One problem at a time. Sweeping my magic up the crystal, I pulled the fragmented pieces of the quartz together and sealed the top.
My eyes snapped open in shock and I fell back from the heart crystal. The enormous pillar was wider than a house and composed of every variety of quartz possible, but I’d healed it as easily as I’d replaced Oliver’s broken ruff on the train. I stumbled to the spherical wall for a better look, eyes locked on the upper reaches of the crystal. My elemental senses didn’t deceive me; it was whole.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
The baetyl’s power pulsed inside me, waiting, ready.
On wobbly legs, I returned to the base of the heart crystal. I didn’t need to touch it, but I did anyway. I needed the reminder that I had hands.
Feeding elements back into the crystal, I studied the honeycomb, slowly working my way up as I memorized the pattern, then faster as I grew more confident. The heart crystal’s internal structure was incredibly intricate, but at its core, the honeycomb was gargoyle. Not a gargoyle, but a conglomeration of the pattern of the elements inside all gargoyles: the variances between quartz types, the shape of air element lifting their wings, the fire of life in their stone chests. All of it melded together into a complex design inside the heart—right up until the split.
Where the elements had been severed, the quartz lay dormant, no different or more magical than my seed crystals. The wrongness of that lifeless quartz stirred the ancient magic inside me. Fury not completely my own curled my fingers into fists, but the pain of my nails gouging into the cuts on my palms brought me back under control.
The baetyl’s magic vibrated a warning when I grasped the tattered edge of a severed line of earth magic. I added to it as I stretched the fragile thread through an elaborate knot of fire, water, wood, and air before reconnecting it on the other side of the mended fissure. The baetyl quieted.
It approved.
After that, I worked faster. Healing the enormous multi-quartz heart crystal tested everything I’d learned as a gargoyle healer. The baetyl was alive without being a creature. It both used magic and exuded magic—and was magic. It was the only explanation for how the baetyl could supply me magic without weakening itself. Against all logic, I used the baetyl’s own magic to heal it, and it grew stronger.
The farther up the crystal I magically mended, the more my awareness of the baetyl expanded. I could sense that the heart crystal extended as deep into the soil as it protruded, and the roots of the other crystals riddled the soil in every direction.
At the edge of my perception, I caught glimpses of a pattern in the placement of the crystals and the location of the types of quartz around the heart. I strained to comprehend the sophisticated arrangement, and the baetyl’s magic slid into the open door of my curiosity, stretching inside me. I protested, a murmur of sound too round and wet. Fear fluttered weak in my chest, vibrating around the frantic pulsing beneath my ribs. When the velvet-glass power buffered me from the fear, I experienced a flicker of relief; then that, too, was soothed into calm acceptance.
By the time I finished looping and knotting the honeycomb of elements into perfect harmony, I no longer needed to use the existing edges of the torn elements as a guide. The pattern had become obvious. It was in the shape of the entire baetyl and the placement of the crystals that grew in it. It was in the location of the baetyl in the mountain. It was the essence of new and always, birth and renewal.
The flaws in the baetyl’s perfection stood out as if on fire. Once the heart was healed, I dove toward the first problem. Dead baby gargoyle skeletons inside powdery eggs were not part of the grand design. I tore apart the lifeless rock and scattered the grains across the crystal-studded floor, then pulled the fine granules through a thousand tiny gaps I created between the crystals, sweeping the remains into the soil below.
The cave-in rubble went with it, pulverized and scattered into the mountain. Growing the quartz in the gap in the ceiling took time, but I accelerated the process by flinging the elemental pattern of the heart into the gap. The ridge leapt to obey my command, shaking around us. I didn’t let up until crystals glittered across the ceiling, lit with the internal glow of the pattern. The crystals were small, but given another few centuries of growth, they’d match the rest. In the meantime, they completed the arc of the roof, connecting the broken magic again.
A wash of power swept through the heart, bringing pain and taking it away again. The baetyl breathed around me, more than a pattern now. I could feel the crystals in my bones, the three remaining gaps in the roof like wounds in my own flesh. I turned to examine them, only to stare, befuddled, at the wall of crystals blocking my way.
Walking took all my attention. I watched my feet lift and clop across the crystal floor, confused by the texture of my boots. When I reached the wall, I looked away from the flat brown leather with relief and pushed a hand flat against an amethyst crystal. My limb was pink and squishy. That wouldn’t do. I pulled quartz from the amethyst and spread it across my hand, growing little crystals to coat the doughy flesh.
The quartz looked right, but it hurt.
Movement in the heart spun me around. Gargoyles! I reached for them but pulled my magic back before it touched their bodies. They weren’t my gargoyles. They beat their wings, gaining altitude, then dove out of sight into the crystal wall high above me. The sinuous movement of the smaller gargoyle was familiar, but I’d never created a gargoyle in that shape.
I’ve never created a gargoyle at all.
I plucked at the thought, examining it. It felt important, yet it made about as much sense as the pain in my hands.