Love in the Time of Dragons (3 page)

She shot a puzzled look to the other woman. “I’m May. We met before, don’t you remember?”

“Not at all. Do you have a phone, May?”

If she was surprised by that question, she didn’t let on. She simply pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. I took it, staring at her for a moment. There was something about her, something that seemed familiar . . . and yet, I was sure I’d never seen her before.

Mentally, I shook away the fancies and began to punch in a phone number, but paused when I realized I had no idea where I was. “What country is this?”

May and Kaawa exchanged glances. May answered. “England. We’re in London. We thought it was better not to move you very far, although we did take you out of Drake’s house since he was a bit crazy, what with the twins being born and all.”

“London,” I said, struggling to peer into the black abyss that was my memory. There was nothing there, but that wasn’t uncommon after an episode. Luckily, a few wits remained to me, including the ability to remember my phone number.

The phone buzzed gently against my ear. I held my breath, counting the rings before it was answered.

“Yeah?”

“Brom,” I said, wanting to weep with relief at the sound of his placid, unruffled voice. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“London.” I slid a glance toward the small, dark-haired woman who looked like she could have stepped straight out of some silent movie. “With . . . uh . . . some people.” Crazy people, or sane . . . that was yet to be determined.

“You’re still in London? I thought you were only going to be there for three days. You said three days, Sullivan. It’s been over a month.”

I heard the note of hurt in his voice. I hated that. “I know. I’m sorry. I . . . something happened. Something big.”

“What kind of big?” he asked, curious now.

“I don’t know. I can’t think,” I said, being quite literal. My brain felt like it was soaking in molasses. “The people I’m with took care of me while I was sleeping.”

“Oh,
that
kind of big. I figured it was something like that. Gareth was pissed when you didn’t come back. He called your boss and chewed him out for keeping you so long.”

“Oh, no,” I said, my shoulders slumping as I thought of the powerful archimage to whom I was an apprentice.

“It was really cool! You should have heard it. Dr. Kostich yelled at Gareth, and told him to stop calling, and that you were all right, but he wouldn’t say where you were because Gareth was always using you. And then Gareth said he’d better watch out because he wasn’t the only one who could make things happen, and then Kostich said oh yeah, and Gareth said yeah, his sister- in-law was a necromancer, and then Ruth punched him in the arm and bit his ear so hard it bled, and after that, I found a dead fox. Can I have fifty dollars to buy some natron?”

I blinked at the stream of information pouring into my ear, sorting out what must have been a horrible scene with Dr. Kostich, finally ending up on the odd request. “Why do you need natron?”

Brom sighed. “ ’ Cause I found the dead fox. It’s going to need a lot of natron to mummify.”

“I really don’t think we need the mummy of a fox, Brom.”

“It’s my hobby,” he said, his tone weary. “You said I needed a hobby. I got one.”

“When you said you were interested in mummies, I thought you meant the Egyptian ones. I didn’t realize you meant you wanted to make your own.”

“You didn’t ask,” he pointed out, and with that, I could not dispute.

“We’ll talk about it when I get back. I suppose I should talk to Gareth,” I said, not wanting to do any such thing.

“Can’t. He’s in Barcelona.”

“Oh. Is Ruth there?”

“No, she went with him.”

Panic gripped me. “You’re not alone, are you?”

“Sullivan, I’m not a child,” he answered, sounding indignant that I would question the wisdom gained during his lifetime, all nine years of it. “I can stay by myself.”

“Not for five weeks you can’t—”

“It’s OK. When Ruth and Gareth left, and you didn’t come back, Penny said I could stay with her until you came home.”

I sagged against the bed, unmindful of the two women watching me so closely. “Thank the stars for Penny. I’ll be home just as soon as I can get on a plane. Do you have a pen?”

“Sec.”

I covered the phone and looked at the woman named May. “Is there a phone number I can give my son in case of an emergency?”

“Your son?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Yes. Here.”

I took the card she pulled from her pocket, reading the number off it to Brom. “You stay with Penny until I can get you, all right?”

“Geez, Sullivan, I’m not a ’tard.”

“A what?” I asked.

“A ’tard. You know, a retard.”

“I’ve asked you not to use those sorts of . . . oh, never mind. We’ll discuss words that are hurtful and should not be used another time. Just stay with Penny, and if you need me, call me at the number I gave you. Oh, and Brom?”

“What?” he asked in that put-upon voice that nine-year-old boys the world over can assume with such ease.

I turned my back on the two women. “I love you bunches. You remember that, OK?”

“ ’K.” I could almost hear his eyes rolling. “Hey, Sullivan, how come you had your thing now? I thought it wasn’t supposed to happen until around Halloween.”

“It isn’t, and I don’t know why it happened now.”

“Gareth’s going to be pissed he missed it. Did you . . . you know . . . manifest the good stuff?”

My gaze moved slowly around the room. It seemed like a pretty normal bedroom, containing a large bureau, a bed, a couple of chairs and a small table with a ruffly cloth on it, and a white stone fireplace. “I don’t know. I’ll call you later when I have some information about when I’ll be landing in Madrid, all right?”

“Later, French mustachioed waiter,” he said, using his favorite childhood rhyme.

I smiled at the sound of it, missing him, wishing there was a way to magically transport myself to the small, overcrowded, noisy apartment where we lived so I could hug him and ruffle his hair, and marvel yet again that such an intelligent, wonderful child was mine.

“Thank you,” I said, handing the cell phone back to May. “My son is only nine. I knew he would be worried about what happened to me.”

“Nine.” May and Kaawa exchanged another glance. “Nine . . . years?”

“Yes, of course.” I sidled away, just in case one or both of the women turned out to be crazy after all. “This is very awkward, but I’m afraid I have no memory of either of you. Have we met?”

“Yes,” Kaawa said. She wore a pair of loose- fitting black palazzo pants and a beautiful black top embroidered in silver with all sorts of Aboriginal animal designs. Her hair was twisted into several braids, pulled back into a short ponytail. “I met you once before, in Cairo.”

“Cairo?” I prodded the solid black mass that was my memory. Nothing moved. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been in Cairo. I live in Spain, not Egypt.”

“This was some time ago,” the woman said carefully.

Perhaps she was someone I had met while travelling with Dr. Kostich. “Oh? How long ago?”

She looked at me silently for a moment, then said, “About three hundred years.”

“Y
solde is awake again,” May said as the door to the study was opened.

I looked up from where I had been staring down into the cup of coffee cradled in my hands. Two men entered the room, both tall and well- built, and curiously enough, both with grey eyes. The first one who entered paused at May’s chair, his hand smoothing over her short hair as he looked me over. I returned the look, noting skin the color of milky coffee, a close-cut goatee, and shoulder-length dreadlocks.

“Again?” the man asked.

“She fainted after she woke up the first time.”

I eyed him. After the last hour, I’d given up the idea that May and Kaawa were potentially dangerous—they let me have a shower, had promised to feed me, and had given me coffee, and crazy people seldom did any of that.

“Ah. No ill effects from it, I hope?” he asked.

“Not unless you call fifty-two elephants tap-dancing in combat boots while bouncing anvils on my brain an ill effect,” I said, gazing longingly at the bottle of ibuprofen.

“No more,” May said, moving it out of my reach. “You’ll poison yourself if you take any more.”

I sipped my coffee with obnoxious noisiness as punishment for her hard-heartedness.

“I’m afraid there is little I can do for a headache.” He nodded toward the man with him. “Tipene, when we are done here, e-mail Dr. Kostich and let him know his apprentice has recovered.”

The second man was also black, but with much shorter dreadlocks. He nodded. Beneath the light-colored T-shirt he wore, I could see thick black curved lines that indicated he bore rather detailed tribal tattoos across his chest.

“We were just having some coffee while waiting for lunch,” May continued, smiling up at the first man. “Ysolde says her brain is a bit fuzzy still.”

“Not so fuzzy that I can’t correct something that’s seriously wrong,” I said, setting my cup down. I addressed the man who stood next to May. “I assume you’re Gabriel Tao . . . Tow . . .”

“Tauhou,” he said, his eyes narrowed as he searched my face.

“Sorry, I have the memory of maple syrup when it comes to people’s names. I was trying to tell your . . . er . . .” I waved vaguely toward May.

“Mate,” he said.

“Quite.” I didn’t even blink over the odd word to use for a partner. What people called their significant others in the privacy of their own homes was not one iota my business. “I was just trying to tell her that I think you have me mistaken for someone else. My name isn’t Ysolde. It’s Tully, Tully Sullivan.”

“Indeed,” he said politely, taking the seat that May had been using. She perched on the arm of the chair instead, not touching him, but I could sense the electricity between them.

“I’m an apprentice mage,” I explained. “You mentioned contacting Dr. Kostich—I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you that you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

“Whether or not you are a mage remains to be seen. That you are Kostich’s apprentice, we know. You were introduced to us by him almost two months ago, when you came to the home of the green wyvern to prevent an attack.”

“Wyvern?” The word was mentioned earlier, but it took until now to sink in through the fog wrapped around my brain. If it meant what I thought it did, it would go a long way to explaining their odd behavior. “The kind that are . . . oh! That’s why you mentioned dragons. You’re them, right? Dragons?”

“My father is a dragon, and May is my mate,” Gabriel said, taking May’s hand. “Tipene is also a silver dragon, as is Maata, whom you will meet shortly. As, I need not say, are you.”

I would have laughed, but my brain was still slogging along at a snail’s pace. I gave him what I hoped was a jaunty little smile, instead. No wonder they seemed to be so very odd—they were dragons! “You know, in a way this is very exciting. I’ve never met a dragon before. I’ve heard about you, of course. Who hasn’t? But I can assure you that I am
not
one of you. Not that there’s anything wrong with, you know, being an animal. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I’m sure some very nice people are dragons. I just don’t happen to know any other than you guys, and I just met you. Oh, hell. I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Kaawa said. “But that is all right. We understand.”

“Do you?” I asked hopefully. “Good, because I don’t understand anything since I woke up, not the least of which is why you’d think I was the same as you.”

“You are Ysolde de Bouchier, silver dragon, and mate to Baltic, who used to be wyvern of the black dragons,” Kaawa said, her gaze seeming to strip away all my defenses and leave my soul bare. I squirmed in my chair, uncomfortable with her intense regard.

“I think I would know if I was a fire- breathing shape-shifter with a love of gold,” I said gently, not wanting to upset her because she seemed rather nice, if a bit odd. I racked my sluggish brain to remember everything I knew about dragons. “I’m afraid I don’t even know much about you folk, although there’s been some talk of you lately at the mages’ commune, since Dr. Kostich has been forced into dealing with an uncontrollable, irresponsible wyvern’s mate who evidently is also a demon lord. But other than that—sorry. I’m afraid you have me mixed up with someone else.”

Doubt was evident on May’s face as she glanced down at Gabriel. “Could you be wrong?” she asked.

He looked thoughtful as his mother shook her head. “I am not wrong,” Kaawa said with determination. “Although I have seen Ysolde de Bouchier only once before, the image of her is burned into my memory for all time. You
are
Ysolde.”

I rubbed my forehead, suddenly tired despite my five-week sleep. “I don’t know what I can say to prove I am who I am. You can ask Dr. Kostich. You can ask the other apprentices. I’m human. My name is Tully. I live in Spain with my son, husband, and sister-in-law.”

“Husband?” Surprise showed in Gabriel’s eyes for a few minutes before turning to amusement. “You’re married and you have a child?”

“Yes, I do, and I have to say that I don’t at all see what’s so funny about having a family,” I said, frowning a little at the man named Tipene as he chuckled to himself.

“Nothing is funny about it,” May said, but even she looked like she was struggling to keep from laughing. “It’s just that Baltic is kind of volatile, and when he finds out that his precious Ysolde is alive with a husband and child . . . well, to be honest, he’s going to go ballistic.”

“That’s tough toenails for him, but since I’m not his precious Ysolde, I don’t particularly care.”

“I think the time will come when you will care very much,” Gabriel said, still amused.