That didn’t bode well.

I resumed holding the bars. “How about a key? Could you throw up the key?”

He scratched his head in a way that made me wonder if he had fleas. “How about this? I will just…go on break.”

I lifted my eyebrows even though he probably couldn’t see that. It gave me something to do while I tried to make sense of his words.

“Yes.” He nodded his great, shaggy head. “I used to get breaks, I remember. It isn’t my fault that no one is here to relieve me. It is my break, and so I must leave.”

“No, but—”

“And on this break, maybe I’ll get delayed. Yes, maybe I’ll sprain my ankle. That’s not my fault. Hikers sprain their ankles all the time. One fell off a little cliff and rolled a ways after seeing me. No one blamed him for that. He and his friends had to make a splint before they all hobbled away. It took a bit of time. A lunch break and a sprain, that should be enough time for you to escape.” He put his fist in the air. “Any mistress of Ivy House would have the magic to escape in that time, right? And if you’re lying, and you’re not the mistress of Ivy House…well, I’ll see you back here in a while, saddened that you lied about the flowers.”

“No, but you don’t understand. I just got the position. I don’t have all the magic yet!”

He turned for the shadowy area, his stride long and his speed surprisingly quick, and either those spikes weren’t as tall as I’d thought, or he was huge.

“What if they come back?” I yelled in his wake.

But he just disappeared into the darkness.

Breathing quickly, I heard a phantom clock ticking in my mind.

A lunch break and a sprain, assuming the mages didn’t return. That was all I had. Time for a lunch break and a sprain, plus a fake hobble back. His stride was long, though. It wouldn’t take him as long as it would a normal person.

As if there were any normal people within the magic world.

“Okay, okay,” I said softly, reaching out to Ivy House again. It was as though I existed in a vacuum, no messages or feelings going out or coming in. “Okay. I need to…open this door. No, wait, I need to fly. Flying is more important. Even if he does come back, he can’t fly. He wouldn’t be able to get me if I did.”

With shaking hands, I worked at the buttons on my shirt and pulled it off to expose my back.

“How do the others feel totally comfortable naked?” I whispered softly, putting my shirt on backward to cover things up. “Okay, wings, now is the time. Come out. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

I thought about two glorious wings extending from my back.

I thought about soaring through the sky.

I thought about jumping.

“Come on.” Eyes squinted tightly, I balled my fists, panic rising.

I hadn’t been able to do this while falling to my death, why did I think I could pull it off now, especially without contact with Ivy House? I wouldn’t be able to get myself out of this one.

24

Austin changed back into his human form at the mouth of a small cave, the trees and bushes around it nearly obscuring the opening. Ulric stood to one side in his human form, his expression grim, having been smart and taken his phone so he could call the others and direct them. Having hands in the other form was a decided advantage. Speaking of, Austin could smell the others, the gargoyle host, most of whom he didn’t personally know, and the three Ivy House guardians, their scents fresh but their forms nowhere to be seen. Traveling without wings, Austin had been the last to arrive.

He did not smell Jacinta.

He couldn’t feel her, either. Although their link had been severed at the lake, the feeling hadn’t sunk in until after they returned to Ivy House.

It felt like a hole boring through him, like a hollow absence he couldn’t bear.

Given the house’s constant blasts of panic and pleading, it couldn’t feel her either.

Austin swallowed a lump in his throat, feeling that dark brutality he struggled to contain stirring within him. Rising. If those mages had killed her…

“What’s the status?” he asked Ulric, his voice rough with unshed violence.

“She’s alive.” His tone was flat, and frustration and guilt swam in his gaze. He blamed himself for Jacinta getting taken.

Good. That meant he cared. It meant he’d do whatever it took to get her back.

Austin didn’t outwardly show his relief. But something loosened inside him. As long as she was alive, there was hope.

“Where is she?” he asked, a prompt to get the show on the road.

“In there”—Ulric gestured to the cave—“but they didn’t bring her in this way. I lost them in the trees at the base of the mountain, so I flew higher to see if I could get a glimpse of them from a higher vantage point. I saw someone working their way through the trees. It must’ve been one of the mages. They were gone by the time I got down here, but I was able to find this entrance. We’ll still need to find the other one.”

Given Austin didn’t smell this other person, it meant they’d magically masked their scent. Ulric was right—it had to be one of the mages.

“Why do we still need to find the other?” he asked, ducking into a small tunnel that his animal form would never be able to fit through.

“You’ll see.”

At the other end, the cave opened up significantly, about fifteen feet high and thirty feet wide. The dozen or so gargoyles mostly stood off to the sides, crammed together to leave as much space as possible for the three from Ivy House and Damarion, who waited in front of a shimmering magical curtain.

The mage had apparently come to erect a magical barrier.

As he approached the invisible wall, Austin got his first look at what they were facing.

Jess stood in the middle of a rusty cage suspended in midair, gently swinging over a sea of spikes.

“What’s the status?” he asked this crew, ignoring the blistering, churning need to grab Damarion and toss him at those spikes.

Damarion stiffened, probably having the same thought, but their issues could wait.

“We’re having a rather bad day, Austin Steele, thanks for asking,” Edgar said, staring in at Jess. He cradled one badly burned hand to his chest, the skin blackened and blistered and peeling away.

“Edgar tested out the barrier,” Niamh said, looking up at the ceiling, then down to the ground. He doubted it had given her any new insights. “Ye can see what it did to him. Vampire skin is more fragile than the flesh of a gargoyle, but wings are a different matter entirely. We can’t fly through this thing, and without wings, no one is getting anywhere but dead.”

“I offered to try anyway,” Mr. Tom said, his chest puffed up.

“Who would clean the house if you died?” Edgar asked. “I don’t like spiders.”

“Have you seen the mages?” Austin peered into the shadows layering the room. Not even a flicker of movement caught his eye. “Is she being monitored somehow?”

“Through the years, I’ve heard rumors of a basajaun in these parts, the keeper of the invisible prison.” Niamh shook her head. “I never passed any remarks on the story. The storyteller was always a drunk muppet. But…”

“I’ve run across the basajaun that lives on this mountain.” Austin walked along the barrier, cutting in front of the others, to see if it completely attached to the rock along the sides. If not, there was a chance he could peel it back in his animal form, which had a degree of magical resistance. “I traveled through these parts without realizing it was his mountain, and he was all set to challenge me for it. I deferred and left it at that. I had no idea about the prison. No one mentioned those rumors to me, or I would’ve checked it out.”

“How’d these mages know about it?” Damarion asked.

“Good question,” Niamh responded.

“Going up against that basajaun would be a helluva fight.” Austin crossed to the other side, and Damarion shifted in unease as he passed. “It would be a hairy situation.”

“No pun intended,” Ulric murmured.

“Not to mention the mages, who have some real skill,” Austin said. “I could take the basajaun, but you all would have to handle the mages. I couldn’t handle both.”

“Except where are they all?” Niamh asked, putting out her hands. “They must have left Jessie here for safekeeping while they went to do…something, but they’ll be back, sure they will, and we still don’t know how they cut Jessie off from us.”

Austin cracked his neck and then hovered a hand next to the barrier. It gave off no pulse or charge. He could feel no magic at all. Very fine work, indeed. Mages of this caliber would only work for a hefty sum or an important boss.

A boss who may or may not be on the way to collect his or her prize.

A boss who may or may not be Elliot Graves.

They couldn’t waste time trying to find the lower entrance. They had to get Jess out of there now, and the best way to do that was to help her help herself. It was to empower her to play hero. He might not be able to draw the magic out of her, but he could draw out her confidence and her faith in herself. He could give her the courage to face her situation. It was what a good alpha did.

Besides, he could not bear to leave her in that cage while he stayed removed, safe. His place was fighting beside her, and he’d be damned if he’d back away because of a little pain.

He licked his lips. He could get to that cage, he knew he could. It would take every ounce of power he had, but he could do it. He could even rip that door open. Then what, though? He couldn’t jump down in human form—the fall would kill him before he could heal. And he couldn’t jump down in animal form because the path was too small. The spikes would kill him before he could heal.

“Do you think that chain could hold the weight of my animal form smashing onto it?” he asked. The chain holding it off the spikes was thick and well made, but the rust signified age. It wasn’t what it used to be. The last thing he wanted to do was make the cage fall—if it did, the path would catch the corner and tilt it so the spikes slid between the bars and impaled the person inside. Maybe Jess could hold the bars on the side of the cage and escape the thrust of the spikes, but she’d be trapped in there.