"What are you?" Jess demanded. "Let me go!"
She writhed, but the stoneskins now had both her hands and feet pinned securely. She couldn't seem to reach into the stone they were made of, any more than she had been able to use her stone-sense on the stone that was killing Reive.
But she had the cliff at her back.
Rock, she thought, take me inside. She had experienced Mace doing it twice; she had even felt the statue back at Stonegarden soften to receive her. For a moment, she thought that she felt the rock growing permeable underneath her.
No, it wasn't just her imagination. It began close over her body.
"Oh no you don't," the magician snapped, slapping his bloody hand on the cliff face. He quickly drew a sigil on the rock in his own blood.
Jess had the bizarre feeling of the rock repelling her, bouncing her out like a trampoline. She was slammed into the stoneskins' implacable hands with a force that would have left bruises on her skin if she hadn't still been in her gargoyle form.
"Now," the magician said, leaning into her space. "Where is the book?"
"I—I don't have it!"
The firelight shed by his body lit up the grotto. It was even in his eyes, as if something fiery burned inside him. By that strange campfire light, she could see that the altar had been knocked over in the fight, its contents scattered. She saw the briefcase, overturned and open.
But no book.
Where was it? Mace didn't seem to have it; she couldn't even tell if he was alive. Had he hidden it?
The desperation to get back to Reive was starting to drain out of her, the longer he was under the water, replaced by misery and grief.
If he still needed to breathe, his time might have run out already. And if he didn't ...
"Look, this isn't a hard question," the magician said. He moved a hand—there was a faint, brighter afterimage for an instant—and the stoneskins' hands tightened on her wrists and ankles. "Just give me the damn book, all right?"
“It was you, wasn’t it?” She had gone somewhere beyond fear and out the other side. “That night in Georgia, when they came for me.”
“What?” he said, baffled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He really didn’t seem to. If not him, then who? She no longer believed the gargoyles were responsible, not if they were all like Mace. And she had no evidence that any gargoyle had ever tried to hurt her. All she had seen that night were the same crudely shaped stoneskins that were holding her now. Not like Mace’s comparatively graceful and well-made creations.
“Are there others like you?” she asked. “Others who do what you do?”
“I’m asking the questions here. Where’s the book?”
“Why do you want it?” she countered.
"Why do you want it?" the magician shot back. "You know what's in it, don't you?"
"The secrets of gargoyles," she panted. Tears prickled at her eyes, but she swallowed them back, even as she found herself surprised that she could still cry in this body.
“Oh, it’s so much more than that.” He seemed to pull himself together a little bit, straightening his shoulders. "Everything is so much more important than you know. All the power between those pages, and you wouldn’t even use the book for its most important purpose.”
“What power?” Jess asked. “What purpose?”
"Control of the elements, of course. Gargoyles for stone.” He held up a hand, curled his fingers loosely. Fire flowed out of the cracks in his skin and coalesced into his palm. “And fire. And the others too, eventually.”
She stared at him by the fire’s glow. As crazy as it sounded, he seemed serious.
"Look, to be honest,” she said, “I’d give it to you if I could. I didn't even want to be this. I was hoping that if I found the book I could make myself human again. But it couldn't even do that for me, and it couldn't fix my boyfriend, so why shouldn't you have it?"
“By fix yourself, do you mean make yourself human? Of course you can.”
He sounded surprised, so much so that she blinked away her tears to look at him critically. He looked sincere.
"I don't believe you,” she said.
“It’s true. The spells in that book are so much more powerful than you seem to realize. Unmaking gargoyles should be simple.” He leaned forward, eager now. “I already offered this to your boyfriend, but he didn’t believe me. Now I’m offering it to you. If you give me the book, I can show you how to undo the spells that hold together every gargoyle in the world.”
She stared at him in worry and confusion. "That sounds bad for the gargoyles," she said cautiously.
"Why do you care? You don't even want to be one of them." He looked closely at her, frowning. It was almost completely dark now, except for the warm campfire light pouring out of him. It wasn't her imagination, she thought, and not a reflection; the irises of his eyes were little golden flames. Then they faded back to normal eyes—hazel shading sea-gray—and she jerked back in surprise.
"You're not like other gargoyles,” he said slowly. "Are you half human?"
"What if I am?" she asked defensively. But even as she said it, she felt a startled sense of things falling into place. That was it, the missing piece. That was why she didn't seem to be able to do all the things Mace could do, at least not as easily. It wasn't just growing up with humans. She was only half gargoyle.
"Tell me, what do you owe them?" he asked. "Why shouldn't you help me? I swear I'm not lying to you. I can show you how to dissolve the gargoyle side of yourself. You'll get what you want. You'll be human."
The worst part was, she reluctantly believed him. He didn't sound like he was lying.
"What about my boyfriend? Will it help him too?" She tugged at the stoneskins' hands again, and realized that with the magician's attention no longer focused on them, she was starting to get a little slack. She might be able to pull her hands free.
"If he's still alive in there," the magician said.
Her heart gave a tiny, hopeful leap. This might be the only thing that could save Reive. Wasn't it worth it?
"And the other gargoyles?" she asked. "Will it hurt them?"
"Do you care?" he asked, and that sent a chilling certainty down to the bottom of her heart.
Yes, it will.
There was a time when she had thought the gargoyle side of her was a monster lurking inside her. She would have done anything to be free of it, and to help free Reive, even if it meant killing every gargoyle in the world.
But now ...
She turned toward Mace in the near darkness. Lit by flickering firelight, he hung immobile on the rock spikes piercing him. If he was alive, he might be her closest kin, an uncle she had never known she had. And there could be others out there. Other relatives, a family like the close-knit dragon clans that Reive had told her about.
How could she sacrifice Mace, and them, and all of gargoyle-kind, even for the possibility of saving Reive?
If I can still save him ...
Her mouth opened and closed. She started shaking her head, a desperate refusal to make such a terrible decision.