“What on earth does that mean?” I asked, wanting to shake the annoying man, but he continued to fade, his odd, inhuman eyes on Constantine the last thing visible before they just blinked out of existence.

“What an annoying, deliberately obtuse man,” Ysolde said, biting the ends off of the words. “Now I remember why we never get in contact with him. ‘And that will be your failing if you do not correct it.’ Seriously, Bee, he used to say the same sorts of cryptic things to me, and it drove me nuts! I was forever trying to figure them out, and to this day, I still don’t know what half of the things he told me really mean.”

“I think I irritated him,” I said somewhat apologetically. I was new to the dragon world, after all. “I should have been a bit more polite, but after all we’ve gone through…” I took a deep breath and stopped from saying more.

“We have work to do,” Constantine said slowly, clearly mulling over the First Dragon’s comments. “A warrior who can undo that which gives Bael strength. A mage, do you think?” he asked Baltic.

The latter shook his head after a moment’s thought. “Bael considers himself a mage of sorts. And he was born a black dragon.”

“As were we all,” Kostya said with a wry twist of his lips.

“Really? I thought you were a green dragon?” I asked Drake.

“I am. But my father was a black dragon. My green dragon ancestors claimed me as their own, however.”

“It’s a long story,” Aisling said, giving her husband an odd look. “Drake’s a special sort of dragon. They call them reeves, and I have a whole lot to say about that because it means he can take another mate if I die, but he knows full well if he even thought of it, I’d haunt him to the end of his days and make his life a living hell.”

He kissed her hand, and murmured something in her ear that had her giggling. “So what do we do now?” Aoife asked.

Everyone looked at Constantine. Slowly, as if he was still thinking it all through, he answered, “Bael’s source of power is the items he will use to make new tools—the light sword and Asmodeus’s ring. To unmake them, we’d need an alchemist. But those don’t exist anymore.”

I froze, watching Constantine.

“They do, I think,” Drake said, turning to Aisling. “I heard there were two still in existence. Did not Dr. Kostich say that to you at one time?”

“Not me, but to May.”

“Dr. Kostich?” Constantine asked. “The archmage?”

“Yes, he rules the Otherworld. He’s a big pain, but that’s a long story,” Aisling told him. “All I remember hearing was something about his quintessence, and why it was so valuable, and that it had taken a Welsh alchemist years and years to make. And May asked why he didn’t get more alchemists making them, and he said there were only two that he knew of. Alchemists, that is.”

“I thought alchemists were like…” Aoife waved her hand around vaguely. “Like old-time chemists. Didn’t they try to turn lead into gold and all that jazz?”

“That’s the mortal version,” Aisling told her. “They were half mystics, half chemists who didn’t know what they were doing. The Otherworld version is different. They can unmake magic.”

“How do you unmake magic?” Aoife asked, shaking her head a little.

Aisling shrugged. “The same way that Bee unmakes curses. You just… you know… break it down to tiny little bits. Alchemists used to be popular because they could take a simple bit of magic like a spell, and break it down into base matter that was used to form super powerful things like Dr. Kostich’s quintessence.”

“And a quintessence is…?”

“A priceless bit of magic material that can do just about anything,” Ysolde told her. “It can bring something back to life. It can wipe out a continent. It can create matter from nothing. It’s literally priceless, and one of the reasons there are only a couple of alchemists around anymore. Most of them died because unscrupulous people would hold them hostage, forcing them to make quintessence by threatening to kill people they loved.”

“And if we need one of those guys to unmake Bael’s tools-in-progress…” Aisling gave a little shudder. “We’re up shit creek, we really are.”

My heart dropped at that. Panic hit me then, panic and a strong desire to protect my little family, now grown larger to include Constantine and Gary. I bit my lip, suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to be away from it all, and alone with Constantine. The happenings of the day were just too much for me.

Constantine must have sensed something, because he pulled me closer, whispering in my ear that we would soon be done, and then we could leave. “I will allow you to have your way with me this time,” he added, his voice rubbing against me like silk on my naked flesh. “You may even use my faux-fur–lined handcuffs if you like.”

“Deal,” I said. “And perhaps I might even try those nipple teasers on you.”

“We are leaving now. We’re done!” Constantine said abruptly.

“We are?” Drake looked a bit confused. “But we still have things to discuss. How will we find an alchemist?”

“Who is the mortal warrior we need to take down Bael?” Ysolde added. “We need to talk about that, too.”

“We can’t just leave Bael out in the world, running amok,” Kostya agreed. “We have to find the mortal that the First Dragon spoke of, the only one who can destroy Bael. We have to find an alchemist to unmake the magic tools.”

I leaned into Constantine, drawing strength from him, but more, drawing a bone-deep satisfaction. It was like our souls fit together perfectly, one complementing the other. Separately, we held power unto ourselves, but together… I smiled up at him. I’d do just about anything to guarantee a future with my ghost dragon. Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that there was no other way but to admit the truth about my brother. “I think I have the answer to all the problems you’ve mentioned, Kostya.”

“You do?” Aoife looked surprised. I braced myself against the hurt that I knew I was about to inflict.

“Yes. We have a brother, Aoife and I. His name is Rowan. He’s a social anthropologist, working in Brazil this year.” Everyone was watching me now, but it was Constantine’s eyes that I met; his lovely dark amber eyes always seemed to pull me in and bathe me in a warm glow of happiness. “He’s also one of the two alchemists alive. And he’s mortal. You know him by a different name, though.”