I felt itchy. Edgy. Like I needed to sprint a mile or punch something. I wasn’t good with big revelations that had the potential to jump-kick me right in the emotions.
Oliver’s mouth twitched, a subtle sign I’d said something that amused him.
“Aren’t you full of questions,” he said mildly. “Yes, we’ll have to put her up here. We can’t let her go back to the Earthly realm. Periclase will just take her again. The fortress will be her home for now. Hopefully for the long term. She is, after all, as much New Gargoyle as you are. We can’t abandon her to Periclase.”
The word “abandon” sent a pang through my heart. New Gargs were protective of our own because there weren’t a whole lot of us.
“We can’t let that happen.” I pressed my lips together and then blew out a slow breath. “I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind right now.”
“She was raised by humans with magical aptitude, but having been on the Earthly side of the hedge her entire life, she won’t even know she has her own magic.”
Changelings’ magic was always suppressed, on account of not having spent their childhood in Faerie. Since Nicole was here, things were probably starting to get very weird for her.
I shoved my fingers into my dark hair, pushing it back from my face.
“I’ll do it,” I said. I was still in the middle of my Guild assignment, but I’d just have to find a way to accomplish both missions. “But this doesn’t mean I’m quitting the Guild.”
He lowered his lids a fraction, an Oliver version of a withering look.
“Just join the damn battle ranks already, Petra.”
I took half a step backward toward the door, my mind on escape. I was starting to have flashbacks to the epic power struggles we’d fought when I was a teenager. I’d been kind of a rebellious little asshole. Even though I was now twenty-seven, we sometimes still slipped back into those roles, and I wasn’t in the mood to replay those days. I edged a little closer to the exit.
He shifted his weight, his stance easing slightly.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re going to need some help getting in and out of Periclase’s palace.”
I halted my getaway. “You’ve got a plan in mind?”
“Maxen is taking a group of dignitaries to the Duergar kingdom. He was already scheduled to go on a week-long ambassadorial visit. Due to arrive there tomorrow night.”
My eyes popped wide. “Wait, Maxen knows about Nicole?”
“No, Marisol hasn’t told him yet. She will before he leaves, but she doesn’t want him involved in any way.” His gray-green eyes grew more serious. “I know you know this, but I’m going to say it anyway. You must take care, Petra. You’ll be in the kingdom of a potential enemy, and an Unseelie territory at that. The Unseelie can be ruthless in ways others aren’t.”
“Right. Get the girl and sneak her out without pissing off anyone or starting a war. And do it all around my day job.”
Oliver gave a low chuckle. “Smart ass. Oh, and don’t forget that you can’t reveal Nicole’s true identity to Maxen.”
It was going to be a fricking mine field, and he knew it. But Oliver wouldn’t send me in if he didn’t believe I could pull it off. An eager little part of me was already getting psyched at the challenge—another quirk of the father-daughter dynamic. No matter how hard I might have railed against his authority when I was a kid, there was—and still remained—a desire for his approval that seemed threaded through my DNA. I’d spent my childhood trying to fight it, but at some point in the past few years, I’d finally accepted that it wasn’t going away.
Ah, family.
Speaking of, my known blood relations had just doubled. Somewhere out there in King Periclase’s kingdom, I had a sister.
A little surge of anticipation spurred me through the fortress in search of Maxen. I spotted an Order page, identifiable by her blue vest, and jogged to catch up with her.
“I need to find Maxen,” I said to the startled girl. “Official business, Oliver Maguire’s orders.”
She blinked a couple of times and then tapped the tablet on top of the folders she carried. Cell phones didn’t work in Fae, but electronics had become fundamental tools in the kingdoms decades ago. The only snag was that there was no Wi-Fi. Like cell phone signals, it didn’t work on this side of the hedge. Tablets had to be frequently plugged into the fortress’s hard-wired lines to update data, and there were ports all around the building.
“Mr. Lothlorien’s schedule, current as of an hour ago, says he’s in training right now,” she said.
I nearly shuddered. I couldn’t imagine a life where dozens of people knew where I was and what I was doing from one hour to the next.
I nodded and continued through the hallways of the fortress toward the training yard. I passed more pages, advisors, and people performing more menial tasks such as cleaning and moving supplies around. New Gargoyles were built for fighting, but it didn’t mean that all of them wanted to pursue the training necessary to become skilled at it.
I reached the workout room, an open-concept modern gym outfitted with weights and treadmills. I waved at a few New Gargs I’d trained with when I was younger but didn’t stop to chat. On the other side of the gym, wide glass double-doors led to the training yard, where trainees and full members of the battle ranks worked with weapons of all kinds and practiced hand-to-hand combat.
Some of the instructors were younger than me. I’d had many teachers, but the most significant was my father, though he’d never officially been an Order instructor. He was the one who’d taught me that my smaller size could be an advantage. He’d also trained me in the mental discipline of pain tolerance. People would make assumptions when they saw me, about my strength and abilities. Others wouldn’t expect a small female to be mentally tough. He made me see that with the right training and hard work, I could be a match for any opponent. Under his guidance, I’d transformed from a scrappy little New Garg girl who just wanted to swing swords around into a formidable fighter who could best nearly anyone in the fortress.
I spotted Maxen training with a short sword. A V of sweat on the back of his gray t-shirt showed he was well into his workout. He and his partner both had their rock armor fully activated and were going full intensity at each other using real weapons. When it came to strength, New Gargoyles reigned above the other Fae races. The Spriggans were the only other race that came close in terms of physical stature and strength, but they didn’t have our stone armor and as a race didn’t tend to put much stock in battle training because they formed one of the smaller kingdoms. If a larger kingdom really wanted to take the Spriggan by force, it wouldn’t be that hard simply due to numbers.