Mace laid his big, pebbly-gray hand on Reive's chest, as she had done earlier, and then he shook his head. "He's beyond my ability to help," he said, and Jess had a moment of sweeping horror so intense that she nearly fainted. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. He's still alive, my dear. He's holding on."
"But he's made out of stone. I tried to help him move his chest. Can't you do that?"
Mace shook his head. "My power, and yours, only extends over inanimate stone. We have no control over the living stone flesh of another gargoyle. And right now, he's in between. Neither one nor the other. The stone he's made of is beyond our reach, and currently beyond his as well."
"Then we have to move ahead with the ritual," Jess said firmly. Reive had agreed to it, she told herself. She wasn't pushing him into anything he didn't want. She stroked his hair back from his face, and her thumb touched a cool, hard patch on his cheekbone. The stone was even spreading to his face now.
"I know. I had meant to come find you anyway. I think we're ready, at least as ready as we're going to be, and everything I've read suggests that the ritual is meant to be done at sunset." He glanced up at the sun touching the top of the hills, painting the clouds in shades of red and gold. "We mustn't miss our chance today. Hold onto him."
Jess wrapped her arms around Reive and buried her face in his hair. Mace laid a hand on her shoulder and wrapped his wings around all three of them.
This time she was a little more prepared for the darkness that swallowed her. She tried to keep her eyes open, but there was nothing to see, only the dark. Still, it didn't feel harmful or dangerous. There was something almost comfortable about it, the feeling of having rock wrapped around her on all sides. She could almost imagine herself going to sleep like this, if she wasn't so frantically worried about Reive.
The darkness swept away, and they were crouched in a jumble of boulders.
Jess patted Reive's shoulder and straightened up to look around. She had never seen this place before. The air was sharply cool and smelled intensely of salt and iron and mud: the smell of the sea, but much stronger than on the sun-warmed hill.
They were in some kind of stony grotto, standing on rocks and loose sand. Sea stacks towered above them, and the sun was already hidden. A tidal pool lapped at the bottom of the scree slope they were standing on. The waves pounded at the rocks, but the pool was calm as glass, protected by the rocks from the driving force of the ocean.
"Where are we?" Jess asked.
"A rock pool I know of. The ceremony must be performed in the water, and it's the closest suitable place." Mace glanced around. There was a feral anxiety to his body language, at odds with his usual calm. "We should get moving. Away from the protection of Stonegarden, they may be able to find us. Help me get him to the water."
Jess helped him pick up Reive. "Couldn't we just do it in a bathtub?" A particularly fierce wave hit the sea stacks, and spray dashed her, shockingly cold.
"It must be wild water, not water that's been calmed and tamed." Mace started down the scree slope, while Jess scrambled alongside.
"Don't the villagers notice you flying around as a gargoyle?" she asked to distract herself.
Mace smiled. "They're used to it. They don't know that I am the gargoyle, but they do know that their village is protected by a lucky gargoyle. Did you see the statues in the village?"
"I did. They told me that they're supposed to keep the village safe from harm. Nobody said anything about statues coming to life and flying around."
"If you'd seen a statue come to life and fly around, would you talk about it with strangers?"
"Yes, okay, you have a point," she admitted.
They stopped at the tidal pool's edge. The glassy water reflected the blazing sky above.
"If this has to be done at sunset," Jess said, "we're running out of time."
"Sunset lasts a long time this far north. But you aren't wrong." Standing at the pool's edge, Mace turned to her. Reive's head rolled limply against his shoulder. "Shift."
"Why?" she asked, alarmed. "I mean, I want to help, but ..."
"You are the one who must take him into the pool. The mate bond will help. But you can't carry him like that."
"Oh," Jess murmured. She concentrated and shifted.
Ever since she had met Reive, the transformation was starting to feel less like losing herself and more like embracing her true self. There was no shame at all this time; instead it felt satisfying, like scratching a long-denied itch. It wasn't until she had finished shifting that she realized she had taken her clothes with her this time without even trying to. The one thing that hadn't come along was her shoes. She shook off the pieces of her borrowed shoes—there went another pair—and curled her clawed toes in the sand.
"Here." Mace held out his arms, and Jess carefully took Reive's limp form. It was a reminder of how much stronger she was in this body. She knew that she couldn't have picked up a full-grown man under normal circumstances, but he hardly even felt heavy to her now.
When his body came into contact with hers, it seemed that he relaxed slightly. His head lolled against her shoulder. There was something trusting in it that made her chest tighten with the need to repay that trust.
"So I just take him into the water?"
Mace nodded.
She began to wade in. The water that had been so cold to her as a human now felt merely cool, pleasantly refreshing on her gargoyle skin. She walked in up to her knees and turned to see what Mace was doing.
For the first time she noticed a few other items at the edge of the pool. There was a large bowl, a few bottles and jars, an incense burner, and a briefcase.
"Where did this come from?"
"I brought it here before I went for you. It's everything we need for the ritual ... I hope," Mace muttered under his breath. "But the most important ingredient is you."
"Me?"
"A living gargoyle. His mate." Mace tipped his head at the deepest part of the pool. "Go on, take him all the way in."
Taking a deep breath, she waded deeper. The cool water climbed her legs. She kept thinking her clothes should be getting soaked, then remembered she was no longer wearing clothes, at least not in the normal sense. Her clothes were part of her body now. Beneath her stony feet, the pebble bottom of the tidal pool felt slippery and nice.
Granite, limestone, sandstone, flint ...
Reive's feet dipped into the water. He jerked in her arms.
"Shhh," she murmured, and he relaxed again. She wished now, irrelevantly, that she'd thought to take off at least some of his clothes before wading in. Or at least his shoes.
Like it matters. Priorities, Jess.
She waded deeper. Sandstone, sandstone, mudstone, shale, her rock sense told her as the smooth pebbles slipped under her feet. Except it wasn't in words, not really. It was like Reive had said earlier about an inner animal voice. She just knew.
Maybe she had always been hearing her gargoyle's voice, as long as she had been alive, and had just never recognized it.
The water came up around her crotch and then rose to the level of her hips. Reive's legs floated, wavering under the surface. He jerked again when the cold water started climbing up over his hips and back.