“Wings,” I whispered, finally answering his unasked question. “All gargoyles have wings.”
Marcus’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, not even when I started to cry. It was just as well. I couldn’t explain the jumble of emotions snarled inside of me. I mourned the loss of my connection with the baetyl as keenly as if I’d lost a parent, which made no sense. It terrified me with its impressive, unstoppable power and with how badly I wanted to possess it again. Fear had been a foreign concept for it and ultimately what had saved my life, but for a brief moment, I’d possessed the mental clarity of a truly ancient being, and I’d feared nothing. I’d known how to do the impossible because nothing was impossible. I’d been able to reshape my own body. I’d started to grow myself wings.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks and turned to the dormant gargoyles. While I walked among them and tested their health, Marcus busied himself near the fire. I appreciated the space; my emotions were too raw for me to want anything else.
In the dormant gargoyles, I caught remnants of the baetyl’s magnificent pattern. It whispered at the periphery of my magic, but when I shifted my attention to focus on it, it slipped away. Sighing, I returned to the fire.
“They need to get inside the baetyl soon.” They were far too weak to leave unattended much longer.
“Maybe if we can get them closer, they’ll wake up.” He offered me a bowl filled with a thick stew, derailing my denial; the gargoyles were no more likely to wake now than they had been in Terra Haven. They needed to be inside the baetyl to receive its benefits.
My stomach grumbled and I snatched the bowl from Marcus’s hand.
“Don’t expect too much,” he said, indicating the food. “We used up the last of my stimulant earlier. This is trail rations, plain and tasteless, but it’ll give us some strength.”
I hadn’t expected anything other than the jerky and dried fruit I’d stuffed in my bag. To me, the stew tasted more divine than the first-class chef’s gourmet potpie.
“Got any more special tricks in your pack?” I asked. Bandages, energy drinks, real food and bowls to eat it in—the man had clearly thought this through. I, on the other hand, had brought a change of clothes, snacks, and seed crystals like I was going on a picnic where I might get dirty. Then I’d marched us into the unknown dangers of the baetyl and nearly killed us both. I was a naive idiot.
“Not unless you consider dry socks a special trick.”
“I was hoping for something more like Gus’s personal air sled to transport the gargoyles.”
“That would be handy.”
We both turned to study the toppled gargoyles. “Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” I said.
“With you, what’s new?”
14
We stood in the middle of the dormant gargoyles while Marcus wove temperature-regulating spells into our clothing. It was a complex blend of fire, wood, and water, with dabs of air beading the surface. He didn’t need the gargoyles’ boosts, but he used it anyway; the wild magic that had escaped from the baetyl had sustained them for hours, but it wouldn’t last much longer.
My eyes closed as Marcus’s spell settled into my shirt, bathing me in warmth as if I stood in the sun instead of atop a chilly mountain in the middle of the night. Most of my body was numb from the greenthread compound, my stomach was full, and as my shivers abated, exhaustion crept back in, urging me to lie down and take a nap.
I snapped my eyes open. I had to keep moving.
We carefully righted all the gargoyles, linking to lift them with thick bands of air and settle them next to the tunnel’s entrance. If it would have done us any good, we would have fixed the air sled and used it to carry the gargoyles again, but it was too wide to fit into the tunnel.
“Who’s first?” Marcus asked.
Life flickered weakly in all the gargoyles. I wanted to insist we carry them all at once, but we didn’t have the strength.
“Rourke,” I said, meeting Celeste’s worried gaze.
Oliver and Celeste dropped their magic into the link Marcus and I shared, filling us with power. So little power, I thought, remembering the enormity of the baetyl’s magic.
Marcus lit the way with two medium-size glowballs, and Celeste and Oliver trailed behind us. Heat built the deeper we went, and Marcus’s spell cooled my shirt in response, keeping my body at an even temperature. I tried to focus on appreciating that rather than the way my pants tightened on my bandages with each step or how my shirt stuck to the wet lamb’s ear leaves wrapping my arms and stomach. Beside me, Marcus walked stiffly, his upper body mostly immobilized by the bandages.
I recognized the curve in the tunnel where I’d collapsed: I hadn’t made it as far out as I’d thought when I’d been dragging Marcus.
“Mika.” Oliver’s chiming voice echoed in the tunnel. “I have to stop.”
I twisted to look at him, then stopped fully when I saw his pain-pinched expression. Celeste had stopped a few yards behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“The baetyl doesn’t want us any closer.”
The moment he said it, I felt the weight of the baetyl pressing against me. It didn’t want any of us closer, but the pressure didn’t physically hurt me.
“Celeste?” I asked.
“I can’t go any farther,” she said.
“Okay, go back to the surface,” I said, not wanting them to wait in pain.
“Drop the boosts now, too,” Marcus said.
I nodded. With Marcus and I moving in the opposite direction as the gargoyles, we’d soon be out of range of their magical enhancements. It was better to lose their boosts now than to have their extra magic jerked from us unexpectedly.
“We could wait here,” Oliver suggested.
I shook my head, remembering how the baetyl had viewed Oliver and Celeste as deformed gargoyles. “We actually might be better off if the baetyl doesn’t sense a connection to you in our magic,” I said.