The Shadowed Path

6. Lawrence

6

Lawrence

Rhys and I followed the Graves party's footsteps through the woods. It appeared that at some point, Reine had taken a spill. Hope that she was okay flashed through my mind before I could catch it. I didn't wish her ill—I just didn't want to care. Fae were fickle creatures, and whatever happened, she could take care of herself. She'd demonstrated that she would do that above everything else.

At some point, the fifth set of footprints disappeared. Rhys and I searched the ground around the path, but the forest floor wouldn't give up its secrets.

"What could it be?" I scratched around in the pine needles as though they somehow hid the secret to the creature's identity and intent.

"Another Fae, most likely." Rhys looked around, then up. "Not a flier, though. That would've been the easiest way to follow them without being detected, unless they didn't care."

"So which Fae can disappear?" I shivered, although I couldn't tell whether the feeling of someone's gaze on the back of my neck was real or my own imagination. Still, could it be watching us even now? What did it want?

Rhys shrugged. "Many of them. What? Don't have your complete taxonomy filled out?"

I growled before I could stop myself. Yes, I'd prided myself on being an expert on the Fae to my human colleagues. It had greatly annoyed Reine when we'd first met. Apparently, I hadn't been expert enough—she'd still surprised me when she’d made a bargain with a rogue vampire against my expressed wishes and betrayed my trust by keeping a big secret from me.

Rhys grinned. "Better keep a lid on that animal side of yours. It could get you in big trouble here."

My inner gargoyle wanted to rip his head off in order to wipe the condescending smile from his face, and I stifled it. I needed to find John and Kestrel and get them out of here, away from Fae intrigue. We could keep working on Kestrel's unsettled witch powers at home.

Home… It felt like a long way away, although I knew Faerie and Earth paralleled and touched in different places.

We continued to follow the remaining footsteps until we reached a jagged wall made of some sort of reflective dark rock. Not glass, the mineral told me.

I laid a hand on it. "It's obsidian."

Rhys smacked my arm so I lost contact. "What did I tell you about touching things?" He darted aside as I lunged at him out of instinct, and I stumbled, suddenly out of breath from the effort.

The dizziness passed as soon as it had come. "What did you do to me?"

"Nothing, mate. Just shut up."

With a pop of displaced air, a creature about the size of a German Shepherd appeared. It looked like the older, alcoholic cousin of a Smurf.

"Well, well, well." It pushed black wire-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of its nose. "What have we here?"

"Gatekeeper." Rhys bowed. I did as well, although I didn't know why. It irked me that I had to trust Rhys.

"Ah, the scarred prince. And a gargoyle. Haven't seen one of you in these parts in several hundred years. Maybe a thousand."

Rhys straightened and spoke more deferentially than I thought he was capable of. "Greetings, fair keeper of the Gate of Cruaidh. We seek a party of travelers, one of whom is my sister."

"I know where they are." The creature checked its ledger. "They entered the city not long ago. However, you know you may not."

Rhys didn't react with disappointment. "What bargain may I make you?"

Oh, right, a bribe. That made sense. I thought through what I had brought, but I couldn't think of anything this strange being would want.

"No bargain, Prince. You know the rules. No disfigured Fae in the cities. No gargoyles, period. It's very inconvenient when they die."

"But this is Cruaidh, not Lorien. It's the bastion of chaos."

"And chaos births its own rules. You may not enter."

I stepped forward. "What do you mean, it's inconvenient when we die?"

Rhys glared at the gatekeeper, then spoke with reluctance. "It's part of the old magic coming from the traditional enmity between our people. There are things in Faerie designed to entrap and slay gargoyles."

"It would've been nice of you to mention that before I agreed to come."

"You would've come anyway, for the humans."

"Human," the blue creature corrected. "The male witch is human. The girl, though…"

Could the gatekeeper know the source of Kestrel's strange power issues? I had to ask, "Do you know what she is?"

"No." Rhys made a flat waving motion with his hands. "Even if you do, don't tell us. Not until we settle on terms."

"Alas, I wish I did know, because I can tell the answer is greatly desired by you, gargoyle. No, only that she is something very interesting."

I decided to capitalize on its interest in Kestrel. "If you let us in, I'll find a way to let you know once we figure it out."

It practically doubled over with wheezing laughter. "It is only a matter of academic interest to me, desperation to you, so no. Entrance denied." It winked out, and the air stirred around us to fill the vacuum it left.

"Well, Hades, that's not how I thought that would go." Rhys clenched his fists and turned to me. "You have to let me do the talking. Otherwise, you're going to end us both in a big steaming pile of trouble. You don't know the rules here, and no matter how smart you are, you're going to get caught by them."

"Right, sorry. But I need you to be honest with me as well, like about what danger I'm in, especially since I can't change back." That scared me enough. The longer I remained in gargoyle form, the harder it would be to will myself to return to human, and gargoyles who stayed in true form for too long would turn to stone. I had to find Kestrel and John, and I had to do it soon, for all our sakes.

Rhys seemed to think the same. "You can't stay here for long. Neither can Kestrel. She's attracting too much interest, and here that's never a good thing."

"Right. So now what? Do I attempt to fly over the wall?"

"No, you won't be able to. We'll have to figure out another way in."

"Or wait for them on the other side."

"If we have to go all the way around, we'll end up a day or more behind them, and we'll never catch up."

Something moved in the corner of my peripheral vision, and I turned to see the shadows writhing and coalescing into a man-shaped form. This time I didn't stifle the rumble in my chest and throat. Rhys put a hand on my arm.

"Wait."

The darkness solidified, and then lightened into the form of a blond-haired, dark blue-eyed man with features that belonged on a Hollywood romantic lead. The last thing to appear was a harp in his hand.

"Well met, friends," he said and struck a clear note. The tone made the air around me vibrate at a frequency that almost calmed my inner gargoyle enough for me to change back to human.

Rhys waved a hand through the air, and the sound disappeared. "None of that trickery here, Bard. Who are you? Why have you been following my sister?"