‘‘No, you haven’t,’’ I told her, pulling her away from where she was patting the demon on its head. ‘‘And thank you so much for using my name in front of it. Come on, I have to get you out of here without anyone else seeing you.’’

‘‘But—’’ she started to say as I grabbed her wrist and pulled her after me, sticking close to the fence in an attempt to avoid being seen from the house. ‘‘But, May—’’

‘‘Shh!’’

‘‘I wouldn’t go that way, if I were you,’’ Jim called out after us.

I gritted my teeth and turned back toward it. It ambled over to us with a raised eyebrow.

‘‘Why not?’’ I asked.

‘‘Drake takes his protection very seriously,’’ it answered, pausing to scratch at its shoulder. ‘‘Pál and István always go over the perimeter before they set the alarms.’’

I swore under my breath again, spinning around to eye the garden. The opposite side was no use—the house was butted up against a cliff. If we couldn’t go out the way I came, there were only two choices—Dr. Kostich’s garden, or the beach.

‘‘Beach,’’ I said quickly, doing an about-face as I hauled Cyrene toward the water.

‘‘They set up motion sensors out there this morning,’’ Jim said, following. ‘‘In case, ya know, someone tries to get in from the water.’’

‘‘Who is Drake?’’ Cyrene asked the demon. ‘‘Who are Pál and István?’’

‘‘Drake’s bodyguards,’’ it answered, laughter visible in its eyes as I did a circle trying to find another way out of the garden. ‘‘Drake is a wyvern. Green dragons.’’

‘‘Dragons!’’ Cyrene gasped, her eyes widening in delight. ‘‘May, did you hear that? Dragons! He must be that dragon who married the Guardian we read about! You know, the one who’s a demon lord. Can we—’’

‘‘No! OK, new plan. We’re both going into Kostich’s garden. He only seems to use arcane magic, none of this high-tech stuff the dragons favor,’’ I said with a frown at the demon. It smiled at me. ‘‘I’ll get you out, and we can resume the plan. OK?’’

‘‘Well, all right, but you know, I’m willing to bet that the dragons and this Guardian can help us—’’ She started to walk toward the house.

‘‘Cy, no!’’ I said, stopping her. ‘‘We don’t need help! We’ll be OK so long as we stick to the plan.’’

‘‘Cy, huh?’’ Jim asked, making me swear at myself for the slip of my tongue.

‘‘It’s Cyrene, really. Only May calls me by the abbreviation,’’ she told it.

‘‘Oh, great. Now it knows both our names,’’ I groaned, wanting to bang my head on the brick wall until this farce of an evening ended.

‘‘So?’’ she asked, rubbing its ears as it leaned into her, groaning with pleasure.

‘‘So now it’s going to go back to its master and tell her everything.’’