“He has escaped us!” Dr. Kostich said, his voice icy. “Had I know he could use the beyond as a way to avoid capture, I would have put precautions into place to ensure he could not simply vanish just as we were about to take him.”

I wondered how he could arrange for that, but figured mages must have abilities in the shadow world that were far greater than mine. “I’m sorry, but I just didn’t think to tell you. But if you are worried that we have seen the last of Baltic, you can rest your mind. He isn’t the sort of dragon to let a little thing like defeat stop him for long. I have every expectation that he’ll be back raising hell soon. We might have stopped him from getting the dragon heart or shards, but I have no doubt he’ll continue to be a thorn in our side, and sooner or later, the weyr will have to do something about him.”

“What the weyr does is none of my concern,” he said darkly. “I will have that sword. Where did you put the prisoner you took?”

“Thala? Drake has her in a storage room, I believe.”

“I will question her. Perhaps she can be of some use to us,” he said, turning on his heel and striding toward the back of the house.

I followed him a few steps, debating whether I wanted to go with him, let Drake ply me with whisky, or see how the apprentice was doing. A strong, overwhelming need to be with Gabriel won out, sending me to the long sitting room. I found Gabriel kneeling next to the apprentice Tully, who sat hunched over in an armchair in the corner of the room. Savian was flaked out on the couch, covered with a blanket.

I sat on my heels next to Gabriel as he asked Tully to continue.

“I’m . . . it’s difficult,” she said slowly, her voice thick with some strong emotion. Pain? Loss? It was something she felt deeply. “There was something—something indescribable. It filled me with happiness and dread at the same time, as if I was being torn from paradise and flung into Abaddon. A light shone through me, a brilliant golden light, so pure it made me want to weep with joy, but then it was gone, and blackness filled its void.”

“She is describing the re-forming of the heart,” Gabriel said softly, his hands on her knees. “She felt the dragon heart re-form and be shattered.”

“I thought only dragons could feel that?” I asked.

He nodded. “All dragonkin felt the re-forming of the heart. It connects all of us. But this mage . . .” His gaze didn’t waver off her for a second.

Tully, clearly uncomfortable with his regard, covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

“What is wrong with her?” Savian asked from where he lay on the couch.

I looked at Gabriel. “Dragons can’t be mages.”

His gaze moved from Tully to me, his eyes troubled. “One has managed to do so.”

“But . . . surely there is no connection?”

“I have never done a better day’s work, and I have guided well over a hundred new souls into this world.” Kaawa entered the room, stretched, and looked around her with pleasure. “I am glad to see you returned from your visit to the Akasha, wintiki. Your journey was successful?”

“Yes, it was. I’m officially free from Magoth.” I stood up to greet Kaawa, moving slightly away from Tully to do so. At the sound of another voice, Tully stopped sobbing into her hands, fumbling in her pocket for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

Kaawa started toward us, caught sight of the woman on the chair, and faltered, her face suddenly frozen with shock. She lifted a hand and pointed at Tully, her mouth moving, but no sound coming out.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as Gabriel went forward to her side.

“Mother? Are you unwell?”

“She,” Kaawa said, still staring in absolute astonishment at Tully. Her finger wavered a little as she pointed. “It’s her.”

“The mage apprentice?” I asked, glancing at Tully. She looked up in complete befuddlement at Gabriel’s mother, clearly not understanding why the other woman was so stunned to see her.

“No.” Kaawa shook her head, then said the last thing in the world I expected her to say. “That is no apprentice. That is no mage.”

Gabriel and I exchanged confused glances before looking back at his mother.

She stared at Tully with an intensity that raised the hairs on the backs of my arms.

Savian propped himself up on the couch, watching with interest as Tully rose from the chair, one hand at her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t . . . do I know you?”

“That is a not a mage. That is a black dragon,” Kaawa announced, her voice ringing pure and clear in the silence of the room. “That is a wyvern’s mate.”

Goose bumps crawled up my spine as I looked at Tully.

“That is his mate. That is Ysolde de Bouchier. She is alive. Baltic’s mate is alive.”

Read on for a peek at

Love in the Time of Dragons

A Novel of the Light Dragons

by Katie MacAlister

Coming from Signet in May 2010

I stood in the kitchen doorway and watched as a group of four men rode into the bailey, all armed for battle.

“Ysolde! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you up in the solar tending to Lady Susan? Mother was looking for you!” Margaret, my older sister, emerged from the depths of the kitchen to scold me.

“Did they get her out of the privy, then?” I asked with all innocence. Or what I hoped passed for it.

“Aye.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “It was odd, the door being stuck shut that way. Almost as if someone had done something to it.”

I made my eyes as round as they would go, and threw in a few blinks for good measure. “Poor, poor Lady Susan. Trapped in the privy with her bowels running amok. Think you she’s been cursed?”

“Aye, and I know by what. Or, rather, whom.” She was clearly about to shift into a lecture when movement in the bailey caught her eye. She glanced outside the doorway and pulled me backwards, into the dimness of the kitchen. “You know better than to stand about when Father has visitors.”

“Who are they?” I asked, looking around her as she peered out at them.

“An important mage,” she answered, holding a plucked goose to her chest as she watched the men. “That must be him, in the black.”

All of the men were armed, their swords and mail glinting brightly in the sun, but only one did not wear a helm. He dismounted, lifting his hand in greeting as my father hurried down the steps of the keep.