"Darker than everything else that's happened to us?" Jess asked pointedly. It was her turn, this time, to reach across the table and curl her hand over Reive's. "Our lives haven't exactly been a bed of roses, you know."
The corner of Mace's mouth curved in a slight smile. "You're right. What happened next ... was what often happens when people get a taste of power. There were those among the alchemists who wanted to use us to do more than protect. What do you know about the fighting between the dragons and the gargoyles?"
Jess only shook her head. Reive said, "Just that it's been going on for a long time, and I've always been told the gargoyles started it."
"And we did," Mace said. "But not because we wanted to. Our original purpose, to guard and protect, was twisted and warped. We were forced to be fighters and assassins instead. We attacked the dragons because our creators ordered us to, for the dragons were warlords of great power, the only other power that could stand against us. We led armies to conquest. But eventually, we rebelled, destroyed our creators, and tried to live quiet lives afterward."
There was a brief silence. Jess's hand was warm on Reive's.
A skeptical part of him wanted to disbelieve it. But it had the ring of truth. And he knew there was no harm in Jess.
"Is that who's after us now?" he asked. "The alchemists who made us, whatever is left of them?"
"But that was hundreds of years ago," Jess protested.
"True," Mace said. "But they could have descendants, or modern-day successors who learned some of their secrets."
"So the book ..." Jess began.
"The book is not supposed to exist. Those early gargoyles destroyed every piece of written material they could find that contained the secret of making more of us. Our ancestors decided that we would rather have only a few of us in the world than risk someone creating an army of us. One lone gargoyle can raise a small army of stoneskins. Imagine what hundreds of us, fighting together, could do to the world."
A shudder ran through Reive. "I don't have to imagine it. I watched my entire dragon clan fight all out against a single gargoyle, and he almost beat us."
"And so you understand," Mace said quietly. He placed a hand on top of the papers on the table. "What you have here is a secret that could conquer the world."
There was a brief silence. Then Jess said, her voice fierce, "I don't care about any of that. What matters to me is whether that book has a cure for Reive."
"Not ... as such," Mace said slowly. "What is happening to him is very unusual. I've never seen its like. It is like he's turning into a gargoyle, but very slowly."
"It's not gargoyle stone, though," Jess said. "It's solid."
"That's because it hasn't been given life yet. A gargoyle who dies in their shifted state becomes normal stone, indistinguishable from a statue."
Jess nodded slowly, and Reive thought of the diagrams in the book, the pieces of a broken-up statue. And that claw ...
"Therefore," Mace went on, "the only way I can think of to help Reive is by completing the transformation. We must bring his stone to life, and make it part of his body."
There was a stunned silence.
"No," Jess said. "You want to make him a—no!"
"I can find no other way," Mace said. "Given time, perhaps I could. But there is no time. I watched the stone spread while I was working on him yesterday. It is even worse now."
"It's accelerating," Reive said quietly.
He had been able to tune it out somewhat, distracted by Jess's soothing touch. But he could still feel the tug around his ribs when he tried to breathe deeply. His rib cage and lungs were turning to stone.
He had thought he had more time, but now he began to understand that he would suffocate long before his entire body turned to stone. He might only have days.
He reached inside himself for his dragon. It was still near the surface, and he felt only wordless conviction, agreement with the decision he'd already made. Living was better than dying, especially dying of something senseless and preventable.
Jess turned to him, her eyes full of tears. "But—you've seen what I turn into. You can't possibly want that."
"Jess." He brushed her cheek lightly with the back of his good hand. "It's because I've seen what you turn into that I have no fear. You are strong and capable and beautiful, and you are still you, no matter what shape you are. How could I fear anything that makes me more like you?"
In truth, he was afraid, or at least uncertain. If he did this, especially without consulting Uncle Heikon, would his clan even want him back?
But it wasn't their choice. It was his. And it didn't feel like an ending. It felt like a beginning.
Jess closed both her hands over his, warm and soft and strong. "Reive, we don't have to. We can look for another way."
"I don't think there is one. And I'm running out of time." And he had so much more to live for now. He took a deep breath. "I'm ready. Just tell me what to do."
Jess
"We will begin in my library," Mace said. "You can help me with that."
In spite of her worry for Reive, Jess felt her heart leap at the word library. "Oh, yes, please!"
Mace collected the book—both parts of the book, the bound version and Jess's loose-leaf pages—and they left the bedroom. Reive trailed along behind Jess. Shoulders hunched and keeping to himself, he held his stone arm lightly with his opposite hand. It was clear that he was in pain, and she wished desperately to do something to help—something now, not research for the future.
"Do you need painkillers?" she asked him quietly.
Reive shook his head. "They don't really help."
She slipped her hand into the fingers of his stone one. "But this does."
His face, set in lines of pain, relaxed a little. "It does. Some."
"Then I'll keep doing it."
Mace led them up a flight of stairs. The house was as complicated inside as it looked from the outside, a rambling split-level with landings and narrow hallways and floors at different levels.
"Do you live here all alone?" Jess asked Mace.
He glanced over his shoulder. "There are those who come up from the village to cook and clean."
"Yes, I suppose so." She still couldn't get over the weirdness of having servants, even if Mace seemed not to want to call it that. "But it's just you other than that?"
"Why? Do you find that strange?"
"I find it lonely," she said.
Mace didn't answer. Instead he opened a large wooden door onto a room straight out of Jess's fantasies.
It was a library—a true library, like something out of a book itself. Bookshelves packed with books climbed in serried ranks up to a high ceiling where stained glass windows let the sunshine in. There were heavy leather chairs and reading tables, small lamps, even a fireplace. The room smelled of leather and paper and wood polish, rich and deep and old.
Jess gaped in wonder. Her hand went slack in Reive's.
Mace turned and saw her expression, and his green eyes warmed. "My parents built this. My sister and I used to spend long hours here."