“Luc? Good Lord, is that you?” Gabby was across the room, flanked by Vander Burke and Marco. They stood within the slim mouth of another doorway.
Luc couldn’t reply in any human way, so he kept heading toward them, his wings still dragging.
Marco stared gravely. “What did they do, bathe you in mercurite?”
He scanned the room. No Ingrid. No Dimitrie. The chime at the base of his skull had been for Marco.
Gabby looked from Luc to Nolan. He knelt beside the elder Quinn, who had blood streaked down his chin. “I’m staying with him,” Nolan said.
“But—” Gabby started.
“Go,” Nolan replied, then more gently, “We’ll be fine here, but Ingrid needs you.”
Luc’s body reacted on instinct. His wings spread open and the last patches of skin snapped into hard jet. He didn’t even feel the pain.
“Ingrid’s alive?” Luc asked. Only Marco could understand his gravelly cry.
“For the moment,” he replied.
Luc sagged forward. Alive. Ingrid was alive. He felt sick with relief. But why couldn’t he trace her? Bring up her scent, or feel her?
“I don’t know what they’ve done to you, Luc, but we have to go. Now,” Gabby said, her short sword clenched in her palm, her foot already inside the slim gap.
Vander’s patience broke. He pressed himself through the opening. Gabby immediately followed, and Luc started for the gap as well.
Marco blocked the opening. “You couldn’t feel her because she isn’t our human any longer. She’s Dimitrie’s, though I doubt the Shadow bastard can do anything to protect her.”
“He promised to kill her,” Luc said, his shriek resounding off the stone walls.
“Well, he can’t do that now, can he?” Marco replied. Luc didn’t know what Dimitrie could or couldn’t do. The rules were blurry here.
“Get out of my way,” Luc growled, starting forward again. He could hear Vander shouting for Ingrid inside the tunnel and envy burned in his chest. That should be him in there, not Vander.
Marco blocked him once more. “Look at yourself. You aren’t in any condition to go with Lady Gabriella. I will.”
Luc stilled, suddenly seeing things the way Marco must. The way any other gargoyle would. He should have wanted to charge into that passageway to protect his human charge—Gabby.
Protecting her had not crossed Luc’s mind once.
Marco cocked his head as he realized it. “Lady Ingrid is not our human any longer. Your responsibility to her is severed. Go after her now and the Order will know, brother.”
They knew last time, when Luc had taken demon poison and gone into the Underneath to rescue Ingrid from Axia. He had chosen to put himself in danger for a human who wasn’t his own. Irindi had accused Luc of having an affinity for Ingrid and had warned him to curb it.
He’d tried.
Luc didn’t know what the Order’s punishment would be this time. It didn’t matter. “Let me pass,” he said.
Marco’s hooded eyes barely concealed his annoyance. “Luc, I’m trying to help—”
A scream pricked Marco’s sentence. It came from far away, buried by layers of stone, wood, and plaster. Yet even severed from Ingrid, Luc felt it keenly in the pit of his stomach.
He barred his forearm across Marco’s brawny chest and shoved him against the stone door. “She may not be mine, but I am still hers.”
Luc pushed off from the other gargoyle and bolted into the dark passageway. He conjured a trace on Gabby and followed it, spreading his wings as far as the walls would allow. His feet had barely left the floor when each injured wing collapsed. Luc’s bare soles hit the floor and he was forced to run after Gabby and Vander. He went as fast as he could but longed for his wings. Damned mercurite.
Ahead, in a sphere of electric light, Luc saw a body on the floor of the tunnel.
“Don’t stop, Luc!” came Vander’s shout from farther down the tunnel. “I see crypsis dust! It and Ingrid’s dust lead this way!”
Axia’s pet has her. Luc ran faster and caught up to Vander and Gabby at a short set of stairs. At the top, a hatch door had been left flung open. The cold air felt good on Luc’s scales as he climbed into a grassy courtyard. It made the one at H?tel du Maurier look like the Paris slums. This was a true lawn, a miniature Luxembourg Garden. Stately trees, their trunks gnarled and scored with age; a tiered fountain surrounded by a sunken garden; an arched footbridge spanning a small, iced-over pond. Five stories of block limestone, corner turrets, and leaded-glass windows towered over them on all sides, casting dim light over pockets of the lawn. Far beyond, an outbuilding had its lights on. A short stretch of open arcades linked this outbuilding to the main estate and appeared to be the only exit.