I let out a yelp and jumped, kicking my leg out. A critter crawled up to my thigh, needle-like claws poking me, before jumping off.

“Oh God, what was that?” My whisper had grown in volume. I expected jets of magic any minute now.

A soft growl, low and mean, cut through my middle and froze my blood. If it hadn’t come from Austin, I would have taken off running blindly into the darkness to get away. A whine and a series of clicking sounds came from his direction, followed by more scrabbling against the wall.

“We need light or fire,” I whispered, waving my hands in front of me and feeling forward with my feet just in case the floor dropped away.

Another whine and more clicks preceded the little critter grabbing on to my calf. I yelped again and tried to shake it off.

“Nee-vvvv,” one of the gargoyles—Mr. Tom?—grunted out.

“Right, yes. That horrible little form. Boy did she get unlucky with her types of magic,” I said, stilling as Niamh darted away.

“May-ch pear-soon-ahl-ty,” he replied.

Match personality, it sounded like. Mr. Tom couldn’t speak, but he still had something to say about Niamh.

The clicking carried off down the hall and stopped. I followed, assuming that meant she was leading us, still waving my arms in the empty space but not being so cautious with my feet. Ten paces along and she stopped.

Wings rustled. Claws scraped against stone. My feet scuffed and Austin puffed out a breath, clearly sniffing the air. We were anything but quiet.

“This was a bad idea,” I whispered as the clicking sound traveled upward to my right. She had to be climbing a wall. “We should go out and get a lighter. From now on, we bring phones as well as clothes. Stupid not to bring phones, really.”

Sound blasted down the corridor from somewhere way behind us. After a moment I realized it sounded like rocks falling. I jumped and spun, stepping on a giant paw and falling forward, getting a face full of Austin’s fur. It didn’t taste great.

His leg came up and bumped me back, trying to help. I staggered, the guy clearly not knowing his own strength in that form.

Silence descended, even Niamh stopping with her scrabbling and clicks. Another sound, smaller than the first, like a small rock pinging against stone.

“This cave has clearly been here for a long time,” I whispered into the silence, not a creature stirring, not even the wings of the gargoyles. “That cage was plenty rusted. There is no way this whole place would come down on us, is there?”

Wings did rustle this time.

“Someone needs to stay in human form from now on. I need someone to verbally panic with,” I murmured, barely loud enough to hear myself.

Wood bumped my hand, and Niamh clicked—how was she making those sounds, anyway? Was it with her tongue, or was she gnashing her teeth? Whatever it was, she clearly meant it as communication.

I wrapped my fingers around the wood stick, and the clicking skirted beyond me to Austin, increasing in pitch and volume. The feeling of something large moving stirred the air, followed by four bright bursts of light sparking against the stone wall. Austin had raked his claws down it.

Niamh was with me again, dragging me that way, pulling at the stick. In a flash, I saw what she was trying to do—get the tip of the stick to the sparks. She’d given me a torch.

Another couple of tries, and the torch kindled, the fire growing large enough to create a glow within the tunnel. It branched off into two paths from the circular entry point, about a ninety-degree angle between them. More torches dotted the way, bracketed in old-school metal—iron?—holders.

The gargoyles were all clustered together, barely able to move, clearly not having tried to venture very far without their sight.

“Which way first?” I asked, looking each way.

Austin huffed and nudged me forward with his snout. Might as well go the direction we’d started.

I wasted no time, jogging, and Niamh scampered in front of me on all four legs, a horrible little ghoul who was, thankfully, on our side. Small shadows danced up ahead, the light playing off the uneven surface of the rock. Niamh disappeared into a room off to the right, the door roughly hewn in the stone and the dirt a mess of footprints.

Another crash from down the tunnel, the origin distant and the sound not unlike rocks falling. The idea of that made me incredibly nervous. The basajaun had killed one of the mages, and if they were pissed enough, they could’ve rigged up something to bring this mountain crumbling down.

“Hurry up,” I said to myself, the torch shaking in my hand, making shadows jump in the small room Austin would somehow have to squeeze into, and then back out of.

A card table sat in the middle, surrounded by four metal folding chairs. Two candles had dribbled white wax onto paper plates in the center of the table, their wicks blackened and a box of matches just beyond one plate’s lip. A black plastic bag leaned in one corner of the room, lumpy and half-full of what looked like food containers. A cooking stove with little green canisters for fuel crouched in the other corner, a can of unopened chili sitting on one of the cold circular burners. Two battery-powered lanterns hugged the wall next to those.

The funky smell indicated food had been cooked, consumed, and thrown away in here, which fit with the scene, but it didn’t look like they’d slept in here. I couldn’t tell how fresh everything was with the dim light, and Austin couldn’t speak to fill me in. Regardless, they weren’t here now, and given the chill and lack of smoke, they hadn’t been here very recently.

I handed the torch down to Niamh. “Can you put that out?”

She chittered at me but didn’t take the torch. Clearly that was either a “no” or an “I don’t want to.” I held it wide as I bent to grab one of the battery-powered lanterns, awkwardly tested it out without setting myself on fire, and then clicked it back off. I’d keep the torch until I could put it back, just in case… No, there was no real reason. I’d just gotten so used to putting things away that it was habit.

Judging by the orderliness of the room, I wasn’t the only one.

Niamh quickly caught up to me as I passed Austin and then the gargoyles, probably frustrating Austin because he was now stuck at the back. I briefly stopped at the entrance area in order to put out the torch and stow it in its holder. If they weren’t here now, they might come back, and while they might overlook a missing lantern, a missing torch and a missing lantern would probably be noticed.

I glanced out the doorway, half expecting to see a mage waiting outside, hands out, magic at the ready. The dark barrier waited, though, glimmering and seemingly solid. It looked like a wall. If a mage stood on the other side, waiting to get the drop on us, we wouldn’t know until we walked right into them.

“What a stupid setup,” I said, my adrenaline spiking. “Why would they wait in here blind?”

Niamh chittered. Why? Who knew, since I didn’t understand a word of it.

Down the tunnel the other way, its size and shape uniform, I ended at the shadowy opening to the large cave with the viewing area at the top. The barrier up there was still in place, transparent and glimmering.

Maybe these mages could only create two types of variable: viewable or not.

But why make the other one viewable? So it could kill anyone who came to rescue me?

Thankfully, they’d underestimated Austin.

The cage lay where we’d left it, the door off and on its side. The chain dangled above. No one waited among the spikes. The mages weren’t here.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was bad news, probably, drawing all this out, but the relief was real.

“Let’s head out,” I said, turning around and weaving through the gargoyles. “They’re not here. At least we know where here is, though. Maybe Austin can pick up the scent from here.” I walked back to the trick door slowly, not really wanting to leave the protection of the stone walls. There was only one way in, and we were walking toward it. Maybe they weren’t lying in wait beyond it, but they could come back while we were exiting.

At the door, I checked to make sure everyone was set, turned off the lantern, and stepped outside, ready just in case.

Dead space greeted us—even the basajaun had taken off. The flowers were still there, though, in their protective little cocoon. He hadn’t been kidding—he did not plan to take the basajaun candy from strangers. How odd. What could I have possibly done to flowers? Drugged them? Then what? The creature was too big for me to drag back to Edgar. And when he woke up, I’d probably have a dead Edgar on my hands.

Austin attempted to cross the threshold, but I was in the way, and he bumped me from behind. I moved as Niamh skittered through on all fours.

Something felt wrong. The wind in the leaves and pine needles were still present, but the birdsong had cut off. No animals skittered under the brush. It was almost like they’d sensed a predator.

But they’d all been active when we were here last. Maybe the basajaun’s presence had put them at ease. Now that he’d taken off…

Movement in front of me caught my eye as Austin crossed the threshold. I looked up as a woman in a dark dress stepped through the trees with her hands up, flares of light erupting from her fingertips. Two more stepped out from the sides.

They’d been waiting for us after all. The basajaun waiting outside had given me a false sense of security, like he would watch our backs. How could I have been so stupid?

31

Austin lurched forward, now knocking me to the side and trying to get in front of me. He planned to take the magical hit. From mages this good, it could be instantly fatal.

Terror bled through me. My own protection instinct, born of motherhood, flared to life—like Austin, I completely forgot my sense of self-preservation the moment someone I cared about was in danger.

But I also had more magic than Austin.

Drawing from the training Damarion had given me, I ballooned magic around us even as I kicked Austin out of the way, my magic greatly enhancing the strength of the blow.

He flew to the side, hitting the wall next to the flowers. The zip of light from the mage smashed against the balloon of magic I’d created, and then flowed along the periphery, lighting the arch of it up.