Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  Dorotea stiffened in alarm as Leah’s memories kicked in. Qeturah!

  No, that didn’t necessarily follow. It could be Jasper’s mother, Qeturah’s otherself. But how could they tell? Jasper’s last memories of Sigrun were those of a small boy.

  “I’ll get some bread,” the man said, then left the room. Dorotea watched the back of his head, disturbed. There was something familiar—

  In a flash, it came back to her. My father is alive.

  The realization stole her breath. But how could that be? She’d seen him die. Or had it just been a nightmare, after all?

  “Dorotea, how does your stomach feel?” Jasper asked. “Can you handle some more water?”

  She nodded and tried to take the cup, but her fingers trembled too badly. She felt bewildered, on the edge of tears. Too much had happened all at once. A burning need to know what was going on overcame her. “Why did you rescue me?” she rasped. “You hate me.”

  Jasper averted his gaze. “You saved me from the Stone Heart. I was just returning the favor. And I don’t hate you.” Under his breath, he added, “I think I stopped hating you when you wept for your sister in the cavern.”

  Dorotea’s mouth dropped open. Hope expanded in her heart.

  “We used up a number of resources—like the sand skimmer—on your rescue,” the woman who might be Qeturah said crisply. “But it was worth it, to not only recruit Rose Granite but also obtain a Stone Heart for our cause.” Her green-eyed gaze turned avaricious.

  “Not now, Sigrun,” Dorotea’s father said, returning.

  She had forgotten the sound of his voice after so many years. Hearing it again made tears prick her eyes. He had more gray in his hair than she remembered and a beard, but it was him. An older him but still her father.

  She wanted to throw herself in his arms and be hugged—but something held her back. When she was a child, he’d been her world, but she wasn’t that little girl anymore. She’d changed. His death had changed her. What did it mean that he was alive? She couldn’t make the pieces fit.

  She took the bread he handed her but didn’t eat it. “I saw you die,” she said starkly.

  He stilled. “Could I have a moment of privacy with my daughter?” he asked Sigrun, without taking his eyes off Dorotea.

  Sigrun nodded. Jasper yielded reluctantly to his mother’s pull.

  Her father sat by her bedside but didn’t take her hand, didn’t hug her or tell her he’d missed her. She searched his expression for some sign of fatherly love but found only blankness. “What do you remember?” he asked her.

  “Hiding in the laundry basket. Shouting. Gerhardt called you a traitor. Then his gargoyle, Rose Granite, broke your neck and encased you in the stone floor.” Just saying the words made her stomach hurt.

  He winced. “The truth is I’m not your father. I just look like him.”

  Her father was dead. Pain stabbed her, followed by a confusing rush of relief. She shouldn’t feel that way. She’d loved her father; she didn’t want him dead, but…if her father had been alive all this time, then she would have been crushed that he’d abandoned her. Furious that he hadn’t told her he was alive. She took a deep breath. “So which world are you from?” Not Fire. Leah’s father, Duke Ruben, was dead, too.

  He tensed, suddenly alert. “You know about the Mirror Worlds? Did Belinda tell you?”

  Belinda who? “No, Leah did. My Fire World otherself.”

  “And how did she find out?” He scowled, looking much more like Duke Ruben, who’d been a very dangerous man. Dorotea suddenly wished she’d insisted on Jasper staying with her.

  “From Qeturah. Do you know about her?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said grimly. “Her name is cursed on three worlds.”

  Dorotea leaned forward, urgently. “Then you know that Sigrun is her otherself? Can you tell which one she is?”

  “Sigrun is who she seems to be. She’s Stone all the way through.”

  Dorotea didn’t understand what he meant by that, but it wasn’t important. “So where are you from, and why are you here?”

  “I’m from the True World. My daughter, Belinda, is your otherself. It’s the duty of those of us who possess otherselves to maintain stability on the Mirror Worlds. Stone World has been in jeopardy for some time. I’d just convinced your father freeing the gargoyles was the right path when he got murdered. I visit here from time to time to keep the flames of the rebellion alive, but unfortunately I lack the Stone Heart talent. Sigrun and I sabotaged the power station two days ago and programmed it to have blackouts every twelve hours. We hoped to wake the Goddess, or at least draw out the Elect. You, my dear, were a true stroke of luck.” His intense gaze fastened on her.

  Dorotea barely heard. She choked on a realization. “You caused the blackout that woke the Goddess? It’s your fault Marta’s in a coma!” She struggled to sit up.

  He frowned at her. “Who’s Marta?”

  “My sister!”

  His brows jumped up. “Your father had another child?”

  “No, my mother did. After he died.”

  “Oh. She probably doesn’t have an otherself then; though, to be frank, I’ve lost track of Belinda’s mother since we split up.”

  Dorotea wanted to hit him. “Marta’s my sister, and she’s dying. Because of your stupid rebellion.” Her throat thickened. “The Elect can’t help her. The Goddess won’t help her. I hoped there might be a cure for her Above, but if the scavengers are using slingshots instead of guns, they probably don’t have any secret libraries.”

  “The scavengers are just what they seem: primitive,” her father’s otherself agreed. He leaned forward. “But the True World is much more advanced than Stone World, especially since the Scouring. There’s a strong chance we can heal your sister.”

  She caught her breath, afraid to hope.

  “Help us wake the gargoyles, and I’ll see that she gets real medical help. Do we have a deal?” He held out his hand.

  “Yes.” She shook it without hesitation. She’d already decided that the gargoyles weren’t traitors and that freeing them was the first step in appeasing the Goddess and stopping the earthquakes.

  The man who wasn’t her father raised his voice. “You can come back in; everything’s settled.”

  Sigrun entered the room, her gaze flicking between them.

  “We have our Stone Heart,” her father’s otherself said. “The plan can go ahead as soon as she recovers.”

  Sigrun’s lips stretched into a wide smile. “Excellent news. Will you be coming with us on the mission, Chris?”

  Her father’s name was Niall. So Sigrun knew Chris was from the True World.

  He shook his head. “Another body will only slow you down. I need to check in on my other interests.”

  Did he mean his other life on the True World? His other daughter? Dorotea experienced a small stab of jealousy for this Belinda, who still had her father.

  “Eat,” Jasper said, and she remembered the bread in her hand.

  She dutifully consumed it and some more water, taking small bites and sips.

  The next hour passed in a whirl of activity with Dorotea at the eye of the storm, mostly resting. Chris wanted the names of all the clan leaders and Elects she could remember. Sigrun wanted an up-to-date map.

  Jasper helped Dorotea with the map, showing her where the hidden cavern was and helping estimate distances.

  “Amazing,” he said when she finished. “You’ve taken something three-dimensional and put it on flat paper, and yet it’s comprehensible.”

  Dorotea flushed with pleasure. “Thanks. Mapmaking must be part of my Stone Heart heritage. Goddess knows I didn’t inherit a lick of artistic talent from my mother.” She laughed ruefully.

  Jasper cocked his head.

  “What?”

  “I just realized I’ve never heard you laugh before.”

  There hadn’t been much to laugh about.

  “You seem different now,” Jasper continued. “You look…lighte
r. As if a burden has been lifted.”

  “Chris says his world can heal Marta.” Dorotea felt lighter. The terror of Marta’s coma and the fear of the Goddess bringing the roof down had been crushing her. She knew there were still hard things to accomplish ahead, but now she felt hope.

  “You should smile more often,” Jasper told her.

  “So should you.” Dorotea became aware of their fingers touching, and she remembered how they’d kissed, the feel of his lips…

  She cut the thought off. He was kissing Leah, not you.

  But his gaze seemed admiring. “You’d do anything for your sister, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.” She’d woken a gargoyle.

  “Tell me about her. I have far too many older siblings. What’s it like to have a younger one?”

  So she told him all about Marta, how loveable and exasperating she was. She was in the middle of a story about how Marta had lined up everyone’s shoes and put peapod “dolls” in the “houses” when Sigrun reappeared and sent Jasper away on an errand.

  Sigrun herself lingered, studying Dorotea with a militant light in her eye.

  Dorotea’s hands tightened on the covers. Was Sigrun Qeturah, after all? What if the other woman attacked her?

  But Sigrun wanted to brace her about something different. “So which one are you?”

  “Dorotea.”

  “Hmmm. When Jasper told me you’d sacrificed yourself for his freedom, I thought perhaps you’d switched again. How do I know you’re really Dorotea?”

  “How do I know you’re not Qeturah?” Dorotea snapped back.

  Sigrun raised one cool eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’ve taken precautions against that sandspider. No mirrors around for her to use.” She glanced at the door. “Not that I regret the result, but the last time Qeturah took over, I wound up pregnant. Her agenda is not mine.”

  “How did you survive Above without her help?” Dorotea asked, still suspicious.

  Sigrun shrugged one shoulder. “One of the scavengers fancied exotic women. I taught him a better way to collect dew, and the knowledge earned me adoption into the tribe when he dropped me for another.” Her expression held indifference.

  Dorotea tried to conceal how appalled she was.

  “The tribe is happy enough to raid the cavers when they can, but they care nothing about the fates of those below, much less the gargoyles. Now a miracle has brought my son back to me.”

  Resentment flared inside Dorotea. It had hardly been a divine miracle. If not for her, Jasper would still be frozen in the Cavern of Traitors.

  “What are your feelings for Jasper?” Sigrun asked, straight out.

  “I— It’s complicated.” Dorotea bit her lip. She’d had a healthy respect for his strength and intelligence as a gargoyle, and she was very attracted to his human form. It meant a lot that he’d come back for her and rescued her from Gerhardt, even knowing it was a trap. Was she in love with him? She’d certainly never felt like this about any other boy, as if she came awake in his presence, and his smile made her dizzy. But she’d been scared to death of him only hours ago. How much had Leah’s memories of being in love with Gideon influenced her own feelings?

  “He’s very conflicted about you.” Sigrun’s green eyes pinned her in place. “He argued quite strenuously that we had to rescue you. I think he’s infatuated with you.”

  “Really?” Dorotea blurted out.

  Sigrun shrugged. “It’s not so surprising. You’re the first girl, human or gargoyle, he’s spent time with, and not unpretty.”

  Ouch. Talk about a backhanded compliment. Dorotea turned glum. “If he’s in love with anyone, it’s Leah—my otherself—not me.” Saying the words was like stabbing herself.

  “Maybe. But she’s not here, and you are.”

  Dorotea blushed.

  Jasper brought a load of canteens into the room, and the conversation died.

  Sigrun took them down a ladder into a strange stone cube full of wooden crates. “Go ahead,” she told her son.

  “I’ll have to change now,” Jasper warned Dorotea.

  Her chin lifted in response to the challenge, and she refused to look away.

  He put his hand on the stone floor, and the transformation from boy to gargoyle swept over him, flesh hardening to stone and turning red, limbs growing.

  Her muscles tensed, but the expected fear didn’t come. Yes, Jasper loomed over her in gargoyle form. Yes, he still had wicked claws and fangs and his face was craggy—but she could see Jasper inside of it. And his golden eyes were the same. They watched her carefully.

  “Ready to go?” He smiled at her, a surpassingly sweet smile.

  Her heart fluttered. She was in over her head and sinking fast. She nodded, unable to speak.

  The journey was slightly less of an ordeal than last time. First off, with both Rose Granite and Jasper tunneling, they created a bigger moving pocket. Secondly, while Chris had stayed behind, he’d given them several “cold” lights, which didn’t burn up oxygen like candle flame, so they weren’t in darkness.

  On the other hand, Rose Granite and Jasper engaged in a pun contest that had her groaning and Sigrun threatening to take a pickaxe to them.

  The journey dragged on for an entire endless day. Their traveling chamber grew muggy and reeked of sweat. They paused only to drink from their canteens or to eat bread and what Sigrun called cactus fruit—sour and green and dried and wrinkled. Ugh. Dorotea would almost rather have gone hungry.

  Finally, when she was beginning to fear they would be forced to sleep in the claustrophobically small space, Jasper paused. “I feel a dead spot. I think the Cavern of Gargoyles is on the other side of the wall.”

  “Are there any guards?” Sigrun asked.

  Jasper closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to focus on his fingertips. He frowned. “I can’t tell through the plastic barrier. As soon as I break it, the alarm will sound.”

  “Thin away as much stone as you can and make a doorway. As soon as the barrier is breached, we’ll need to punch through the remaining rock and move fast enough to take out any guards.”

  “What do you mean ‘take them out’?” Dorotea asked uneasily as Jasper and Rose Granite cleared away stone as if it were cobwebs, revealing a layer of white plastic.

  Nobody answered her question.

  “You can’t kill them!”

  Sigrun rolled her eyes. “What do you suggest we do? Ask them politely to look the other way? In war, there are always casualties.”

  War? What war? Dorotea had agreed to help wake the gargoyles in return for Marta’s healing, with the understanding that the gargoyles would stop the slow-bleeding death of the Cave Lords and placate the Goddess. Dorotea appealed to Jasper. “Please!”

  He considered. “Rose and I can encase their feet in stone and keep them from running, but you must wake the other gargoyles fast so that we have the strength to fight any reinforcements that arrive.”

  “I’ll be as fast as I can,” Dorotea promised.

  “Ready?” Rose asked gruffly.

  He nodded.

  “Now!” The two gargoyles sliced the plastic barrier open with their claws. The shredded bits fell to the floor. A siren whooped, and then Rose Granite shoved aside the remaining wall of stone like a curtain. She and Jasper bounded through.

  “I’ll take the left one,” she rumbled.

  By the time Dorotea and Sigrun entered the cavern, it was all over. Two men stood in a pool of light—Stone Hearts by their leather vests and pants. The smaller one seemed to have been using a crouching gargoyle as a chair. “I can’t move!” He frantically pulled at his legs as stone flowed up and over his feet like strange shoes, then higher, to his shins. “Help me!”

  His taller companion just gaped at him, his own feet encased in stone.

  “Dorotea, you get started while I disconnect the alarm. Do Flint first.” Sigrun gave her a little push.

  Dorotea stumbled down the row. A light snapped on directly overhead, and she remembere
d the spooky way the cavern lights had turned off and on as she moved, following her around on her last visit.

  Flint had been her father’s gargoyle; she had no trouble identifying him. She reminded herself that he hadn’t killed her father after all, but it was hard not to feel intimidated by his seven-foot-tall frame, bestial snarling face, and dark gray stone skin streaked with white.

  The siren suddenly cut off. Dorotea’s ears rang.

  The smaller Stone Heart swore a blue streak, ending with, “The Elect are on their way! You’ll never—”

  Jasper hissed at them, claws extended like knives. “Quiet.”

  “Dorotea! What are you waiting for?” Sigrun snapped from across the plinth. “Free Flint!”

  Dorotea had the sudden sense that Sigrun could be dangerous. She might not be Qeturah, but she was Qeturah’s otherself.

  Too late to back out now. Dorotea looked away from Flint’s snarling visage and deliberately thought about Marta, so pale and fragile lying on her bed. Had she woken from her coma, or was she slipping farther and farther away every hour?

  Tears filled her eyes. She rubbed a few drops on her fingers, then hesitated. Would the ritual she’d used to wake Jasper work without the collar and bracelets?

  Sigrun joined her and dug her fingernails into her arm. “Do it,” she demanded.

  Dorotea shot her a look of dislike. “I’m not sure—”

  Sigrun slapped her, a shock of stinging pain. “To help you produce some tears,” she said sweetly.

  Dorotea gasped and looked over at Jasper, but his attention was focused on the guards.

  Sigrun roughly swiped at Dorotea’s eyes, then smeared the liquid on Flint’s face. “Wake up, Flint. Come back to me.”

  Jasper had said that Flint had helped him and his mother find shelter after the rebellion. What relationship did they have?

  Flint blinked away a layer of dust; his golden eyes shone through. Muscles flexed in his arms. Slowly, ponderously, with a sound like cracking ice, he creaked into motion. “Sigrun.”

  “I’m here.” Weeping, she flung her arms around the menacing giant.