Fingers crossed, I gathered the familiar blend of gargoyle-tuned elements and eased my magic into the warthog without opening my eyes. Holding the magic steady, I simultaneously sank into my own body, searching for the central core of my individuality—my spirit.
I wouldn’t have known what to feel for if I hadn’t learned the trick of separating my spirit and body in Focal Park. Then, the act had been a blind, last-ditch effort flowing from a string of elemental maneuvers that had already tugged me a half dozen different directions. Separating my spirit and dividing it among the gargoyles had been a natural extension of the magic I’d already been doing. Here, my actions were deliberate, my mind quiet, and loosening even a small sliver of my spirit from my body made me tremble with trepidation.
Afraid to pause and give Marcus a chance to stop me, I peeled a piece from the pulsing nebula of my spirit as easily as plucking a petal from a rose—it came free with only a mild tug. Or almost free. A slender thread spun from my body to connect with the petal, lengthening as I coaxed the petal from my body and into the warthog’s. With almost magnetic attraction, the petal merged with my magic.
My breath released in a shaky hiss as the warthog’s pain became my own. During the magic storms, her stubby tail and the tips of her tusks had been chipped and her folded wings were abraded. The pulsing pain of the new injuries settled into the dull aches of her body, which suffered from malnutrition and erosion. The puncture in my thigh pulsed in response, but I distanced myself from my body and did my best to ignore the gargoyle’s pain, too. Once I got her into the baetyl, she’d be better.
I dove through her, searching for the spark of her life. It was nothing I could see with my eyes, but I could feel it with my magic. The essence of the warthog lay nestled among layers of elements deep in her heart. I altered my magic to match her prasiolite-striped white quartz body, then subtly tweaked the quartz to resonate more closely with the baetyl’s energy.
What would have been easier than inhaling when I’d been linked with the baetyl took my full concentration now. Since I couldn’t remember the bulk of the baetyl’s pattern, I had to rely on the glimpses I caught to spark my memory, then alter the delicate blend of elements to match.
I knew the moment I got it just right. The tiny remnant of the warthog hiding in her core turned, and in my mind’s eye, her spirit took the form of pure golden light in the shape of her body. She stood cocooned in a sphere of white quartz crisscrossed with mint and forest-green prasiolite striations, and her liquid gold eyes regarded my spirit with profound sorrow. Loneliness from decades of isolation crashed through me, and the shock of feeling her emotion as if it were my own jarred me. Healing gargoyles gave me access to their physical sensations, not their emotional ones. The elements trembled in my grasp and I struggled to hold myself in place. Any change in my magic might push me out of her, or worse, injure her.
I’m here to help. All you have to do is wake up. I pictured the baetyl and tried to give it a joyous sensation. Hoping she could feel my emotions as clearly as I could hers, I fed her my affection, my hope for her to wake, and my eagerness for her to be whole and healthy—and with it, I twined my piece of spirit around her spark of life. The crush of loneliness cracked, allowing in such a fragile emotion I didn’t recognize it at first: hope.
That’s it. Wake up. Walk into the baetyl.
She turned from me, and her head lifted as if she could see the baetyl now. Her thick wings unfurled and she took a step—
Her spark blurred; then she was back in her frozen form, wings trapped against her back. Despair drowned me, and I fought to stay in place.
You can do it, I encouraged. I siphoned more of my spirit into her, cocooning her in petals of energy. Try again. You’ve only got a few feet . . .
She looked at me, and her eyes had no room for lies. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the strength.
Together, then. We’ll do it together.
Thrusting aside my fear, I abandoned my careful half-measures and yanked my spirit free of my body and into the warthog, encasing her fragile spark in the entirety of my spirit’s energy. The final nuances of her body clarified in my mind’s eye, and I tweaked my magic, melding with her. I turned my—our—head toward the baetyl and poured my will into the gargoyle.
15
Walk. Take a step. Move.
My back foot shifted, little more than a twitch, but the sensation opened a forgotten door. Awareness of my body spread upward. I lifted my head on a neck gone stiff as stone. My wings—
Fear jumbled my thoughts. The last time . . . The baetyl . . .
I am a gargoyle guardian!
The magic slipped and shuddered in my control, threatening to fracture. I could feel my wings, glorious green prasiolite, but . . . but . . .
I do not have wings!
I yanked my magic to free it, but it snagged and held. Pain slashed me, hot and sharp. I needed to get out, to escape—
“Easy, Mika. Don’t rip it. You’re okay. Just take it slow.”
The rumble of Marcus’s voice cut through my panic and I stilled. My body shuddered with an echo of someone else’s pain. The warthog. Not my body—hers. Except there was no distinction. I had wings because she had wings.
I’d hoped to use my spirit to restore the gargoyle’s ability to walk; instead, I’d imprinted my spirit onto hers and it’d given me control over her body. Fear tingled through a confusion of arms and legs, heads and spines. I took a deep breath through two sets of lungs and oriented on the warthog’s spirit again. She trembled inside my control, but with hope, not fear.
“That’s better. Now ease back out,” Marcus said.