I tilted my head to look at him, disoriented by the low angle. He hunched over something in his arms, talking to it, not me. With a jolt, I realized that was me cradled against his chest. My body lay in a loose sprawl, eyes closed, mouth open, green ointment dotting my pale face. The fiery light of the glowballs shimmered in the fan of my strawberry-blond hair and emphasized the dark purple circles under my eyes. Had I always looked so fragile?
The longer I looked at my body, the more foreign the gargoyle’s felt. When vertigo skewed my sight, I turned away.
Something kissed my spirit, the feeling so sweet and pure that my heart felt like it’d sing from my chest. I stared at the glow at the end of the tunnel. Home. My cynosure baetyl reached for me, pulling me to it, and I welcomed the assistance.
I jerked into motion, clumsily navigating on four stiff legs. My wings flexed with each step, the unfamiliar muscles twitching in my limited control.
“Mika, no. It’s too dangerous.”
Everything ached, and the pain grew with each step as my body woke. My skin was chapped from tusk to tail, my feet were bruised from holding the same position for decades, and my chipped tusks stung. The baetyl vowed to soothe it all away. I gathered its siren song of promises into my heart and pushed through the pain and sluggishness of my stiff body. When I rounded the corner, the baetyl filled my vision and I ran the last stumbling steps.
A film of the baetyl’s protective ward coated the opening, and when I burst through it, magic poured into me. I drank it down, savoring the cascade of relief as the baetyl massaged my body back into harmony and soothed away the aches and pains of decades.
I stretched my wings wide, body humming with pleasure. I was whole.
The elements swirled through me, and I folded them, amplifying—
That’s how a boost works!
My shocked delight separated me from the gargoyle. For a moment, I was an amazed observer. I’d never understood how a gargoyle could create more magic out of the existing elements, but from my new perspective, it seemed obvious. Then my access to the world through her eyes slipped from my control. The space between our spirits grew, and I had the impression of the warthog regarding me with the wise eyes of her spirit before she shoved me from her body.
I tried to hang on, clinging to elemental fibers inside her until I saw the damage I created. I wasn’t supposed to hurt gargoyles. I was a healer.
With that thought, I lost my anchor and my detached spirit shot fast as an arrow back to my body, slamming home.
I gasped for air like I’d been underwater, back arching, eyes flying open to stare up at the shadowy ceiling of the tunnel. My heart hammered in my chest and I panted, trying to remember who I was, where I was, what I was.
I am Mika Stillwater. I am a gargoyle healer. I am a gargoyle guardian.
My spirit settled into my body, binding with the minute piece I’d left behind. I couldn’t see it in myself as I could in the gargoyle, but I didn’t need to. I could feel the rightness. I wriggled my fingers and toes, stifling a groan as my body’s pains awoke. The blissful sensation of the baetyl healing the warthog’s wounds faded to a wistful memory.
I sat up, and Marcus’s hand settled at my back to support me. I braced a hand on the floor to balance against a wave of dizziness while I looked around. It hadn’t been a dream. The warthog was gone.
“I did it.” I grinned at Marcus. “I got a gargoyle into the baetyl.” I’d walked her body in as if it were my own. The thought made me queasy and giddy at the same time. “If I can do it once, I can do it seven times. I’m saving all these gargoyles’ lives!”
“I thought you were done with shoving your life in front of every problem.”
“I am.”
“Then what do you call that stunt?”
“A calculated risk that—”
“Risk?! This is exactly what you did at Focal Park.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve thought this through—”
“You shoved your spirit into a gargoyle just like last ti—”
“I didn’t divide myself up.”
“Oh, so that makes it better?” Marcus rose to his feet in a smooth motion and paced away from me, fists clenched.
“Listen to me. I’m giving the gargoyles the strength they need. I can’t get them into the baetyl by physical or magical strength, but I can by—”
“By sticking the essence that makes you, you into another living creature. That’s not right. It’s not natural or safe or a reasonable risk.”
“It is for me.”
I’d come here with the impossible mission of battling my way through deadly magic storms, finding a secretive baetyl hidden inside the mountain, fixing it without even knowing exactly what a baetyl was, and then getting the sick gargoyles inside. I had doubted the success of this mission a thousand times. Yet, despite all the hardships, I’d done it. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop this close to the finish line.
“I’m not attempting this with just any troubled creature. I’m a—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Gargoyle guardian,” I finished.
“Damn it.”
“Whatever it is that made me capable of healing the baetyl is the same part of me that makes it okay for me to transplant my spirit into a gargoyle. Temporarily. My magic is somehow close to theirs. It means they’re safe with me and I’m safe with them. This isn’t a martyr mission.”
Veins stood out on Marcus’s neck as he loomed over me, his forearms corded with tension. “You didn’t know who you were.”
“I was disoriented for a moment.”
“You were unresponsive for fifteen minutes.”
“That long?” I rolled to my knees— Wait, hadn’t I been standing in front of the warthog? I recalled a shadowy memory of looking at myself through the warthog’s eyes. Marcus had been holding me in his arms. “Ah, thank you for catching me?”
Marcus gave me an exasperated look. “Someone had to protect the tunnel from the impact of your thick skull.”
“Good point. I’ll make sure to be sitting next time.” Fifteen minutes? I assessed the flickers of life inside the remaining gargoyles. I’d have to leave the strongest for last and work faster. None of the gargoyles looked like they would survive another hour.
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Marcus asked.
I stood but relaxed my defiant posture when I saw his concern.
“I can’t think of one. Can you?”