said in a smooth voice, his fingers gently stroking Aisling’s shoulder in a way that had her shivering, and shooting him a heated look. “About the recompense you will be providing me for these services. I take it you have in your possession the valuable object that you indicated earlier?”
    “Not in so many words,” I said, thinking back to the hurried conversation I had had with Constantine a short while before. He’d assured me that he had found Kostya’s lair, and getting into it, and removing the shard, would be no problem. I had been obliged to persuade him that I needed it now, rather than waiting for him to take over the sept, when it would be his to hand over to me, but after a few minutes of persuasion, he had agreed to retrieve it. “But I should before tomorrow, assuming everything goes as planned.”
    “Oh man, if that isn’t jinxing us, I don’t know what is,” Jim said, flopping down on the floor, coughing loudly when a cloud of dust rose around him.
    “Don’t be silly. I don’t believe in jinxes,” Aisling said firmly. “I do, however, believe in accidents, and derailments of best laid plans, etc. So you’ll be sure to tell us if something goes awry, won’t you, Ysolde?”
    “Of course.”
    “What, exactly, is this object?” Drake asked, his fingers now tangled in Aisling’s hair. She kept sending him little glances that should have steamed his eyebrows.
    “I think,” I said slowly, “that I would like to hold off on telling you about that until I have it in hand.”
    “And I would prefer to know now.”
    I sat up a little straighter at the tone in