The authoritative voices echoed through the main chamber, and I collapsed on my butt with relief. Kylie had succeeded. Everything was going to be okay. I took my first full breath since I’d agreed to this crazy rescue plan.
A slice of nullifying wood and earth cut through my ward as if it were a child’s creation. The backlash rattled my brain in my skull.
“Bloody kludde and their useless handlers!” Walter cursed. He raced around the corner of the nook and skidded to a stop. “You!” The limp hatchling flopped in Walter’s left hand, and it was impossible to tell if he lived. In Walter’s right was a glossy black crossbow that pointed unerringly at my chest. My head went light on my shoulders, the tip of the arrow filling my vision.
Walter scanned the ground. “Where are the hatchlings?”
“I . . . I don’t know—” I stopped speaking on a squeak when Walter slid his finger to the trigger. Too late, I thought to shout for help. Not that anyone would hear me. I couldn’t see the ceremony room from my position, but it sounded like the fighting had doubled despite the guards’ arrival. Or because of it. Even if the guards could have heard me, they couldn’t react faster than an arrow.
“Where are they?” Walter barked.
Not waiting for my answer, he formed a complicated spike of woven magic. When he released it, the tip flipped left and pierced my ward, disintegrating it. Walter’s smile was cold. He flicked a sphere of light into the space near my satchel. With the crossbow never wavering from my chest, he dropped the limp hatchling to the stone floor, bent, and flipped open the top of the satchel. The cygnet snapped at him, and he jerked back, flipping the top closed again.
Helplessly, I watched him grasp the handle, fury and fear pounding in my bloodstream. He turned, hefting the satchel, and centered me in the crossbow’s sights.
“Nice try, thief,” he said.
My insides coated with ice. “Please—”
From behind the satchel, the dragon hatchling launched. He bit down on Walter’s wrist, crushing bone in his rock jaws. Walter screamed and jerked. The crossbow fired. Plaster shards splintered into my face, the arrow missing me by less than a foot. I lurched into Walter. He slammed against the wall, bag and bow falling when he tried to catch himself. Recovering, he swung his left arm at me. The attached hatchling came with it. I ducked too late, and the dragon smashed into my raised forearm and head, knocking me back into the opposite wall. The hatchling dropped to the ground, stunned.
Walter and I stared at the healed hatchling.
“Drop your weapon!” a voice shouted from the mouth of the alcove, still out of sight but loud enough to penetrate my deafened eardrums.
Walter’s gaze darted from the healed hatchling to his bow to the satchel.
“No,” I cried, pushing from the wall. I tackled him, and we both went down. Walter kicked my thigh, and it went numb. I landed a punch to his gut; then his elbow glanced off my temple. The world skittered, and when it righted, he was on his feet. Walter tore away yet another illusion, this one from the far end of the storage room. Behind it was a smooth wall, but when Walter hit a disguised switch, a hidden panel slid open.
Walter spun to retrieve the hatchlings. Scrambling forward, I wrapped my body around the satchel and limp lion gargoyle.
“Halt! Terra Haven guard!” Footsteps pounded closer.
With a curse and a final kick to my side, Walter fled, empty-handed.
Two guards rounded the corner, glowballs and trap-springer spells preceding them. There were no weapons in their hands—none were necessary; they were trained in defensive and offensive magic, the kind that could stop an arrow or drop an attacker from across the room.
“Hands where I can see them,” the woman said.
My skin tightened as a shield sliced between me and my magic. I stretched my hands up beside my head.
“He ran that way.” I pointed with a finger.
The male guard approached with null bands—handcuffs that did the work of the spell currently cloaking me.
Something small and heavy landed on my side, hissing.
“What is that?” The guard paused. I raised my head to look down my body. The dragon hatchling snaked up my side to perch on my hip. His tiny mismatched wings were flared and his large square head gaped to show bloodred teeth and tongue. Magic rushed back to me at his touch.
“A gargoyle hatchling,” I said. I eased a hand to the satchel and flipped the top open. The cygnet squirmed and hissed at the guards. “Hurry. Walter’s escaping.”
It took long, agonizing minutes to convince the guards I had nothing to do with the harm inflicted on the cygnet and for them to send guards after Walter. I had little hope they’d catch him after his head start. When I was finally allowed to sit up, I moved immediately for the limp demonstration hatchling they hadn’t noticed in the curve of my body. The tiny lion weighed less than Herbert had after being used by the Fire Eaters.
“Whoa, there. What’re you doing?” demanded the guard who had been called to the nook while the other two chased Walter.
“Helping him.”
“I’ve got orders to round everyone up. You’re coming with me.”
I ignored him, gathering the familiar blend of quartz earth and fire, with trace levels of the other three elements, and eased it into the hatchling. A tiny spark within him responded. Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t faster,” I whispered to him, feeding him more energy.
“None of that now,” the guard said. He grabbed my elbow and pulled me to my feet. The dragon circled my ankles, tail lashing, but he didn’t interfere. The guard picked up my bag, bunching the flap so the hissing mutilated baby swan couldn’t bite him, and marched me back to the main room. The dragon followed in a strange bunching lope.
Light blazed from a dozen magical sources. I blinked against the brightness. Guards swarmed the room, collecting evidence, but my gaze was drawn to the still bodies near the door. Two men, one shot through the chest, blood soaking his shirt and pooling on the stones, the other decapitated. I glanced away, my stomach churning. There were six prisoners in the room. Each was confined by magic and metal and separated by space, wards, and guards. All six sets of eyes tracked our progress across the room.
The only way out was past the bodies.
10
The guard’s guiding grip shifted to support me when the world went light and fuzzy as we approached the decapitated body.
“Don’t look down,” he urged.
I locked eyes on the stairwell and let him direct me, floating detached from my own feet. The bitter copper smell of blood yanked me back to my body. Another step and the putrid stench of loosed bowels and raw flesh clogged my nostrils. I gagged.
“Not here!” The guard rushed me forward, and we made it to the stairwell before I threw up. He waited until I finished, then half dragged me up the stairs.
Fresh air hit my face and cleared my head, and I remembered the dying hatchling clutched to my chest for the first time since seeing the bodies. I jerked free of the guard and stopped.
“Keep going,” he ordered.
“No. Let me heal it first.”
“My orders—”
“Stuff your orders.” I was bruised and battered, exhausted and nauseous; I was in no mood to be bullied.
“Don’t make me cuff you.”
I ignored the guard and knelt. The dragon hatchling loped toward us. His stubby legs hadn’t been able to keep up. I felt a twinge of guilt for having forgotten him, too, but mostly gratitude as my weariness faded with his magical boost. I tumbled a handful of seed crystals from my pocket and focused on the lion hatchling and the magic still leeching from his burned-off limbs.
The cub absorbed seed crystal after seed crystal, devouring my magic. Like Herbert, the cub’s four legs and wings had been burned away. Even with the dragon hatchling amplifying my power, my magic was clumsy by the time I got to the lion’s fourth leg. The elemental strands quivered with fatigue when I painstakingly finished the
final wing. The lion hatchling remained unconscious, but he was resting, not dying.
As I worked, I was vaguely aware of the guard kneeling beside me, watching with rapt curiosity. When I leaned back, I went into freefall; then I was in the guard’s arms, supported against his broad chest. The dragon hatchling curled up against my sprawled leg, tucked his nose under his tail, and went to sleep. His magical amplification dropped away, and with it my consciousness. The guard shook me, and I fought against the darkness. Not yet.
I reached for the satchel and the final hatchling, but my arm wasn’t working right. It felt so good to relax against the man’s warm chest. My eyes drifted closed again.
“This looks cozy,” a woman said from above me.
“Captain!” The guard shifted and I dropped toward the floor, only to be caught before impact. “Uh, sir. I was just . . . She fainted and I . . . The gargoyle, sir, she healed it,” the guard stammered.
There was a commotion behind us; then Kylie was at my elbow. She grinned at me. “I knew you could do it, Mika.”
At her heels were two enormous gargoyles, one a pony-size onyx and amethyst gryphon, the other a cross between an enormous goat and a winged pit bull, with a body made of spotted green jasper. The temple floor trembled beneath the gargoyles’ steps. Their eyes glowed with rage.
The guard’s grip on me tightened, and I thought I probably would have been afraid if I hadn’t been so tired. The goat-headed pit bull sniffed the air, then bounded on huge rock dog paws down the stairs to the ceremony room. A handful of guards rushed after her.
The gryphon stopped at my feet and thrust her face in mine. Under the scrutiny of those fierce eagle eyes, I found it hard to breathe. Then her attention shifted, first to the unconscious lion in my lap, then to the dragon curled at my leg. When she spotted the scared cygnet, still injured and wrapped in my leather bag, she sat back on her haunches. A small blue-green winged panther slid from under the protection of her wings and landed at her feet, scurrying under the gryphon’s belly to peer through her thick legs.
Anya.
“May I assist you?” the gryphon asked. Her voice was soft, completely at odds with her enormous stone body.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up. “Please.”
I tried to sit up on my own. The guard lifted me.
A trickle of gargoyle-enhanced magic strengthened my exhausted mind and body. It was different from the feel of the hatchlings’ power boosts. This was controlled and refined. With the gryphon’s strength guiding my magic, healing the cygnet went quickly. When I finished, the cygnet twined her long stony neck against my arm, then fell asleep draped across my lap.
When I looked up, a pair of healers were kneeling beside me, their body language saying they’d been waiting, and watching, for some time. The gryphon remained rooted at my side while the healers stuffed dry energy cakes down my throat, followed by a pitcher of water. The tender lumps on my head were prodded and my arm was wrapped in a coil of mending wood magic. When the medics gave the okay, the captain walked me through the last two days, starting with Anya finding me in my studio up until I healed the baby lion. Then she made me go through it all again.
She questioned Anya, too, but the baby gargoyle’s accounting of the events from the time her siblings were kidnapped was convoluted at best. From what I heard, the captain didn’t learn anything useful about Walter. After a few minutes, Anya flew onto the gryphon’s back and hid beneath her wings, and I was reminded of how young she was. A few weeks old, and she’d already seen the worst of humanity. It was a wonder she had trusted Kylie and me to help her.
The captain released me a little after dawn, and the gryphon accompanied Kylie, me, and the hatchlings home. Since the rescued hatchlings were all still sleeping, Kylie volunteered to carry the dragon, I cradled the lion, and the gryphon carried the cygnet on her back, holding it in place with her wings. Anya rode with her swan sister.
The trip home was a blur. I had a vague impression of Ms. Zuberrie demanding an explanation for our arrival by guard transport and peppering us with questions about the gargoyles, but Kylie intercepted her. The last thing I remembered was opening the door to the balcony for the gargoyles to use as they desired, then collapsing onto my bed, the lion nestled against my stomach.
11
The sun was setting when I woke. My hand went immediately to the bed in front of me, and finding myself alone, I sat up. My entire body protested. I groaned, stretching cramped arms and fingers. Dirt lay in flakes on my bedspread and sifted to the floor from my pants. My pillowcase was grubby. I grimaced, and not for the first time I wished I could afford self-cleaning sheets and clothes, ones with water and air magic woven into the fibers.
My grumbles were cut short when I noticed the lion perched on my slender bookcase. He was squeezed between a battered copy of Five Steps to Financial Independence and a dusty misshapen crystal globe, one of my earliest quartz projects. The cub looked like solid, carved citrine with crystal limbs. He didn’t move, and his eyes were flat rock, not glowing.
I was across the room in three strides, pressing my hands to his sides and probing him with the gargoyle magic pattern. Life blazed under my fingertips. The lion woke, thin rock eyelids lifting.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, panic receding. He wasn’t dead, just sleeping. I should have guessed that; a dead hatchling couldn’t move himself from my bed to the bookcase. He yawned, his rock jaw almost unhinging, then shifted to lie down, chin resting on his clear paws. His eyelids slid closed and he stilled. Already I could see veins of gold spreading through his tiny wings and oversize paws. The strength and adaptability of gargoyles were marvels.
Wonder could overshadow my crustiness for only so long. I peeled off my gritty clothes, tossed them in the hamper, and melted under the stream of hot water in my shower. It was dark outside when I finally dressed and thought to check my message bowl. There were two air-pocket messages, both pulsing red with urgency. I touched the edge of the bowl and activated the first message with a nudge of air and earth.
“Mika Stillwater.” My boss’s voice swelled from the bubble, each word crisply enunciated. Silvia Jones was a strong earth talent, with only a child’s grasp of air element. Crafting any message was a surefire way to irritate her, but she sounded more peeved than normal. My stomach sank. I’d missed a second day of work and hadn’t sent a message this time.
“I do not run a charity. You are well aware of the rules. Two days’ absence requires a doctor’s note and advance notice.” I scoffed. Advance notice for being sick? “I expect you to bring a doctor’s note tomorrow. If this is inconvenient, your contract with Jones and Sons will be terminated.” The bubble crackled in the air before fizzling out.
I slumped in my worktable chair. If everything had gone according to plan, the freelance medicinal vials would be finished, my handsome paycheck collected, my savings holding a lease at Pinnacle Pentagon, and I’d be delivering my resignation at the month’s end. My gaze slid to the gilded box still open atop the coffee table. The red velvet insides that had housed my life savings were bare. Glumly, I reached for the message bowl and activated the other bubble.
“When you sign a contract saying you’ll complete a project by a deadline, that is when it’s due,” Althea’s voice snapped through the room. “Your avoidance tactics are juvenile and unprofessional. This is the first and last project you’ll do for Blackwell-Zakrzewska. Unless you want a formal mark against you, in reputation and filed with the Terra Haven Business Bureau, you will have the remainder of the vials ready for me by seven tomorrow morning. Do not attempt to stall again.”
I slumped farther in the chair. Not only was I going to have to grovel to Silvia, but I’d also just lost my most important client. Even without a formal complaint, there would be no stopping rumors.
“That woman should be begging for your services,” Kylie said. She stood in my open balcony doorway, hands on hips, glaring at the message bowl. Her wispy blond hair lifted on the n
ight breeze, and Kylie caught it up with a frustrated gesture and trapped it in a hair tie. “Are her precious vials more important than lives? I think not. Which is exactly what I told her.”
“You saw her? Today?”
“Yes. She prissed in here, looking down her nose at me and Ms. Zuberrie, demanding we wake you—”
I groaned. “You should have! Now she’s going to slander my name.” I covered my face in my hands and braced my elbows on my knees, seeing my dreams crumble behind my eyelids.
“She’s the one who deserves to have her reputation blackened. A healer apprentice who puts more importance on some stupid project than life. Absurd!”
“You still should have woken me.”
“Why? So you could tell her yourself that you’re not done? You’re not, right?”
I shook my head.
“Besides, I don’t think I could have woken you. You slept through our shouting match right outside your door. Now guess what.”
I dropped my hands from my face and sat up. I wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. Fortunately, Kylie wasn’t patient enough to wait.
“You’re looking at the Terra Haven Chronicle’s evening-edition front-page author!”
“You sold a story?” I asked, stuffing aside my misery for the moment. This was Kylie’s dream. Just because mine was shattered didn’t mean I would rob her of her moment.
“Not a story. Your story! And the hatchlings’. I hope you don’t mind that I quoted you a few times. You’re a city hero, Mika! When I told the editor at the Chronicle what I had, she bought the exclusive and contracted two follow-up stories. Can you believe it?!”
“Of course I can,” I said, privately squirming at the mention of my story. “Congratulations, Kylie!”
“Oh! Here—” She ran across the balcony and returned with the Chronicle. There I was on the front page, bent over the cygnet, repairing her wing.
“Who took the picture?” I asked, not remembering any photographers.
Magic of the Gargoyles Page 5
