“Oh. Well . . . it does please me.” She gave him a blinding smile. Jim clicked its tongue and went back to playing its game machine. “I knew you could be reasonable if you tried. I should probably go check with Suzanne to make sure we have some snacks and beverages. Jim! Heel.”

“But I’m about to go after Vader,” it complained, shambling after her. “You’re just pissed because you can’t make it past the Yoda level.”

I waited until the two of them were down the hall and out of earshot before I turned back to Drake. “I assume Gabriel told you about what he and the others found?”

His expression turned dark. “It was not Kostya.”

I studied his face for a minute. Drake was a hard man, I suppose technically handsome, with bright green eyes, dark hair, and an obstinate jaw, but he wasn’t what I thought of as particularly flexible. He was, I suspected, very loyal.

It was for that reason I picked my words with care. “I find it difficult to believe that Kostya would do something so heinous, but Gabriel insists that Kostya was seen. Have you spoken to him?”

“Kostya?”

I nodded.

Drake’s expression grew blacker. “Briefly. I told him the sárkány was moved to this house, and asked if all was in readiness on his end. He assured me it was. I do not fear for the safety of Aisling with him around, if that is what you are so carefully hinting. He is my brother. I know him. He has been tortured and tormented for many decades, and he has much darkness inside him, but he would not act in the way Gabriel suggests.”

There wasn’t much I could say about that. I happened to agree with him, but I was very cognizant of the fact that I was expected to show nothing but support for Gabriel’s decisions. Although I felt a certain amount of leniency toward that archaic rule could be shown while I was around Drake and Aisling, I didn’t want them thinking I wouldn’t back up Gabriel no matter what choices he made.

The fact that I’d simply persuade him away from doing anything stupid was beside the point.

“I just hope you have a lot of green dragons who can keep everyone civil,” I said. “If Kostya is planning on bringing his full delegation, and the other wyverns bring their members, the house is going to be very, very full.”

“We will open up the downstairs rooms,” Drake agreed. “It was once a ballroom—it will suffice.”

And so it was that slightly over three hours later I stood next to Gabriel at one end of the long room that ran the length of the house. It had been divided up into three smaller rooms, making up the large sitting room, a small morning room, and the dining room, but now the screens normally covering the folding walls were pulled aside, most of the furniture had been removed, and the long heavy dining table was pulled into a central position with five heavy wooden chairs set around it.

I brushed Gabriel’s hand, needing the comfort of his touch, but not wanting to do anything that could be considered inappropriate in front of the other dragons.

He took my hand without looking at me, his fingers rubbing across my knuckles. “Do not fear, little bird. I will not allow Fiat to disturb the sárkány.”

I said nothing, just straightened my shoulders, sliding a quick glance to my left at Maata. Behind us stood Obi, Nathaniel, and Tipene. Like the other silver dragons, they wore what I thought of as the formal dragon wear: knee-length tunics of a black material that seemed impossibly dark, heavily embroidered with silver to the point where the fabric beneath was almost impossible to see. The embroidery consisted of abstract shapes and swirls, a detailed, intricate pattern that seemed to shift and move in the light. Gabriel’s tunic was heavy with silver, real silver, I knew from examining it earlier, glittering as bright as his eyes, patterned into several fan tastical shapes of dragons leaping and cavorting. He had presented me with a tunic, as well, one bearing only one dragon, but I loved it the most—it was clearly based on Gabriel’s dragon form, and the head of it lay directly over my heart.

Gabriel also wore a belt slung low over his hips, a familiar sword hanging from it. It was the shadow sword I’d taken from Bael’s wrath demon, a powerful weapon that I prayed he would not need to use.

“Showtime,” I said under my breath, straightening my shoulders and trying to look calm and collected as Kostya strode through the doorway. He was followed by two women and one man, all three of his attendants dark-haired and dark-eyed.

“Is that his entourage?” I asked Gabriel quietly.

“His guard, yes. Drake mentioned he had at last formalized them.”

Kostya stopped in the middle of the room, and made a formal bow first to his brother, then to Gabriel. The latter tensed, but did nothing other than return the formal greeting. A sárkány, I had learned, was a very rigid affair, and followed innumerable rules, evidently put into place to keep the volatile dragons from killing one another should tempers run high.

“The others have not arrived yet?” Kostya asked Drake.

“Fiat is here,” Drake answered with the briefest of glances toward us. “Chuan Ren will no doubt be here. Bastian called a short while ago and said his flight was delayed, but he would be here immediately upon landing. I expect him momentarily.”

While Drake talked with his brother, I studied Kostya and his little group, noticing as I did so that Gabriel, normally a very sociable person, made no effort to join their discussion. I knew Fiat’s involvement with Baltic had thrown him a bit, for which I was frankly grateful. I had no desire to get on Drake’s bad side should Gabriel pursue the idea that Kostya was behind the murders of all those innocent dragons.

“Those two women don’t look like they could take down a curtain, let alone a dragon intent on attacking Kostya,” I murmured to Gabriel.

Maata, on my left, heard me and snorted under her breath.

“Knowing Kostya as I do,” Gabriel said, his dimples flaring briefly to life, “I suspect they are there more for effect than actual use.”

I had to agree. The women were of average height and slender builds, looking more like expensive models than bodyguards. They were dressed in black, matching leather bustiers trimmed with straps and chains, and tight black pants that looked like they’d been painted on. One wore shiny leather stiletto boots that probably could have put someone’s eye out; the other had open-toed sandals with laces that crisscrossed up the calves of her pants. The man was just as somber as his companions, his long hair pulled back in a short ponytail, his goatee nowhere near as charming as Gabriel’s.