"Ambrose!"

"Noah—!" His breath catches and his grasp on me tightens as I take most of his weight. "Ah, thank heaven and hell, and everything between—you're alive."

Unable to support him, I sink with him to my knees. A spasm wracks his body, and after a few shaky gasps he eases his grip, leans away from me, and takes my face between his bloodied hands.

"Are you injured?" he asks.

"No. You?"

"A few scrapes," he answers, relief easing some of the tension in his face. "Nothing more."

I frown as I take a quick inventory.

There's a deep gash on his brow, the three scratches down the side of his face, and blood soaks his tattered shirt over his chest, sides, and arms. A row of punctures marks his thigh, and from his pallor and his quick, shallow breathing, I judge he's in considerable pain.

"Liar," I say, smoothing the damp, sticky hair back from his brow. "You're hurt. What happened?"

"From the look of things," Shanti says, coming to stand at my back and resting a gentle hand on my shoulder, "I'd say he tangled with a rakshasa, or two."

"Did you?" I ask, feeling my eyes widen.

"Seems Aengus has a pack of those things," he whispers, still caressing my face. "When the one that had gone after you came back, I may have lost my mind, for a bit."

"Why haven't you healed yourself?"

"I was saving it," he says. "Saving my strength—for you, I mean. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough for both of us, if you were even alive. If you weren't, then I wouldn't care either way."

"Well, I am alive," I tell him. "And I'm fine. So take care of yourself now, okay?"

His eyes search mine, the fire burning low in their depths, but at last he nods and shuts them, tilting his head back and taking a deep breath through his nose. The veins beneath his skin glow like hot wires as his fire awakens, and then the gashes on his face seal shut seamlessly, leaving the skin smooth and unblemished, and I know his less visible injuries have done the same.

He releases his breath in a sigh and slumps against me, resting his head on my shoulder.

I rub my hands over his back where I'm holding him. "Better?"

He murmurs an assent, sounding barely conscious. I know that when he heals himself, he doesn't suffer the way he does when he heals others, but that it still leaves him drained. He hadn't fully recovered from healing me before, either.

"Hey, Ambrose—no sleeping yet, okay?" I slip my hand beneath his tangled veil of hair and gently squeeze the back of his neck. "Tell me what happened. And what about the others, huh? Penelope and everyone. Are they okay?"

With another deep breath and an obvious effort, he lifts himself away from me and sits back on his heels.

"After you ran," he says, "I intended to tear Aengus apart with my bare hands—burn him to ash if I could. I thought that surely even he would not be immune to dragonfire, and if he truly desired extinction, then he should welcome it."

"Let me guess—he turned you down," I reply, unable to help the wry smile twisting my mouth.

Ambrose's lips quirk in a tired, half-smile in return. "Hence my 'tangle' with rakshasas. Seems Aengus was not entirely honest with us, I'm afraid. He wants to die—yes—but only because returning his Gift and embracing the mortality that should have been his long ago is the only way he can get what he truly wants: an end to his suffering, and vengeance on the one whom he blames for it."

"Ainach," Dane states, coming to kneel beside us, leaning forward with his arms resting on his bent knee.

"Yes." Ambrose nods. "And it seems that the way in which he plans to carry out this retribution is through me. He thinks that Ainach and I are the same, somehow."

"He is not wrong," Shanti says, lowering herself to sit at my other side. "Just as my father is the embodiment of the water-serpent, so you, Ambrose, are the embodiment of the Lord of Fire. You are born of him, but not separate from him. 'Nagaraja' is a title, more than a name," she goes on. "It means, roughly, 'serpent king.' So, in the tongue of the firedrakes, 'Ainach' means 'fire lord.' Ainach may be the dragon-god of fire, but you are 'Ainach' in this world. Does that make sense?"

"No, not really," Ambrose says, frowning at her. "And who, exactly, are you, by the way?"

Shanti smiles. "Do I resemble no one you have known and loved?"

Ambrose blinks in shock. "Jack."

She nods. "I am his sister, and your cousin. I am 'Kitty,' though my name is Shanti, now."

Ambrose looks up at her, then buries his face in his hands as a tremor shivers down his arms. "Gods..." he sighs. "I don't even know what's real anymore."

I grasp his wrists and pry his hands away from his face, forcing him to look at me.

"I'm real," I tell him. "I'm real, and I love you, whatever you are: man, or dragon, or both. I love the way you care about others—human or not—and readily take their pain as your own. I love the way you burn like fire, your passion so pure, and the way you set me alight. And I love the way you make me feel—like I'm something worth loving in return. You've healed me, Ambrose Thorne, in more ways than you know."

He stares at me a moment, his red-brown gaze smoldering like banked-coals, and then I reach for him, close my eyes, and touch my lips to his.

For a breath, he remains frozen, and then he kisses me with all the devouring heat of his dragon's flame, making my heart spike into overdrive and my blood run hot beneath my skin; and for the first time tonight, I feel a little too warm.

"All right, all right," Dane grunts, setting a hand on each of our shoulders and pulling us apart. "That's sweet. Doesn't change the fact we're still in the middle of this mess. Now what the fuck are we gonna do about it?"

Over the next half hour, Shanti re-tells her tale for Ambrose's sake, and explains that while he is his own person, he carries 'Ainach' within him as well; that because of the abuse he suffered as a child at Aengus' hands, he learned to subsume that aspect beneath the personality of a normal man. His dragon's nature, though, seeks freedom and control, and every so often, it surfaces.

"So...it's almost like an alternate personality," Freya muses. "Like, he doesn't even remember what he does when 'Ainach' is dominant, right?"

"I suppose that is an apt enough comparison," Shanti agrees. "Except that most alternate personalities do not carry the knowledge and power of an elemental god of fire."

"Aengus has been using me, hasn't he?" Ambrose asks quietly. We've moved to sit side by side, our backs against a bookshelf, and he leans against me, staying awake with an effort I feel in every rise and fall of his chest.

"Since the day you were born," Shanti agrees. "Ainach offered his Gifts in exchange for incarnation—to take form, like Nagaraja, in a physical body, in the physical worlds. He did not trust Aengus, though—rightfully so—and built a few fail-safes into the bargain: binding the souls of the supplicants to their Gifts, and cursing Aengus with immortality stripped of youth. Even so, he found himself enslaved by the one to whom he had granted his favor: the same fate Nagaraja, by tragedy, avoided."

"But... I've spoken to him," Ambrose argues. "To Ainach, I mean. He's separate from me. He resides in another realm. And why would Aengus need to go through all this elaborate bullshit—these thefts and rituals—if I've been Ainach all along, and he's been pulling my strings like a puppet on a stage?"

"Because he is afraid of you," Shanti answers. "If you come into your full power, embrace that full nature, he won't stand a chance at controlling you. What do you remember of your conversation with the dragon? What did your 'ritual' entail? Did Aengus tell you how it might be done? And did it, by any chance, involve a mirror?"

Ambrose stares at her, then covers his face with his elegant hands once more. "Yes," he sighs. "Yes, it was Aengus who instructed me. And yes, it involved a mirror."

"So, one might say that you were, in fact, speaking to yourself."

"One might say that, yes."

"Shit," Freya swears, reaching over to punch my arm. "You sure know how to pick 'em, brother."

I swallow. "I'm not sure I did," I say, looking at Shanti. "I mean... do I even have a choice?"

Her expression softens. "Always," she answers, and then sighs. "Do you know what, according to legend—Western legend, at least—is the weakness of dragon-kind?"

"The heart," Dane answers readily, surprising me. "The soft underbelly. That's where you gotta aim the spear, or the arrow, or whatever."

Shanti nods. "In truth, the 'dragon's heart' is more...metaphorical, of course. Part of Aengus' challenge was that Ambrose had never found his. It seemed, in fact, that he might not have one."

She sighs and turns her dark gaze once more on me.

"This is the tale I have been able to construct from what I know," she says. "When Ambrose brought news of Jack's death to his father, Aengus went mad. He called forth Ainach, as he had learned to do, and demanded reparation—demanded an end to his torment. Ainach refused, for it was not within his power to take back a single aspect of a greater Gift. It would be like trying to remove one link from a chain, or one thread from a woven tapestry. To take back one, he must take back all, and in the process gain true freedom.

"Aengus took this proposal to Rowan—the brother of his soul—whom he imagined would sympathize with his desires. Rowan, though, was alarmed and, knowing that Aengus alone controlled the aspect of the dragon within his 'son,' betrayed him and locked him beneath his house, in a basement dungeon, where he remained for the next seventy years.

"At last, though, Aengus escaped, and by means of his talent for illusion, convinced Rowan to change his will, to leave everything to his reviled grandson," she nods at Ambrose, "and then he murdered him.

"Once Ambrose had answered the summons and taken up residence in the house, Aengus began to collect the remaining Gifts. He went about it slowly—one at a time—and stayed hidden, because he knew that he could do nothing without the final piece."

"He needed something to bargain with," Freya states. "Tip the scales, so to speak."

Shanti nods. "Something to hold over Ainach. His 'weakness.' My gift of foresight told me he would find it, and I resolved to find it first, though I could not 'see' what it was. So, I cast a spell of attraction—the strongest I knew—and I waited."

She looks at me and sighs.

"When you entered my shop that day, Noah, I was certain there had been a mistake."

"Why?" I ask, blinking the sting from my eyes.

"Because whatever I expected a dragon's heart to be, you were not it. You were already wounded, for one thing. Besides that, you were kind, quiet, and gentle. You were also a Wolf—wild, fierce, and free. You caused me much confusion, to be honest." She laughs quietly. "I did not know what to think. You have challenged many of my previously held beliefs. If someone like you could be Ainach's heart then, surely, I have misjudged his nature. I am no longer convinced that he must be kept suppressed."

Ambrose sits up at that, pulling me a bit closer against his side. "What do you mean?" he asks. "I won't lose myself to that...that dragon thing."

"You are that 'dragon thing,'" Freya says, "at least, that's what it sounds like." She looks at Shanti for confirmation and the other woman nods.

"I now believe that full integration is the only solution. You must find a way to balance your dual natures—not unlike the way in which Wolves do: they embrace the Wild, but it does not rule them."

"How am I to do that," Ambrose asks, "when I'm not even conscious when 'Ainach' takes control?"

She smiles, still looking at me. "As 'yourself' or as Ainach, you have the same heart. You must learn to let it guide you, in the brief time we yet have. Aengus will attempt the ritual tonight, at the culmination of the full moon. When that happens, you will be there, will you not?"

She looks at Ambrose, and to my dismay, he doesn't deny it.

"You didn't 'get away,' did you?" Dane growls. "He let you go."

Ambrose nods. "I see that now. If he'd wanted, he might have stopped me—made his demons fight harder to keep me, or called Ainach forth and exerted his control. But Aengus is still short one relic. Aileen's brush." He sighs. "He told me he'd finally discovered where she'd been hiding it, but when he tried to steal it, it was already gone. He said it seemed the 'cat' had finally grown 'claws.'"

He looks up at Shanti.

"He was referring to you, I imagine."

Shanti inclines her head. "Yes. My foresight showed me he would take it from her as she slept, and so, in a final effort to thwart him, I took it myself. That is what I was doing there, the night that Brutus met his end."

She sighs unhappily.

"You see how difficult it can be to choose the right course of action," she says. "If I had not interfered, and delayed Aengus's efforts, causing him to search for the brush in vain, would Brutus still have encountered him that night? Would Aengus still have killed him? I cannot say, and now I must live with the choice that I have made. This is why Nāgas regard non-action as the best way to avoid harm."

"If you hadn't taken it, though, Aengus would already have everything he needs," I argue. "Now we still have a chance to stop him, right?"

Ambrose brushes a hand through his bloodied hair, wincing as his fingers catch in the snarls.

"That's the thing. He told me he'd have it by tonight, or he'd kill the others—Aileen and Penelope, August and Mattie. And he knows that as much as I despise them, I won't let him murder the rest of his own family. I might have, not long ago. I might have said 'to hell with the lot of 'em' and never looked back. But I can't do that now," he says, reaching for my hands, "because my 'heart' is better than that, and he knows it. Worse, his demon has your scent. He said it can find you anywhere, hunt you from any shadow, take you any time," he whispers.

"He never meant for the rakshasa to catch you, Noah," Shanti muses. "I see. It was part of his manipulations. Now he knows Ambrose will do anything to keep you safe—even deliver himself and the final relic right into his hands."

She looks to Ambrose and gives him a slight smile.

"Well, then, we shall simply have to give him what he wants."