I froze at the words, for three seconds my entire body feeling as if I’d been magically converted to a marble statue. Slowly, I turned to face the Charmer.

She stared at me in outright astonishment. “Aoife?”

I nodded, speechless for a moment.

“You know the Charmer?” Kostya asked, his voice expressing disbelief. “Why did you not tell me that you were acquainted with one? We could have avoided asking Jovana for help.”

I stared at the woman in front of me, her face almost as familiar as my own. “Bee, what… how can you… you’re a Charmer?”

Her gaze moved from me to Kostya and back. “You’re with a dragon.”

I nodded again, sliding my arm around Kostya’s waist. “I am.”

“Aoife is my mate,” Kostya said matter-of-factly, pulling me tighter against his side.

I stopped staring at my sister to gaze at him in equal surprise. “Oh, you pick now to finally admit it?”

A little flash of humor flitted through his eyes. “Yes. I thought you’d like to know.”

I pinched his side to let him know I appreciated the irony in him throwing my own words back at me.

“You’re a wyvern’s mate?” Bee’s face twisted in amazement. “I just can’t believe… I left you in Sweden.”

“How do you know this woman?” Kostya asked.

“She’s my sister.” I took a deep breath, giving Bee a long, long look. “The very same sister who helped have me committed to a loony bin because she said the things I saw at the Faire couldn’t possibly be real, when all the while she knew very well they were. That sister.”

“Ah.” Kostya was silent for the count of eight, then gave me a little squeeze. “That situation is not of prime importance at this moment. We will deal with it later. Come, Charmer. We have much to discuss.”

During the trip to Drake and Aisling’s house, I turned inward, unable to chat with Bee. My anger was so hot, I literally set fire to Rene’s car three times before I finally managed to get a handle on it. It was the hurt that filled me, though, a deep, scarring pain, at the knowledge that my own sister would betray me as she did.

I’d always loved my sister and looked up to her as someone who seemed to so easily make her way through life. But now… now she seemed like a complete stranger. Someone who looked familiar but was replaced by a person I no longer knew.

Bee made a few efforts to engage me in conversation, but I couldn’t discuss the situation with her. Instead I sat silent, drawing strength from Kostya pressed to my side, struggling with my own sense of worth.

I looked out the window of the taxi, not really seeing anything of the streets we drove down. I was aware that Bee expressed amazement when Kostya told the tale of our recent adventures, but not even her statement that the ring couldn’t be in better hands drove me to converse with her.

Ten hours later the sun finally set, leaving the section of Paris containing the remains of the G&T lit with soft yellow streetlights, the air still smelling of smoke, but the burned shell of the building no longer hot enough to burn us when we shuffled in through what had once been a door. Only two walls remained, and they looked about ready to fall in. Kostya, Drake, and the bodyguards cleared a spot on what had once been a small dance floor next to the bar and set up a couple of folding chairs they had brought in their car.

“Thank God the magic still works,” Aisling said as she took a seat. She gave me a grim smile. “It’s been a hell of a day, made all that much worse because we couldn’t talk once we got back home. Kostya, how is your face?”

“Not of any concern,” he told her, and placed a chair for me, holding out a hand. I took it, not looking at my sister, who sat on a chair that Drake set up. Pal and Istvan arranged a few more chairs, forming a circle.

“We are all here?” Drake said, looking around. “Good. We shall begin, then. Rene, would you tell us what you found out earlier?”

Rene, who had just sat on the other side of Kostya, stood up again and cleared his throat. “It took some doing, but I eventually traced Bael to the house in Provence where we know Asmodeus to have an entrance to his palace in Abaddon. Whether or not he has returned to Abaddon, I could not tell. I simply know that he has access to it via the house. What his actions will be are just as impossible to guess.” He sat down again, looking tired.

Voices grew and ebbed as a couple of people strolled past the burned-out club.

Drake, evidently nominating himself as chairperson of this meeting, waited until their footsteps faded away before saying, “Thank you, Rene. That was quick work, considering the circumstances. We will naturally dispatch as many dragons as possible to watch Bael’s moves. Jim?”

“I wasn’t licking my balls for the fun of it!” Jim said quickly, straightening up from where he had, in fact, been licking his noogies. “It’s called grooming and is perfectly normal for a dog to do! There’s nothing kinky or weird in it at all.”

Drake sighed. “What do you have to report to us?”

“Oh, that.” Jim shook and sat down, donning an officious expression. “Aisling sent me to Abaddon to see which way the wind was blowing there, but there wasn’t the slightest whiff of Bael or even a concern that he was out of the Akasha. I don’t think anyone knows, although I can’t imagine that’s going to be the case for long. Demons like to talk.”

“So he’s not in Abaddon.” Aisling spoke slowly, a little line appearing between her eyebrows as she puzzled out the situation. “But he’s in Asmodeus’s house, which has access to it. Well, I think Drake’s right, and it’s foolish to guess what he’s going to do. Surveillance is our best bet.”

“Kostya, you are in agreement?” Drake asked his brother.

“Yes. I will provide a detail of black dragons to take turns watching Bael.”

“I don’t understand why you want to keep tabs on him,” I said softly to Aisling. “You said he was booted out of Abaddon to the limbo place, so isn’t he pretty much neutered, magically speaking?”

Aisling shuddered. “I doubt if anything but outright destruction could neuter Bael. Even crippled by being removed from Abaddon, he’s still a dangerous person.”

“Dangerous to dragons, or other people?”