‘‘I’m sure you’re all tired, so why don’t I save everyone from dancing around the issue,’’ I said, wincing at the abruptness of my tone. My eyes went over to where Gabriel had resumed his position. He seemed relaxed enough, but there was a sense of tension surrounding him that seemed oddly out of place, despite the events of the evening. ‘‘You want me to do something for you. Why don’t you just tell me what it is?’’

The humor that seemed so comfortable in Gabriel’s eyes faded, the gray in them dulling. He glanced toward Drake. ‘‘There is a . . . situation.’’

Drake’s eyes narrowed on me.

Jim pursed its lips.

‘‘What sort of a situation?’’ I asked, not really wanting to know.

Cicadas chirped in the silence that followed.

Aisling looked from one dragon to the other, sighing and heaving herself over a bit on the couch so she could lean toward me. ‘‘Honestly, dragons! Here’s the deal, May—Drake is the wyvern of the green dragons.’’

I nodded.

‘‘His brother was the wyvern-in-training of the black dragons.’’

‘‘His brother? I didn’t think families could be split like that,’’ I said slowly.

‘‘It’s a long story, but basically, Drake was claimed by his grandmother’s green dragon family, while Kostya, his brother, was in line to take over as wyvern of the black dragons. Only there was a problem with Baltic, the wyvern at the time. You see, the silver dragons were once part of the black dragon family, but they left to form their own sept.’’

‘‘After several hundred years of abuse by Baltic,’’ Gabriel said, his eyes still dull.

‘‘Baltic didn’t want them to be off on their own, and he basically destroyed his own sept trying to get the silver dragons back.’’

‘‘I see.’’ I wondered what all this had to do with me.

‘‘The few existing black dragons who survived—how many, sweetie?’’ she interrupted herself to ask Drake.

‘‘Less than ten,’’ he answered, his hand stroking gently on her back.

‘‘The few existing black dragons who survived went into hiding, Drake’s brother Kostya included. Because he’d sworn to uphold Baltic’s plan to bring the silver dragons back into the fold, you see.’’

I didn’t see, but I wasn’t about to slow down the information dump.

‘‘So, long story short—’’

‘‘There isn’t anything short about your stories,’’ Jim muttered.

‘‘Long story short,’’ Aisling repeated in a louder voice, ‘‘Baltic was killed by Kostya, but it was too late—the damage had been done and the sept was destroyed. Kostya went to ground. Later he was kidnapped and held prisoner, although no one seems to know by whom. Drake found him and we rescued him a couple of months ago.’’