“Enough!” Dr. Kostich bellowed, his hands drawing the last of another set of runes. “This will end now!”

Another explosion of air and light rocked the house, sending all of us flying backwards—all but Baltic.

Kostich stared at him with mingled horror and confusion for a moment before the dragon shard, tired of my feeble attempts to direct my foreign dragon body around, took charge of the situation. In a flash, I was on top of Baltic, having knocked him to the ground, his blade skittering away on the marble floor, great arcs of light flying from it as it spun. I snarled and bit at Baltic as he flung me off him, leaping to his feet in order to run after his sword.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I growled, lunging forward onto him, dragging my claws down his back, cutting deep through material into his flesh.

He screamed with pain and spun around, trying to dislodge my hold on him. “We will finish this now,” I yelled, biting hard on his shoulder. I tasted blood, spitting it out as he threw himself onto the floor in a rolling move meant to loosen my hold on him.

It worked. I slid across the floor, scrabbling desperately with my claws for a hold. Maata and Nathaniel raced toward him, but Baltic was too fast in human form—he snatched up the blade, leaping over Maata as he headed toward me.

Kostich’s blast of light must have lit up the block. It wasn’t the same sort of compression blast of air as he’d used before—this one was a golden halo of light that suddenly burst through me, burst through the entire block, bedazzling and blinding and bringing everything and everyone to a complete halt for a few seconds.

As the light dissipated, I shook the dazzle from my brain, and looked around for Baltic.

He was gone. The front door stood open, but when I rushed to the street, shifting back to human form as I did so, it was bare of dragons. The few people that stood outside had odd expressions on their faces, as if they were bemused.

“They will not remember what happened,” a voice spoke behind me. “Mortals seldom do.”

I turned to search the face of the man beside me. “You saved us.”

“No.” Kostich shook his head, his expression grim. “You did that. All I did was give you a little time.”

“Whatever it was, it worked.”

“No,” he repeated. “If it had worked, he would be incapacitated at best. But while everyone else was stunned by the light, he escaped. He should not have been able to do that.”

“What exactly was the light? It left me feeling stunned.”

“It was an arcane concussion blast, a minimized version. A full concussion would have blown out the walls of this house. As it is, it merely served as a brief distraction.” Kostich looked worried as we returned to the house. “The dragon should have been affected by it as we were, but he was not. And there is the blade—he should not have that light blade. It belonged to a famous archimage.”

Slowly, I closed the door and leaned against it while I considered Dr. Kostich. “I’m not going to allow you to send me to the Akasha, you know. I have too many things to do here. Baltic is one of those things.”

He hesitated for a moment, glancing from Cyrene to the dragons and back to me. “I believe we might be able to come to an accord regarding that.”

“What sort of an accord?” Cyrene asked, coming forward. She stopped at a look from me. “Sorry, May. I thought you might need a little bit of help, but . . . never mind.”

“What sort of an accord?” I asked Kostich.

“One which we will each find satisfactory. You wish to be pardoned, and I wish to have the von Endres blade. Do you think we can help each other?”

I stared at him for a moment. “You want Baltic’s sword?”

“Yes. It disappeared when the archimage von Endres died. I had thought it lost to us, but to see it now being wielded by a dragon . . .” He shook his head, his expression puzzled. “I do not understand how it can be. No dragon can use arcane magic.”

“Perhaps one who was resurrected can,” I said slowly.

Kostich’s look was piercing. “He was resurrected? You are certain?”

“Fairly. There’s no other way he could be alive now otherwise.”

“I begin to see the light,” Kostich said slowly, his gaze directed inward. “That could be why my quintessence was stolen. If so . . . very well. This will take some doing. I will not be unprepared next time I meet him. A triumvirate, I think, will answer. My apprentices are ripe for such a challenge, and with your aid, I believe we will be successful. You agree to my terms?”

“I don’t even know what they are,” I said cautiously.

“Tch.” He made an impatient gesture. “You will assist me in acquiring the von Endres blade, and I will grant you a full pardon for those crimes of which you are charged.”

“Do you think it’s possible to take the sword away from Baltic? If it’s something important, he’s not likely to let it go without a serious fight. And while I’m up to kicking him out of my house, I don’t know that it will be possible to get the sword from him without killing him.”

Dr. Kostich evidently came to some sort of a decision, for he nodded his head twice and murmured, “Yes, it will be a good test for Jack. Tully is weaker, but such an experience will be invaluable to her.” He raised his voice and added, “Does it matter if the dragon is dead? Given your reputation, I would have thought you would relish an official sanction to destroy him.”

“I am not a hit man, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said rather huffily, straightening my shoulders and trying to look down my nose at him. “I’m a thief, and even then, there are extenuating circumstances. I do not go around murdering dragons, even those that threaten me.”

He made a careless gesture. “Whether he lives or dies is not a concern. The blade is. Do we have an agreement?”

I bit my lip and looked at the others in the room. Cyrene nodded her head and gave me a thumbs-up. Nathaniel and Obi watched me carefully, but I sensed their approval. Maata alone looked concerned, her silver eyes dark with worry.

“Yes,” I said, coming to a decision. In for a penny, in for a pound . . . “Yes, we have an agreement.”

Chapter Seven

Dr. Kostich hadn’t been kidding when he commented that a full arcane concussion blast could blow out the walls of Gabriel’s house.