“So I gathered. Fiat? You are sure, Mayling?”

“Quite.”

He swore. “How did he slip past us? We were watching all means of transportation, monitoring all the por taling companies.”

“I have no idea, but he’s definitely here, and Kostya wasn’t with him.”

“What happened?”

I gave him a brief rundown of the events that led up to us meeting Fiat in the bar. “Fiat more or less went off, and picked me as a likely recipient of his spleen venting. And much as it distresses me to admit it, he might have succeeded if I hadn’t been rescued.”

Gabriel watched me for a few seconds, emotion running so high in him I could swear I felt it even over the distance I knew separated us. “Who rescued you?”

“I never believed I’d ever actually have cause to say these words, but Magoth saved me. He coshed Fiat over the head with an eighteenth-century andiron in the shape of a peacock, which I have to admit is somewhat fitting. Gabriel, it’s not Kostya Fiat is working with—it’s Baltic. He’s here. This is actually his house. How or why he got Fiat to kidnap us is beyond me.”

Gabriel stiffened. “Where is this house?”

“About two hours outside of London.” I described the route we’d taken out of London. “Baltic said he and Ysolde designed the house. He said she was going to have an acceptance ceremony here.”

“I am less interested in history than I am in why Baltic has taken you,” Gabriel said grimly. He glanced over his shoulder. “Do not move. I will return in a minute or two.”

I laughed as I looked around me. During the conversation with Gabriel, I’d taken in the surroundings. Even though I was in the shadow world, it retained enough similarity to the real world that I knew exactly where I was—in the bowels of the house, deep down in a dimly lit, earth-walled room that served as a dungeon.

I slid off the table upon which I’d been sitting, and examined the prison. There was one small door set at the far wall, no windows, and only the faintest flicker and buzz from a bare electric light overhead. Although sometimes the shadow-world version of an environment could look significantly different from what we knew as real, there was none of that feel about this room. The angles were all true, not slightly off, as was frequent in the shadow world. There were a table and three chairs, all broken and lying in a heap in the corner. The room was musty and earthy smelling, but there was an acid note to the air that had my nose wrinkling. I couldn’t figure out quite what it was, though, and took a few tentative sniffs to see if I could pinpoint the origins.

“It is fear, little bird,” Gabriel said behind me.

I spun around. He looked tired and depressed, the light in his normally shining eyes dimmed somewhat. “What’s fear?”

“The scent you smell. I recognize it.”

“Ugh. What’s wrong?” I asked, wanting to soothe away the distress I could see in his handsome face.

The look he gave me spoke volumes. “My mate has been taken by another wyvern, my house destroyed, more than sixty dragons are dead by the hand of a wyvern I should have stopped long ago, and Chuan Ren is being unusually difficult.”

“Sorry. That was a stupid question. Don’t worry about me—I will get us out of here just as soon as I make sure everyone is unharmed. As for Fiat—he’s not your responsibility, Gabriel. He’s a big boy, and knows what he’s doing. Don’t take upon yourself any blame that should lie solely on his head.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment, his hand raised to touch my cheek. I felt nothing but the faintest of breezes, however. “If I said it was my job to rescue you, what would you say?”

I kissed the air where his palm was. “I’d tell you to stop being silly, and hurry up and come home so we can re-form the heart and get rid of the shard once and for all.”

“I have alerted the others to the fact that Fiat has slipped through our fingers,” he answered. “Do not do anything rash, mate.”

I smiled at the rough note his voice had taken. “I love you, too.”

Cautiously, I slipped out of the shadow world, but I really had no need of covertness.

“Mayling!” Cyrene said as I stepped away from the wall, out of the deepest shadows I had instinctively sought. Relief dripped from her voice. “There you are. Have you found a way out?”

I stepped over a prone form, then a second one. “What on earth happened here?” I asked, ignoring Cyrene’s question.

“Your twin told Fiat that it was Magoth who slugged him,” Jim said from where it sat on Fiat’s chest. “So the F-man started duking it out with Magoth, screaming he was going to have revenge, only Mags is a bit lacking in the power department, so when Fiat went all dragon on him, Cy and I decided we’d better even things up.”

I looked from the two men sprawled unconscious on the floor to Cyrene. “So you hit them both over their respective heads?”

“No, of course not,” Cyrene said, pulling herself up with an indignant snort. “What do you take me for? I am a naiad! I am devoted body and soul to the worthy and altruistic cause of benefiting the planet! My being, my very reason for existence, is to better the world for mortalkind. For you to even suggest that I would do something so heinous, so evil, as bash someone over the head just because he was annoying and would not shut up no matter how much I threatened him is the purest slander. Purest slander!”

I waited for a minute. “Are you finished?”

“Not quite.” She took a deep breath. “I would never do anything to harm anyone. Ever!”

I let the silence say it all.

“I am good,” she said with much dignity. “I am not in the least bit bad.”

“Yeah, ’cause holding someone down while a demon lord beats the snot out of him isn’t bad at all,” Jim said, snickering.

“Holding someone’s arms is not the same as holding them down,” Cyrene said with a glare at the demon.

“Yuh-huh. I see now why you and Magoth hooked up.”

“Oh!” Cyrene said, outraged.

“Enough bickering, you two.”

“I didn’t hold Fiat down,” Cyrene reassured me. “I just helped Magoth get a tiny little edge.”

“Whatever. Can we move on?” I asked.

“That’s why you were dancing around yelling, ‘Smash the tar out of him, Mags!’ the whole time?” Jim asked.