I contemplated the lawn of jagged crystals covering the floor. The baetyl had never been intended for fragile human bodies. Every surface had a sharp point. Tentatively, I tested the sole of my boot on the uneven peaks. When the crystals didn’t puncture the tread, I settled my weight onto my foot and took another step. The crystals held firm.
Oliver stepped onto the quartz and hissed. Beside him, Celeste touched a crystal with a talon and narrowed her eyes.
“It hurts,” Oliver said. He spoke so softly that I didn’t think he meant for me to hear.
“You can wait—” My words died in my throat at Oliver’s fierce glower. He must have been learning that look from Marcus.
“I go where you go,” he said.
His tone was pure Marcus, too. I glanced to the fire elemental to see if he noticed.
“Like guardian, like companion,” he said.
Oliver hissed as each foot hit the crystals for the first time; then he quieted. I didn’t need to test him with magic to know he was in pain; I could see it in the hunch of his shoulders and the droop of his ruff. Clamping my mouth against a protest that would only offend the brave young gargoyle, I waited until Marcus and Celeste caught up before mincing deeper into the baetyl.
We ducked under a slender rose quartz crystal bar, then climbed over a carnelian crystal a few shades lighter than Oliver and so thick Marcus and I couldn’t have spanned it with linked hands. Marcus kept rigid control over the glowballs, eliminating all but two, so we moved in a tight halo of light. After ten steps, I lost sight of the entrance.
“Oliver, how’s your night vision?” I asked, wishing I couldn’t hear my apprehension in my voice.
Marcus shot me a sharp look, then glanced back the way we’d come. He stopped while we waited for Oliver’s response.
“I don’t know.”
“Can you see where we came in?”
“Yes. You can’t?”
I let my breath out slowly. “No. What else can you see? Are there any obvious problems?”
“The roof has caved in,” Celeste said, emerging from the darkness ahead of us.
“A cave-in? Would that be enough to break a baetyl?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s small.”
Small or not, it was a place to start. “Lead the way.”
She hadn’t finished turning around when gargoyles burst from the shadows. They charged from every direction and dive-bombed from above, teeth bared, claws raised, and spikes distended in attack.
I froze in shock, but Marcus spun into action, drawing his sword in a fluid motion.
“Get behind me,” he ordered.
I dodged to the side to avoid being flattened by a stampeding quartz porcupine, and Marcus lurched in the opposite direction when a gargoyle dropped out of the shadows above him. His sword flashed through the air, just missing the gargoyle’s canine tail.
“Wait! We’re here to help,” I shouted, waving my arms ineffectually.
A life-size jasper hippopotamus barreled down on me, his wide bat wings slicing through the air like blades. I jumped to the side, leaping across a broad, horizontal amethyst crystal. The hippo pivoted on thick lion legs, clawed paws shoving effortlessly against the jagged floor to follow me.
“Mika!” Oliver cried.
The hippo’s jaw unhinged on a silent roar. I screamed and grabbed the elements, but they squirmed from my grasp. Frantic, I rolled under the amethyst crystal, ignoring the sharp cuts and stabs of the baetyl’s crystal floor.
“Run, Oliver!”
The hippo fell upon me mouth-first, crushing me between his stone jaws.
10
I floated, a spark in pure inky onyx. I couldn’t feel my body. I tried to wriggle a finger or shake my head, but there was only darkness and the rapid pounding of my pulse.
Was I dead?
Why would I be dead?
The massive stone teeth of the hippo flashed across my memory, then all the attacking gargoyles. They’d come out of nowhere, and we hadn’t had a chance to fight back.
My pulse fluttered faster.
I opened my eyes.
I lay in a narrow plaster tunnel. Not just any tunnel. It was the hidden back room of the temple in New Hope where I’d rescued Oliver and his siblings from Walter’s black market auction. How did I get here? I had been in the baetyl . . .
When I sat up, I saw Oliver. He was tiny, hardly larger than a house cat. I frowned at his small body, trying to pinpoint why my brain insisted his size was wrong. That wasn’t the problem. The cage of elemental magic pinning him to the stone floor was the problem. He was trapped. And injured. His left two feet and wing tip had been burned with acid, leaving jagged patches of raw pain. Oliver’s magic, his life, leaked from the wounds into the cage, strengthening it. His golden-red eyes whirled with agony, but the cage smothered his cries.
I lurched to my hands and knees, heart pounding. This was exactly how I’d found Oliver when Walter had tortured—
Walter.
Walter was in prison.
Darkness closed in on us, until all I could see was Oliver, trapped and in pain. The baby gargoyle locked eyes with me and his muzzle opened and closed in muted misery. Fingers trembling, I gathered the elements and thrust them into the first quartz anchor, countering the trap. It didn’t matter how this had happened. I’d sort it out later. After I freed—
Agony pumped through my veins, cording my muscles. Magic leeched from me. I had to free . . . someone. Fear clouded my thoughts and the elements slid from my grasp. The pain abated. Oxygen filled my lungs, flavored with quartz. I sucked in another deep breath, centering my thoughts.
Myself. I had to free myself. I opened my eyes to a view warped by the elements. Magic wrapped me in a twisting cage, siphoning my life. If I struggled, the pain would return, so I held still and tried to think. I couldn’t remember anything before the pain. How long had I been caged? Who was holding me?