““Gabriel waited until Aisling had left the room before cocking an eyebrow at Drake. ‘‘Still haven’t told her she’s not going to the sárkány?’’ ‘‘No.’’ Drake grimaced. ‘‘She’s not going to be pleased, but it is too dangerous. She will just have to understand.’’ Gabriel cast a considering glance my way. ‘‘May-ling, if you were in Aisling’s shoes, and I forbade you to attend a weyr meeting to which you wished to go, what would you do?’’ ‘‘I’m a shadow walker. I would simply slip into the shadow world and go anyway. But if I was Aisling herself, I’d probably grab the nearest blunt instrument and smack you upside the head, then go to the meeting.’’ Drake snorted. ‘‘Aisling is not so crass. She would not behave in such a manner.’’ He paused as he walked past me, eyeing for a moment a small stone bust of a woman that sat on an isolated pedestal. He picked up the bust and stuffed it into one of thesideboard cupboards, a set look to his face as Gabriel laughed out loud. ‘‘You have learned, I think.’’ ‘‘I am simply taking an unnecessaryprecaution, nothing more.’’ He hesitated again, then quickly whisked all the knives from the table, depositing them unobtrusively in an urn on the sideboard just as Aisling opened the door. ‘‘What did I miss?’’ she asked as Gabriel roared with laughter. ‘‘A good joke? I love jokes! Is it the one about the demon and the nun? That one always makes Jim wheeze””
