Stonecast Read online

  Deep within me, my voice spoke up. It called out for me to fight back, but the dominant voice held it back.

  “I ask you again,” he said, the jagged rocks of his hand digging into the stone of my throat. “Are you mocking me? Where are the rest?”

  I said nothing, still unsure of what he meant or what I was meant to say.

  We stared at each other until the blond human approached us at the edge of the ship. He reached up and put his hands on Kejetan’s arm.

  “Easy, easy,” he said, trying to press down on it, but there was no way the human could move him. “He’s not doing anything. It’s . . . it’s my fault.”

  Kejetan turned to him, his eyes first going to the human’s hands, which the man removed in an instant.

  “Your fault?” Devon called out. “How?”

  The man backed away from both the stone men, hands raised. “This isn’t easy, you know? I’m forcing a new will upon the golem. His previous one is still in there, and it makes it harder to get him to do my bidding.”

  “But that is what we are paying you for,” Devon argued.

  “This isn’t an exact science,” the man said. “If it were, you’d be able to go and hire someone on every corner who can do this, but you still wouldn’t find anyone better than me. I guarantee you that. I just need time to tweak how we handle your gargoyle here.”

  The human waved for Kejetan to pull me back onto the deck of the ship, which he did before dropping me. I slumped to the cold, wet metal.

  “Fix him,” he said, dismissive.

  The human waited for me to stand before speaking directly to me. “Why did you only bring one?”

  “Because that was the task set upon me,” I said.

  “Shit,” the human said.

  “What is it?” Devon asked.

  The human sighed. “It’s what I feared,” he said. “I wasn’t specific enough.” He looked up into my eyes. “Do you understand what we’re doing here?”

  “You wanted a statue,” I said.

  “But why?”

  “For Kejetan to inhabit.”

  “Correct,” my father said, “but what about the rest of my people? The Servants of Ruthenia have long held their place at my side with the promise of a new form. We need more than just one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, but my true self did not wish to do such a thing. I spread my wings.

  “Hold on,” the human said, undoing the chain around the other grotesque. “Hold on. Take this statue with you.”

  “Why?” Kejetan asked.

  “Because I can’t do what I need to do out here at sea,” the human said. “This needs to be grounded to its element, set up on land. Find a discreet location that can hold the other gargoyle statues. Gather as many as you can.”

  “I know of a place suited for this,” I said, the true voice speaking up from within, and the dominant one let it.

  I grabbed the statue and once more forced myself into the night sky, the heft of it feeling much greater than before, but I did as I was told and set my sights on the far-off shore of Manhattan.

  Twelve

  Alexandra

  It took almost a week to convince Marshall to let me borrow the back room of his store for a meeting with Caleb. In the meantime, I kept feeding a steady diet of misdirection to Desmond Locke and his Libra Concordia. He seemed happy to see many of the private notes on the carved angels in Alexander’s repertoire, but nothing I gave him had a thing to do with the Spellmasonry that went into making Stanis.

  The rest of that week was spent focusing on two things: poring through the records on Alexander Belarus at the Libra Concordia and spending some alone time continuing to craft the gargoyle form I had started in the destroyed studio back at the Belarus Building.

  The former left me with more questions about the Spellmasons, and the latter helped calm my mind and made me feel like I was actually making some kind of progress. Now, here in Marshall’s store, it was time to see if any of the research Caleb and I had been doing was going to pay off.

  The back room of Roll for Initiative was just as strange as it should be, stranger still with Marshall, Rory, and two alchemists in it. The surrounding shelves were full of games I had never heard of, rows of tiny, painted figurines, and an odd assortment of nerd-world stuff that I thought maybe I had seen on one or another of Marshall’s rotating array of geek shirts.

  As odd as all that was, it still felt more odd that I had invited the man who had stolen from me and nearly head-traumaed Rory in the process to be there. She, at least, seemed to be handling it civilly enough. Her pole arm was put away, broken down into its component pieces in the art tube across her back, but more than anything I still worried about the look of mistrust in her eyes toward my fellow alchemist. I only hoped the pole arm stayed put away.

  Marshall stood next to her, nervously wringing his hands together, while Caleb and I both watched with mutual concern.

  “You sure this isn’t a problem?” Caleb asked, looking from Marshall back to me.

  “Don’t mind Marshall,” I said. “He’s just worried about his toys.”

  Marshall looked like I had just slapped him—but I met his look with a steady gaze, and the offended wind went out of his sails.

  “Just try not to destroy anything or set my store on fire,” he said quietly.

  “Relax,” Caleb said, slapping him on the shoulder reassuringly. His eyes sparkled with a charm and confidence that none of us seemed to find fully convincing. The alchemist pulled a few glass vials from within his long brown coat, holding them up to the light, checking the colors within. “This is a science . . . sort of. And it’s all in control. Mostly.”

  Marshall’s face when white, and Rory clapped her roommate on the other shoulder. “Comforting, right, pal?” she asked.

  “We need to test the version of Kimiya Caleb reverse engineered on his own,” I said. “This is only going to be a small-scale experiment, okay? Just to see if it works so we have some jumping-in point if we’re going to re-create it.”

  “And you’re sure it’s not explosive?” Marshall asked, still looking unconvinced.

  “It’s just my home brew,” Caleb said. “My prototype version of the ever-dwindling concoction that Alexander Belarus mastered centuries ago.”

  “Your store’s going to be fine,” I said. “We’re just going to test his version to snap an arcane connection all Spellmason like. It’s not explosive.”

  “Probably not,” Caleb added. “Never say never.”

  I shot him a look but resisted the urge to bark at him. If he was half as punchy as I was from poring over the notes in the Libra Concordia, it was best to let it lie.

  Marshall turned to me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me out through the heavy curtain that blocked the door into the customer side of the store. “You are taking responsibility for him, right?”

  “He’s not a pet,” I said, easily pulling free from his nervous grasp.

  “Just say it, then,” he said. “If only to give me a little reassurance. Humor me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Caleb breaks it, I buy it. Fair enough?”

  Marshall’s face calmed a bit, but there was still worry in his eyes. “You couldn’t do this at either one of your alchemy labs?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve got the same trust issues that you and Rory both do,” I said. “I didn’t want us working at the Libra Concordia. Not the way Desmond Locke is pursuing his interest in Stanis. And until I have the feeling that I can trust this Caleb, I don’t want him near either of my great-great-grandfather’s workspaces.”

  Marshall sighed and gave a glance toward the small crowd gathered at the front of the store. “I just don’t want any damage while I’m trying to run our Magic: The Gathering tournament.”

  I nodded even though I had zero idea what the la
st part of his sentence meant. From the group of people chattering away at the front of the store, it apparently involved consuming bucketloads of soda and a variety of snack foods while arranging colorful playing cards on tables.

  “You go have fun,” I said, pushing him off toward his people. “Go. Mingle. Get your nerd on.”

  Marshall started to protest just as Rory poked her head out of the back room through the curtain.

  “Everything okay out here?” she asked.

  “Do me a favor,” I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out from behind the curtain. “Go up front with Marshall, will you? Make sure he enjoys himself.”

  Rory shook her head and looked toward the back room. “And leave you alone with the guy who nearly gave me a concussion?” she said. “No way. What if he concusses you? I won’t have you getting concussed on my watch.”

  “I’ll be fine with Caleb Kennedy,” I said, mustering as convincing a tone as I could. “I can handle myself.”

  Both of my friends met me with blank stares and raised eyebrows.

  “Okay, fine, sometimes I can handle myself.” I lowered my voice and pulled the two of them farther away from the curtain. “Listen. I need to work with this guy. He knows things I don’t about Alexander and the arcane, and I have to access that knowledge. I’ll be safe. Besides, do you really think he’s going to start something here?”

  “Yeah,” they said in unison, which I couldn’t help laughing at.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “At the tiniest hint of trouble, I’ll scream. All right?”

  Marshall still didn’t look entirely convinced, but Rory grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him toward the front of the store.

  “Fine,” she said, pushing him along. “I can hear the stubborn in your voice about this. Come on, Marsh. We’ll wait for her scream while you play with your little nerdlings. We’ll hear her, don’t worry. I know she’s good at it ever since our sixth-grade trip to Six Flags.”

  “Thank you, Rory,” I said, singsonging, relaxing a bit as relief filled me. “Yes, I can still scream, even if it’s not motivated by roller-coaster panic. And for your information, I’m much better about heights now, thanks to our winged friend.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she called out over her shoulder, as Marshall finally gave in and walked with her on his own toward the crowd at the front of the store. “Hopefully, some of what you learn from blondie there will help you make our winged friend actually friendly again.”

  I hope so, too, I thought to myself, as they walked away.

  The throng of alpha geek males and a few of the females turned their heads to check out Rory as she came down the center aisle of the store toward them. I turned away, going back through the curtain into the storeroom once more.

  Caleb was squatting now by a long, low coffee table surrounded by an assortment of mismatched couches and chairs. A miniature stone maze lay on the table, and Caleb lifted a tiny metal figure out of it and rolled it around the palm of his hand. At my approach, he stood and turned to me.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “I thought we might concentrate better if Rory and Marshall weren’t watching over my shoulder.”

  His face shifted, his eyes narrowing at me with what I thought looked like an annoyed suspicion.

  “What?” I asked.

  Caleb stepped past me and ran his hand over the curtain across the doorway. “This is cloth, you know,” he said, talking to me like I was a child. “And given its physical properties, it doesn’t really block out sound all that well. I heard just about, oh, everything.”

  I quickly went over what my friends and I had been discussing on the other side of it, and my face went crimson. After all, every last word had been about him.

  “My friends are just concerned,” I explained, trying not to sound overly defensive. “You did give Rory a good reason to be.” I rubbed the spot on my head where Rory had hit the floor after his sleeping-dust trick.

  Caleb started to protest, but his face fell into a crooked smile instead.

  “I can’t argue that,” he said, then gave a nervous look around the back room. “Let’s get to work shall, we? So . . . you want to regain control of your gargoyle, yes? Where do you want to start?”

  “We’ll get to that soon enough,” I said, gesturing for him to slow down, “but first, I have some questions.” My eyes met his, my own steady and unwavering.

  How much control Desmond Locke did or didn’t have over him remained to be seen, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be offering up too much on Stanis right out of the gate. And I knew that someone as clever as Caleb was wasn’t going to be too willing to just hand over certain aspects of his arcane knowledge, but if we were going to establish any kind of trust, I needed him first to cooperate with the tone I was trying to set between us.

  Uncertainty filled Caleb’s face for a moment, but then he gave a reluctant nod. “Sure,” he said. “Shoot. Although I do charge by the hour.”

  I stared at him, my eyes darkening. “Really, now?”

  Nervous laughter escaped his lips, and he held up his hands in surrender. “Just a little freelancer humor,” he said. “Consider this round a freebie.”

  His confidence and flip manner made me want to shake him, but I reined it in. I needed knowledge, and if I had to endure a little attitude in the process, so be it.

  “So how did you come to know about my great-great-grandfather?” I asked, forcing myself back to the business at hand.

  Caleb shifted from foot to foot as he thought for a moment before answering.

  “I didn’t really know about him,” he said, “but this city is full of dark and mystical rumors. The legend of Alexander Belarus just turned out to be one of them.” He looked down at his feet, his face reddening. “But once I was on the trail, I might have gone a bit stalkery concerning him.”

  “Way to keep it creepy,” I said. “Define ‘stalkery.’”

  “I might have bartered and traded a few of my alchemical mixes for more and more of those tales,” he said, “ones further involving Alexander. And they didn’t come cheap, either. Talk of the lost secrets of the Spellmasons has always been a bit of a Holy Grail out there.”

  I turned to him, unable to hide the surprise on my face. “Wait,” I said. “I thought what my great-great-grandfather did was a lost and secret art. There are people who talk of Spellmasonry?”

  Caleb nodded. “Not just people,” he said. “Whole arcane communities.”

  “Jesus,” I said, sitting along the edge of one of the upright tables. “There’s a whole community?”

  Caleb laughed and looked at me with sincere curiosity on his face. “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked. “Alexandra, there’s a whole magical world out there. Just because Alexander Belarus chose to hide away the arcane art he knew doesn’t mean there wasn’t a world out there looking for them. The secrets that you hold are just the tip of a very large iceberg.”

  “Really?” My mind reeled at the idea. With the secrets at my family’s disposal, I had always thought of this knowledge as ours, and all of a sudden to hear that there was a much larger world that sought those out . . .

  “Really,” he said. “I told you I was a freelancer, didn’t I? That implies there’s other magic out there to be had. Do you think I could make an arcane living without a client base? Much of arcana’s written off by your average nonmagical person as quackery or old wives’ tales, but arcana is a much bigger world out there than you know. And for me, it definitely pays the rent.”

  “Speaking of rent . . . where do you live?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “Clearly you know where I live, breaking and entering aside.”

  Caleb held his hands up again, this time sounding a bit more defensive. “Baby steps, Miss Belarus, baby steps.”

  I backed down, letting a short silence fall between us as Caleb placed the t
iny figure back on the table before he stepped away from it.

  “There are lots of books on alchemy,” Caleb continued, taking off his coat. He turned it inside out before hanging it on the back of one of the chairs around the table. The lining was stuffed with sewn-in bandoliers that held all sorts of vials, tubes, and metal flasks. I had a newfound respect for the man, if only for his sewing and organizational skills. He set about picking through the contents. “Not that there’s any all-encompassing tome written on alchemy, mind you.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Surely, there’s been research. My family has hundreds of volumes dedicated to everything my great-great-grandfather ever learned.”

  He stopped picking through the collection and looked up at me, his face curious. “More than the Libra Concordia has?”

  “It’s all secure, don’t worry,” I said, in hindsight fearing I might have offered up too much in mentioning it. “If you know of Alexander’s practices, it’s heavily coded and cross-referenced, so it’s not like anyone could just read it and know everything. Frankly, it’s as much a pain in the ass as it is a boon.”

  Caleb’s grin went wide. “I’d like to see this boon.”

  It was my turn to hold my hands up. “Baby steps there, Caleb. To borrow your words.”

  “As you wish,” he said, and turned back to his coat, picking through it.

  As you wish. The words Stanis always used when put to task. I nearly fell over hearing the phrase. The sting of them was as fresh as if Stanis himself—the kind one I knew, anyway—had uttered them. As I tried to process my emotional reaction to them, I stayed silent and simply watched Caleb as he continued selecting several of the items from his coat, mixing them.

  “Much of the magical world operates a bit differently from Alexander’s version of it,” he said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Your great-great-grandfather was organized in way that most magic I deal with isn’t,” he said. “He wrote it all down in books, kept a library. He was smart enough to code them, to hide that powerful information away. But the rest of arcane knowledge isn’t conveniently gathered together like that.”