‘‘Boys!’’ Drake added, an outraged look on his face.

Aisling giggled.

‘‘Why did you betray them?’’ I asked Gabriel.

Silence, heavy and pregnant, fell upon the room. Gabriel studied me for a moment before answering. ‘‘Fiat Blu, the wyvern of the blue dragons, used Aisling to strike at Drake. I tried to reason with him, but Fiat has always been . . .’’

‘‘Insane,’’ Aisling offered.

‘‘Unreasonable,’’ Drake said.

‘‘. . . difficult,’’ Gabriel finished. ‘‘He would not listen to my attempts to defuse the situation, leaving me in an awkward position. I did the best I could to rein him back from the destruction I knew he would inflict, but he was more unbalanced than I thought, and he succeeded in poisoning Aisling before I could stop him.’’

I sipped my coffee as I mulled over what he was saying. ‘‘What happened to the unbalanced Fiat? Didn’t you tell me there were two blue wyverns?’’

‘‘There can only be one true wyvern at any time,’’ he answered.

‘‘You’ve been taking answer-avoidance lessons from Drake,’’ Aisling told Gabriel. ‘‘I’ll tell you what I know, May, although I have to pry every little bit of information from these guys.’’

‘‘I’ve noticed that particular trait myself,’’ I murmured.

Aisling gave her husband a long look that he ignored. ‘‘I gather that Fiat’s uncle Bastian—who, I have to admit, kind of wigs me out because even though he’s Fiat’s uncle and a hundred years older, he looks the same age as Fiat. Anyway, Bastian was born to be wyvern, but Fiat somehow convinced everyone in his sept that Bastian was insane, and he took over as wyvern instead.’’

‘‘Bastian tried to usurp Fiat several times, but failed,’’ Gabriel said as he gutted an apple. ‘‘There. I have been forthcoming with information not asked of me. Now will you stop shooting annoyed glances at me, little bird?’’

I smiled. I couldn’t help myself; he was just so completely charming when he dimpled at me.

‘‘A couple of months ago my uncle, my friend Rene, Jim, and I went to free Bastian, and he immediately took over control of the sept as the rightful wyvern. Only he let Fiat escape, and now the blue sept is divided, with some of the dragons following Fiat, and others swearing to support Bastian.’’

‘‘A civil war? That doesn’t sound good,’’ I said, wondering whether that was going to affect the silver dragons. The gods knew Gabriel had enough on his plate without heaping blue-dragon issues on it as well.

‘‘It serves to keep Fiat busy, and away from us,’’ Drake grunted. He stood up, going around to help Aisling out of her chair.

She made a wry face. ‘‘Fiat isn’t happy with me for what he views as a betrayal, which coming from him is pretty laughable. My money is on Bastian, though. He’s been biding his time, and I think he’s going to make a great wyvern. But you can judge him for yourself when you see him at the sárkány, May. Thanks, sweetie. I need to visit the mothers-to-be room quickly, so don’t talk about anything good until I get back.’’

Gabriel waited until Aisling had left the room before cocking an eyebrow at Drake. ‘‘Still haven’t told her she’s not going to the sárkány?’’

‘‘No.’’ Drake grimaced. ‘‘She’s not going to be pleased, but it is too dangerous. She will just have to understand.’’

Gabriel cast a considering glance my way. ‘‘May-ling, if you were in Aisling’s shoes, and I forbade you to attend a weyr meeting to which you wished to go, what would you do?’’

‘‘I’m a shadow walker. I would simply slip into the shadow world and go anyway. But if I was Aisling herself, I’d probably grab the nearest blunt instrument and smack you upside the head, then go to the meeting.’’

Drake snorted. ‘‘Aisling is not so crass. She would not behave in such a manner.’’ He paused as he walked past me, eyeing for a moment a small stone bust of a woman that sat on an isolated pedestal. He picked up the bust and stuffed it into one of the sideboard cupboards, a set look to his face as Gabriel laughed out loud.

‘‘You have learned, I think.’’

‘‘I am simply taking an unnecessary precaution, nothing more.’’ He hesitated again, then quickly whisked all the knives from the table, depositing them unobtrusively in an urn on the sideboard just as Aisling opened the door.

‘‘What did I miss?’’ she asked as Gabriel roared with laughter. ‘‘A good joke? I love jokes! Is it the one about the demon and the nun? That one always makes Jim wheeze.’’

I waited until Drake had helped her into her chair before addressing Gabriel, who was dabbing at his eyes with his napkin. ‘‘Who is going to be at this meeting? Bastian or Fiat?’’

‘‘Possibly both. The sárkány was called by Bastian to address the issue of Fiat, who will probably show up claiming he’s the blue wyvern and thus has a right to be there.’’

‘‘I see. Will Kostya be there, as well?’’

‘‘Probably,’’ Gabriel said, ‘‘although he has yet to petition the weyr for recognition.’’

I waited, but he didn’t add anything else, despite seemingly wanting to. I wondered what had been going on between him and Kostya while I was in Abaddon but figured he didn’t want to discuss it in front of Drake. While Drake had apparently never been particularly close to his brother, I assumed a blood bond was a hard one to break.

‘‘And the other dragon sept? The red one?’’

‘‘Are you finished?’’ Gabriel asked. I nodded and pushed back my plate. ‘‘We have much to do before the meeting this afternoon. The red dragons will likely send a representative, although who that will be is unknown. We are unsure of what the wyvern Chuan Ren’s fate was after Aisling cast her into Abaddon.’’

‘‘That reminds me! I meant to ask you if you’d heard anything about Chuan Ren while you were with Magoth,’’ Aisling said, turning to me. ‘‘I have no idea where she ended up, or even if she stayed there long. No one’s heard a thing from her, or the red dragons.’’