Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

half shrug. “When I moved it from my lair in Dauva to the one in England. It was a half century before we were killed. You accused me of wanting to be with Antonia again, and threatened, amongst other atrocities, to geld me with it.”
    “Boy, I had a serious jealousy issue back then,” I mused, but couldn’t keep from wondering if there wasn’t a reason I’d been jealous. I eyed Baltic suspiciously until he laughed and kissed me soundly.
    “You have exactly the same look on your face that you did when you threatened the gelding. Must I reassure you again, mate?”
    “No. Well ... another time. Right now we have to get our butts to St. Petersburg to intercept Dr. Kostich. Maura called him and told him of Thala’s ultimatum, and of the deadline.”
    “Why then must we go?” He was back to looking disgruntled.
    “Because Dr. Kostich told Maura there was nothing he could do. He was lying, of course. Or not so much lying as avoiding the strict truth. I know how he thinks-he doesn’t want to involve her, and he can’t go against the laws of the L’au-dela, so he’s going to find a way to slip the information about the location to Thala, and be on hand when she arrives at the sepulcher.”
    His eyes narrowed. “How do you know he will proceed in that manner?”
    “Because it’s what I’d do, and, like I said, I know how he thinks. The man is a master at getting around rules and finding loopholes. Come on. If we get out of here in the next half hour, that will leave us with four hours to lurk around the portal office in St. Petersburg so we can follow Dr. Kostich when he arrives, plus it will give Drake and Aisling time to get there.”
    I started to get off his lap, but he pulled me back down onto it. “You will tell me now why the green wyvern is involved.”
    “Oh, are we playing sharing time? Excellent. I will tell you just what problem I’ve asked for Drake’s help with, and you can tell me a number of things, starting with how Constantine got your talisman to make his own sept, to how you got it back, how you’re going to get it back from Thala, and what you know about the location of Gareth and Ruth. And don’t deny you know something, because Pavel told me you had people looking into it for you. Do we have a deal?”
    He growled deep in his chest, a little puff of smoke lazily wafting from one nostril. But after a moment’s silence, he said, “It’s the light sword. You know I desire to possess it again. Green dragons are notable thieves; therefore, you’ve asked Drake to steal the sword for you.”
    “Dammit,” I snapped, getting off his lap and marching to the door in a fine approximation of someone in high dudgeon. “I just hate it when you figure things out! I’m going to call Aisling and tell her to meet us in St. Petersburg. I hope you can be ready to go in twenty minutes, because that’s when I told Pavel to have the cars ready.”
    I closed the door on the sound of his swearing in Zilant, smiling to myself. I never doubted that the moment he found out that Drake had something to do with my plans for the sepulcher, he’d realize that the mage sword was my goal. But what he didn’t realize was how I intended on returning it to him. “And I just pray he doesn’t find out until it’s too late.”
    “Until what’s too late?” Brom emerged from his room pulling a wheeled suitcase behind him. He looked at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. You said I had to be in bed by ten on weeknights. How come we’re going somewhere now?”
    “I’m sorry about keeping you up late, but you can sleep in late in the morning. How would you like to stay with Aisling and Jim for a day or two?”
    He shot me a puzzled look. “I like Jim. Aisling makes me play with her babies. All they do is crawl around, put everything in their mouths, and get slobber on it. And they spit their food onto the floor. It’s gross.”
    “Babies are notorious for both their slobber and finicky eating habits, and you, my dumpling of delight, were no different. I may not have many memories of the past nine years, but I distinctly remember someone objecting to his strained carrots by spewing them all over his father.”
    Brom grinned. “I bet Gareth was pissed.”
    I ruffled his hair and smiled with him. “Extremely so. He was just about to leave to meet an important client, as I recall, and had to change his suit. It really was one of your finest baby moments.”
    “How come I can’t go with you and