“This day is never going to end, is it?” a familiar male voice said in deep resignation next to me. “The world is not going to be content until it bashes in my poor head once and for all. Ow. Oh, ow.”

I yanked a brocade chair off the once-again-prone form of Savian, yelling as I got to my feet, “Gabriel!”

“I like that. I’m right here, with my ribs crushed in, and my spleen ventilated, and bits of my brains hanging out, and she is worried about her immortal boyfriend. Did I say ‘ow’? Because seriously, ow.”

“If you can complain, you’re fine,” I told Savian as I peered through the cloud of dust for a familiar form.

“Stay back, May,” Gabriel called, leaping upward several feet as a dragon swung low at his legs with a huge sword.

“The mate is here,” another yelled, and pointed at me. I counted quickly as a familiar figure strode through the twisted, smoking, gaping hole that had been the front door. There were only three dragons, the redheaded woman, and Baltic—hardly a huge force. We more than outnumbered them.

“Take her, then locate the other shards,” Baltic called out, surveying the destroyed entryway. His eyes lit on Gabriel with amusement. “I told you I would be back.”

“And I told you that you would never have my mate,” Gabriel snarled, and shifted into dragon form, handily decapitating the dragon who was about to skewer him. “Shadow, May!”

I didn’t argue; I shadowed, coughing on the dust generated by the explosion.

“Find the mate,” Baltic demanded, then leaped aside and screamed as Gabriel lunged toward him. One of his guards hit Gabriel full in the chest, and the two of them went down.

A growl behind me had me crouching in defense, but the man who shoved aside the chair next to me was no danger to me. “Oh, she didn’t come. Tell me she didn’t come,” Savian said, his eyes alight as he focused on the redhead, standing as still as a statue next to Baltic. “The world could not be so good to me.”

A slow smile spread across his lips as he ignored his bloody hands to crack his knuckles.

“I take it you’re suddenly feeling better?” I asked.

He didn’t take his eyes off her. “Oh, yes. It’s payback time. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this.” He hefted a bit of broken furniture, weighed it in his hand for a moment or two, then tipped his head back and howled before charging at the woman.

All hell broke loose. Dragons fought dragons. Savian, with the advantage of surprise, threw himself on the redhead, and was on the floor rolling around with her, his piece of wood flailing madly, while Dr. Kostich . . . Agathos daimon! The explosion! Dr. Kostich had been near the door, still working on it when Baltic had blown it up.

I avoided being seen by Baltic’s henchman who rushed toward where I had been standing, skirting the edges of the room until I came to the remains of the front door. A long piece of the metal had twisted off it, embedding itself in the floor. As I started to move around it, I saw movement. Kostya was underneath the door, pinned to the floor by the long spearlike strip of metal.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, making sure none of the dragons was near me as I braced myself against the wall, using my full strength to yank the impaling metal from his body. It took three tries, but I got it out at last. I dropped to my knees, crouching when a dragon, alerted by the noise of the metal falling, came over to investigate. “How bad are you?”

Kostya waited until the dragon had moved off before answering. “Well enough to do what needs to be done.”

“Good. I have to find Dr. Kostich.”

I pulled his sword over to his hand, then moved off as he clawed his way to his feet, listing heavily against the wall, leaving a long smear of blood on the gold and green wallpaper as he finally pushed himself upright.

The expression on Baltic’s face as he caught sight of Kostya was one of sheer delight. He roared something in Zilant, kicking aside a bit of debris as he ran for him, his body changing into the form of a white dragon.

Kostya yelled, leaping to the side and shifting into dragon form, as well, his sword dancing in his hand as Baltic descended.

Gabriel had killed a second of Baltic’s men, and was now battling the third, who had ceased searching for me when Gabriel descended upon him, eyes blazing, sword flashing. I averted my eyes from the sight of the corpse, knowing they would have destroyed us without a single thought, and searched through the rubble for any signs of Kostich.

I found him as Gabriel and Kostya battled furiously.

“Dr. Kostich, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

He lifted his head as I pulled a piece of wall off him, his face battered and bloody, pain dulling his eyes. “Can you move, or are you badly injured?”

“Not badly. I shielded myself with a cushion, but I believe my arm is broken.” He winced when I pulled a piece of twisted metal and wood off his left side.

I grimaced. “It looks like it.”

“Wrap it for me,” he said, gritting his teeth.

I looked again at the bloody, torn mass of his arm.“I do not have the healing abilities of the silver dragons—”

“I know that. Just bind the damned thing so I can move.”

I will do my utmost to forget the five minutes that followed. I certainly hope Dr. Kostich does, as well, although he didn’t say a single word as I ripped off the bottom half of my embroidered tunic, using it and some of the wood to fashion a crude splint.

He was pale and shaking, sweat beading his brow despite the cold air pouring in around us, by the time I was done. I didn’t feel much better, but I managed to get him to his feet, the battle still raging around us as I propped him up against the stairs, well out of the way of the battle. “My apprentices,” he croaked, his body shaking with shock. “I need them to channel for me.”

“Master, we are here,” Jack said from behind us. He emerged from the shadows, half-dragging, half-carrying Tully out of the passage leading to the kitchen. There was blood on her hair and face, and she looked dazed and confused, as if she was only partially conscious.

“You are injured,” Kostich said, momentarily closing his eyes.

“Tully hurt her head, and I am cut up by flying glass, but I am able to serve you.”

“Get her to safety, then return to me,” Kostich ordered, his voice a pale imitation of its normal self.

“Go below, to the basement,” I told Jack. “The lair is down there. Take her there and Kaawa will tend to her.”

Tully roused herself enough to protest. “Take her to the kitchen, then,” I said, pointing. “She can recover there.”

Another crash shook the room, but this time it was from the impact of a heavy dragon body being slammed into the wall.

Baltic screamed for his man to get me, and headed toward our spot on the stairs. Gabriel, fighting to keep the dragon as far from me as possible, likewise screamed. “May! Go to the Dreaming!”

I stared at Gabriel for a minute, then nodded and shadowed.

Baltic stopped his charge, laughing as he faded from sight. He’d gone into the shadow world, fully believing he’d find me there.

Clever, clever Gabriel.

Dr. Kostich got to his feet with Jack’s help. “Did he just . . . ?” He gestured to the spot where Baltic had disappeared.

“Yes,” Jack said grimly, one arm around the archimage’s waist. “Can you walk, sir?”

“This is unprecedented,” Kostich muttered as I hurried, unseen and silent, up the stairs. With everyone down in the lair, attention was drawn away from the upper floors, just as Gabriel had known it would be. His ploy to get Baltic out of the way for a few minutes was just what I needed to escape without anyone noticing where I went.

“I just hope I can do this,” I murmured to myself as I fled down the hallway of the third floor to the room that had been given over to me. I pulled out the strongbox that Gabriel had told me would be under the bed, and persuaded the lock to open.

The phylacteries lay within. I spread them out on the bed, pulling out another box, this one unlocked, bearing the five gold-bound crystal amulets we’d chosen to house the shards. Each unfilled phylactery was chased with gold, bearing the emblem of a sept. Gabriel and I had worked hard on the designs, and I touched them now, pleased with the results.

A roar from below alerted me to the fact that Baltic had discovered I wasn’t in the shadow world with him.

“Do it, May. Gabriel’s going to run out of ways to keep Baltic distracted,” I scolded myself, my hands cold and shaking as I knelt by the bed, trying desperately to calm my mind and heart. Kaawa had stressed the fact that the dragon heart must agree with my wishes for the re-formation to be successful, and it wouldn’t appreciate my full-fledged case of the nerves. I spread my fingers over the four shards that lay before me, aware of a dull heat inside me where the shard resided. It hummed with energy, and I knew it recognized both my intent and the nearness of the other shards.

I cleared my mind and, with a prayer that went out to any deities that might wish to answer it, began the incantation. The words, spoken in Zilant, were themselves meaningless to me, but Kaawa had explained what I was saying. “In my thoughts I have seen the heart that is within all dragons, echoing with essence of the First. I am humbled before thee, before it, before all dragonkin. I beseech thee to show me the brilliance of the First again, in order that I might ensure its safety and purity for all ages. Heed me, heart of the dragon, and lend thyself to my hand that I might preserve thee.”

The words hung heavy and awkward in the air, as sounds of battle drew nearer. I put away from me the worry that Gabriel would not keep Baltic from me, that I’d re-form the heart just in time for him to steal it and destroy everything, put away even the distress that I wasn’t downstairs fighting with him. I focused on the shard, double-checked my memory, and spoke the words again. “Heed me, heart of the dragon, and lend thyself to my hand that I might preserve thee.”

Nothing happened. The sounds of fighting had reached the floor below me. I ran desperately over the ceremony that Kaawa had described, my own heart wailing that I had failed.

“In my thoughts I have seen the heart that is within all dragons—” I started to say a third time, then stopped. It was wrong. I could feel the shard reacting to what I was saying, and it was unmoved by it. The formal words weren’t what it wanted from me. Kaawa was going by the description Ysolde gave when she re-formed the heart—perhaps the words had to be unique for each person?

I blocked out the noise of fighting dragons (growing ever closer), and thought about the ceremony, thought about what it was I wanted to tell the shard.

“I’m not going to miss you trying to get me into dragon form all the time,” I said hesitantly, feeling silly talking to it, but not knowing what else to do, “but I do appreciate you giving me an understanding of what it is to be a dragon. I will forever hold that in my heart, just as I hold Gabriel there. I resented you at first because I felt you were trying to take me over and make me into a dragon.”

I could hear Gabriel’s voice now, hear Kostya’s battle cry, hear Kostich chant as he cast arcane spells intended to slow down or destroy the dragons. They were close, almost to this floor. I ordered my brain to come up with some nice things to say to the shard. “I will miss having the experience of shape-shifting. I will miss the scarlet claws. I will miss the dragon chases that Gabriel and I had, and I will definitely miss knocking Magoth out cold with one swipe of my tail.”

The shard was paying attention—I could feel that—but still, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t want honeyed words. It wanted what was in my heart.

“I didn’t want to be a dragon. I wanted to be myself. But now I know that I am a dragon—if not in physical being, then in heart. I am May Northcott, wyvern’s mate and doppelganger, a dragon of the silver sept, and I thank you for making me such.”

Beneath my fingers, the phylacteries grew hot, the shard inside me suddenly burning with a searing heat that I knew was the first dragon’s fire. It burst out of me in a blaze of fire that glowed so bright it momentarily blinded me.

I stared openmouthed in wonder as the shards gathered together before my face, hanging in midair, slowly twisting themselves into an intricately spun circle of fire. Behind it, the air gathered, and a vision coalesced, that of a dragon’s head, slowly turning to regard me with eyes that reflected the ages. It was a white dragon, but not white—it held all the colors of the spectrum, light shimmering along its skin like a million fireflies. The dragon head shifted, changed into that of a man, and for a moment, for the infinitesimally small time between heartbeats, I was judged by the first dragon.

The heart, the spinning fire that made up the heart, suddenly burst into a glorious nova of light that made my soul sing with joy. It was a thousand times stronger than the feeling the quintessence gave me, a trillion times stronger, and in the time it took to burst, I felt the heart of every dragon in the world suddenly lighten and sing with mine.

I was judged and found worthy. The heart re-formed, then exploded with a song that sang to the heavens. I sank back onto my heels as the light from the now-shattered heart faded; I was moved so profoundly I couldn’t begin to sort through the emotions.

The shard was gone. It lay before me glowing softly in its crystal case, alongside four other cases. I smiled when I saw it, touching the newly filled phylactery with reverent fingers. Gabriel and I had argued over what to put on the phylactery for my shard. He claimed that it now belonged to the silver dragons, since I possessed it, but I insisted that it be left unmarked, thinking we would work out later to whom it really belonged.

“Smart shard,” I said, smiling as my fingers stroked over the gold symbol of the silver dragons that now bound the phylactery. “We will see that you are well taken care of.”

The door behind me flung open. Gabriel threw himself across the doorway, once again in human form, turning his back to me as he fought like a madman to keep Baltic out of the room.

Baltic grabbed him by the neck and yanked him forward, spinning to fling him down the hall. He turned back to me, panting heavily, blood streaming from several wounds on his arms and torso, his eyes lit with an unholy light.

“Mate,” he snarled.

“True enough, but I will never be yours,” I answered, scooping up the phylacteries and dumping them back into the strongbox.

“I felt something. What have you done?”

“Nothing you can change.”

He snarled at me. “You think not?”

I shoved the strongbox behind me, and pulled out my dagger as he reached for me. “What you felt was the dragon heart being re-formed and resharded. I saw the first dragon, Baltic. I saw him, and I know.”

He froze, confusion in his eyes. “You . . . know?”

“I saw him. You won’t have the dragon heart now. It’s been sharded again.”

Gabriel reached him just as he threw back his head and roared his anger. Eyes as bright as the full moon, Gabriel jumped onto Baltic, twisting his body as he did so, using the momentum to pull Baltic from the room, back out into the hallway, yelling over his shoulder, “Fly, little bird!”

I fled into the shadow world, taking the box of phylacteries with me, slipping past where he and Kostya battled Baltic, once again in dragon form. Baltic must have sensed me passing him, for he suddenly spun around and charged toward me. Gabriel yelled and threw himself on the dragon’s back, shifting as he did so. He brought Baltic to the ground, their sleek dragon bodies twisted together as they fell. I paused at the top of the stairs, not wanting to leave Gabriel, but knowing I should get the phylacteries to safety.

Kostya shifted to human form, yelling at Gabriel, “He is mine!”

Savian staggered up the stairs, one arm hanging limp, his usable hand still clutching his piece of wood. “Took care of that redheaded she-wolf. Just the one dragon left? Good,” he said, then keeled over on the floor.

“Must I do this again?” Kostya bellowed, raising his sword over his head. “How many times must I kill you before you stay dead?”

“Gabriel!” I yelled, coming out of the shadow world.

“May, go!” Gabriel shifted at the last second and leaped out of the way of Kostya’s downswing. The sword flashed in the air as it passed through the spot that a nanosecond before was occupied by Baltic, and embedded itself deeply into the floor.