Kostya stared at him for the count of seven before turning a speculative gaze on me. “Order it to answer the question truthfully,” he said after another couple of moments’ thought.

“Huh?”

“Give it a direct command to answer the question truthfully.”

“What question?”

“Why it is not with Aisling.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t… this is all… I swear to you, I’m sane. I’m perfectly sane now, but I can’t indulge my hallucinations this way. Dr. Barlind says—”

“To hell with Dr. Barlind, whoever he is.”

“She.”

Kostya made an annoyed gesture. “You are not insane. The dog is a demon. It is speaking, and it belongs with Aisling. Order it to answer the question truthfully.”

“This is stupid—fine! I’ll ask him, but you get to go first for the shock therapy.” I turned around again to face the dog. “Dog—”

“Jim. Say its name.”

“You really are enough to drive someone nuts, you know that? Dog whose name is evidently Jim, at least according to the man next to me, please answer—”

“Command it.”

“Gah! Jim, I command you to truthfully answer the question of why you are not with someone named Aisling.”

The dog pursed his lips, scrunched up his nose, and said, “I don’t know anyone named Aisling.”

“Happy now?” I turned back to Kostya.

He sat back in his seat, a slight frown pulling his brows down. “No. Although this explains the rumors that Jim was no longer seen with the green dragons. It must have been given to another… but no, Aisling would not part with it. It was too dear to her.”

“Okay, this is going to sound like a ridiculously pedantic thing to say given that we’re both quite, quite mad, but why do you keep referring to the poor doggy as it? He’s a boy dog, if you were wondering.”

“Demons are always referred to with gender-neutral pronouns,” he answered absently.

“Hey! My gender is very much not neutered!” Jim said, bending over to snuffle himself. “Look, right there, two magnificent noogies, just as big as you like. Well, maybe not you, because you’d have to stuff them into your pants, but I think they’re perfect for parading around in front of the lady dogs.”

I looked at Kostya, feeling as if I were standing on the edge of a precipice. One step in the wrong way and I’d fall into a pit from which there was no return. Kostya sat in deep thought, staring out the front window, one hand rubbing his stubble-laden chin.

“Kostya, I command you to truthfully answer whether or not that dog in the backseat just said something about his balls.”

The disbelief in his eyes was almost comical. “It doesn’t work on me, mortal!”

“Sorry. I just figured that since you wanted me to do it for Jim—”

“Jim is a demon. You are evidently now its demon lord, although what Aisling will have to say about that, I do not care to think. Thus, you may give it commands and it must obey.”

I stared at him for a moment. “I’m what, now?”

“A demon lord.” He turned back to the window. “I wish that I was able to contact Drake. There might be a reason that Jim was separated from Aisling.”

I shook my head to myself, then decided that if I wanted to retain even the slightest shred of sanity, there was only one thing to do. I did it.

“Where are you going?” Kostya asked when I got out of the car and started walking down the road.

“Away from you.”

“Why? I have done nothing objectionable.” I didn’t even hear his footsteps when he caught up to me. I just kept walking. “I have made no untoward comment about the fact that you have mental instability, or that you pushed your breasts against me in a blatant invitation, or even that your driving skills are not as impressive as I had hoped.”

I stopped to glare at him. “My driving skills? I drive just fine, you arrogant son of a sea witch!”

“My mother is not a sea witch, although I admit that there are times when I would relish calling her that—”

I smacked him on the arm. “I drive wonderfully. I couldn’t help being startled by Bo-Bo the Talking Dog!”

“It’s Jim, evidently,” the dog in question said, strolling up behind us. “Are we going walkies? Because I think I need to drop a load, and you probably don’t want to be downwind when I do.”

I pointed to the field across the road. “Go over there and do that.”

He grinned at me, a real grin, one with teeth, and curved lips, and an amused look in his eyes. “You’ve got it, oh master.”

“Stop that!” I snapped, then turned back to Kostya. “Go away. And take the demon dog with you. You can have my car. I’ll find a way back home somehow.”

Kostya took my arms in his hands, giving me a little shake. “You appear to be denying the existence of Jim, among other things. Is that it? You do not wish to admit that I am a dragon and Jim is a demon?”

“Oh, now you’re a dragon, are you?” I asked, stifling the urge to laugh hysterically.

“I have always been a dragon.” His tone implied that he was vaguely insulted, but before I could make a comment about his sanity—let alone mine for even having that conversation—the world as I knew it came to an end.

Or rather, the world that I had lived in for the last two years ended. Before my unbelieving eyes, Kostya’s form seemed to shimmer for a moment before morphing into that of a black dragon, complete with glossy black scales, ivory claws, and a trickle of smoke coming out of one nostril. I froze, staring, my brain trying to come to terms with the impossible being in front of me, but before I could do more than squawk, the dragon shimmered again and Kostya stood in its place.

That was the moment that my sad little inner voice stood up and shouted with joy, filled with vindication after two years of denial.

“Holy sex me now!” I said, the rest of my brain still having problems coping with the fact that a dragon—a dragon!—had stood before me, his claws on my arms.

Told you so, said the formerly sad inner voice. Guess Terrin was right all along, huh? Now we can get on with life. I wonder what a demon lord does?

And that’s when the penny dropped. “You’re the black dragon I saw at GothFaire that night the world went insane. You’re the guy Terrin pointed out to me.”