I bit back the response that it wouldn’t take much linguistic power to eyeball a spring, saying simply, “That seems like a lot of trouble to go to on Maata’s part, but if she wants a little break from her regular bodyguard duties to hang out with us in Italy, we’d be delighted to have her. Oh, hang on, here’s Cy with the tickets.”

“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, a little pout ruining her normally sunny expression. “This is the best I could get.”

I glanced at the flight information and passed it along to Gabriel.

“I would come to help you myself, but I have a meeting with Bastian scheduled. Drake believes he will be wholly agreeable to giving us access to the blue shard, but I don’t wish to take anything for granted.”

“And you thought it was for your handsome looks and that satin voice I agreed to be your mate,” I said, “when all along it was your brains.”

“Indeed,” he said, and I frowned. It wasn’t like him not to respond to a flirtatious comment.

“Is everything all right there?” I asked. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I would not keep things from you, mate,” he said with more formality than was the norm. “I hope your trip goes well, and that you’ll be able to return soon to your guest.”

“My guest?” I asked, worry starting to build inside me. “What guest?”

“She wishes to have a word with you. Maata will meet you at the airport. Be careful, May. The sea is not necessarily calm in that area of the world.”

His metaphor didn’t escape me any more than did the true reason he wanted a bodyguard along while we visited land that was traditionally held by the now-ousted Fiat. But the identity of my so-called guest was a mystery to me . . . at least until a familiar happy voice chirped in my ear.

“Sugar! You didn’t tell me what a delicious hunk of burning love you had hidden away. He’s just too, too yummy, even if he is a dragon. Since you have Magoth as well, I don’t suppose you’d mind sharing, hmm?”

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

It took the full length of the train ride from Rome to Onano, the town in the north of Italy that was closest to Cyrene’s spring, to get the details out of Maata as to what Sally was doing at the suite Gabriel had taken for us all in a Paris hotel.

“Before I tell you that, you have to answer me a question,” she said, laughing as we claimed our seats. Cy and I sat on one side of a table between two banks of seats, with Maata across from us.