Well, that was something, Rowan supposed. It might not be an outright declaration of his innocence, but at least one dragon had been persuaded to give up that horrible name for him.

“Did you know that they would be here?” Rowan asked, tilting his head toward the tea shop, where the three now-unconscious beings were stacked tidily in a corner. He paused, waiting for a break in traffic before jaywalking across the street to the entrance of the hotel.

“Not them specifically, no,” Gabriel said.

“We knew it was likely that Bael would send someone, though,” May said. “And Bee—she’s your sister, yes?—said that you would be here and that you’d seen a whole gaggle of red dragon–demon hybrids, so we thought we’d keep an eye on the hotel.”

“I don’t suppose it was luck that brought the thief to the tea shop while they were there waiting,” Gabriel said, rubbing his chin.

Rowan would have liked to do the same thing, since his face was itchy with the drying blood of Kim, but that would mean lifting a hand, and at the moment, his left shoulder refused to consider that movement, while his right hand was throbbing and swollen from the fight. He’d get a bucket of ice, check to make sure that Sophea and the old lady were safely locked into their rooms, and then try to recapture the sleep that he’d been rudely woken from when his sister called to say the silver wyvern had arrived and was waiting for him across the street from the hotel. “Hmm? Oh, probably not. It’s not like fate to make anything easy for me, and that includes dealing with the old woman.”

They stopped outside the door to the hotel. The street was busy with evening traffic, whose noise helped keep their conversation relatively private. “You don’t mean to say that the thief is working with the demons, do you?” May asked, looking confused.

“No, I didn’t mean that. Sorry, I’m a bit rummy from lack of sleep. Bee called me about half an hour after I’d gone to sleep, so my brain is a bit less than it should be. I simply meant that from what I know of the old woman, it’s just like her to end up being right where trouble is.”

“And what of the mate guarding her?” Gabriel asked.

“Mate? You mean Sophea? She’s a dragon, isn’t she?”

“No. She is a wyvern’s mate. Jian, the wyvern of the now-extinct red sept, must have claimed her before he was killed.”

“I could have sworn she was a dragon…”

“To outsiders, a claimed mate is all but indistinguishable from other dragons. That is why you were confused.”

“Regardless of that fact, I don’t think that Sophea is guarding Mrs. P.” Rowan frowned a little, but that made his eye hurt, so he contented himself with lowering one eyebrow instead. “At least, not in the sense that I think you mean it. She is a captor, perhaps, but the only reason she’s keeping Mrs. P alive is so she can take the ring herself.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on him. “Are you sure about that?”

Rowan didn’t dare risk a shrug with the pain in his shoulder. “It makes sense. She’s a red dragon. Or rather, a red dragon’s mate.”

“Yes, but Jian had not been tainted by the demon strain. He died right before that happened. And to be honest, his mate didn’t seem to be the sort of woman to do as you are suggesting. Far from it—she was definitely protecting the thief from harm.”

“For her own purposes,” Rowan argued.

“Perhaps.” Gabriel managed to shrug.

Rowan damned him and decided a cocktail of ice and painkillers would be in order for the evening.

“I think we should talk to her,” May said, leaning into her wyvern. “She seems nice, if a bit… not standoffish, exactly. But more keeping us at arm’s length. Untrusting, I guess.”

“You’re welcome to talk to her until the cows come home. Right now, I’m going to get some ice and sleep, in that order.”

“We’ll remain in the area in case our friends back there decide to make another attempt on her,” Gabriel said, gesturing to the tea shop.

“I wouldn’t turn down your help, but you do realize that now that the demons know you, they will be wary of letting you see them.”

Gabriel and May shared a smile. “They won’t see us,” May said complacently. “Gabriel and I can both access the Beyond. The demons will never see us there.”

Rowan gave them a little nod and made his way into the hotel, fetched his key, and headed to the elevator, too tired to take the stairs. He wondered what it was like to be in the Beyond, that part of the Otherworld that was more or less a shadow world, one where spirits of many types resided… but was definitely not a habitat for him.

“My place is a small tent in a muggy bend of the Amazon where the mosquitoes eat you alive, and a bad conversation with one of the indigenous tribes could result in a poisoned dart poking out your back. Ah, bed, blissful bed.”

He didn’t even bother with the ice, just collapsed on the bed, took a couple of painkillers, and was thinking about summoning up the energy to change his alarm so that he could get an extra hour’s sleep before he had to creep into the thief’s rooms, but just as he reached for his phone, it rang.

The number was not one he recognized, but he answered it nonetheless.

“Hi! It’s Sophea and Mrs. P. We were wondering if you’d like to have dinner with us? As kind of a thank you for coming to our rescue twice in just a few hours. We’re going to eat here in the hotel, since that little episode in the tea shop has made me swear off stepping foot outside the building until it’s time to leave for the airport, but you’re more than welcome to join us if you’re hungry. Our treat.”

He thought longingly of the bed, of just sinking into the depths of the mattress, and sleeping for a good three or four days. Then he remembered his sister and the fact that a demon lord was running rampant and about to strike out at the mortal world as well as the Otherworld, and he told himself that sleep was underrated.

“Hello? Uh… this is Rowan, isn’t it? I can hear you breathing, so I know you’re there, but… did I get the wrong number? I could have sworn I punched in the one on the card…”

“Sorry, yes, it’s me. I was just thinking, which is not normally such a slow process, but it’s been a very long twenty-some hours. I’d be happy to join you for supper, although there’s no need to provide it for me. Quite the opposite, it would be my pleasure to take you two ladies.”