Now that he’s real.

“Listen to me, Grace. There’s no more time.” He glances behind him, toward the stadium, where the screams have finally died down. We can hear the king over the loudspeaker, trying to get everyone calm and settled. Telling them the Trial will start in two minutes…if Grace Foster bothers to show up.

“I have to go,” I tell him, the urgency he’d had all along suddenly beating in my blood.

“I know,” he answers. “That’s why you need to listen to me. I left my powers inside you so that—”

“You left your powers inside me? Why? How do I get them out?”

“I’ll accept them back from you eventually. I’m just loaning them to you for a while. You’re a conduit, remember? You channel magic, and I’ve given you mine to channel for now.”

“Loaning them to me?” I look at him like he’s got two heads. “What does that even mean?”

The smirk is back, but it’s coupled with a tenderness in his eyes that I can’t begin to understand. “It means I’m mortal right now.”

“What?” Horror explodes through me. “You said we couldn’t do that to you. You said it would ruin everything. We decided—”

“Don’t worry about what we decided. I know my parents. No way did they make this Trial something you can pass on your own. Remember, they were planning on you and Jaxon, so the Trial would have been close to impossible for the two of you. For you alone…” He shakes his head. “That’s why you don’t have a choice. You need to take my powers.”

“Yeah, but that leaves you vulnerable, right? I mean, if you’re mortal, doesn’t that mean they can hurt you, too?”

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about me. They’ve already done everything they can to me—especially my father.”

He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t ask—there isn’t time—but my heart dies a little bit with the acknowledgment of just how awful his life, and Jaxon’s, have been.

“Take them back,” I say, reaching for him. “If they find out you’re here, and you don’t have any powers—”

“They won’t find out,” he tells me, his British accept crisp with a combination of impatience and urgency. “Besides, you’re in much worse peril. Without a mate in there fighting with you, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Which is why I hid my powers deep inside you, so that the Council won’t know they’re there unless they search through all of your memories.”

Maybe it’s the whirlwind I just went through, but nothing he’s saying is making any sense to me right now. “But how? You can’t just drop things off in people’s memories.”

The look he gives me says that maybe I can’t, but he certainly can. But all he says is, “When all that magic you just did put me back together, I chose to leave them behind for you, in my favorite memory of yours. It’s the one when you were little and your parents were teaching you how to ride a bike. Remember? You fell off and skinned your knee, and your dad told you that it was okay. That you would try again tomorrow.”

I nod, because I do remember that memory. It’s one of my favorites, too, and I think about it every time I have something hard to do…and every time I miss my parents.

“My mom told him I could do it. She told us both I could do it.”

“Yeah, she did. And then she smiled at you and it was so full of love and so full of confidence—”

“That I picked up my bike, dusted the gravel off my knees, and rode all the way home by myself.”

“Yes, you did. And she ran along beside you the whole way, just in case.” His eyes are soft as he continues. “But you only needed her once.”

“Yeah, when I hit a rut in the sidewalk and started to wobble. She grabbed on to the back of my seat and held me steady for a few seconds until I could get control again.”

“That’s why I hid my powers in her smile. So you’d know that I believe in you, too. That I know you can do this. And while I can’t be on that field to catch you if you fall, that doesn’t mean I don’t have your back.”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that, what I’m supposed to say to him. This is the most selfless thing anyone has ever done for me, and I don’t know how to feel about it. “Hudson—”

“Not now,” he tells me. “You have to go. But remember, they’re there if you need them. Just be careful, because you don’t heal like I do, and you don’t have the same kind of physical strength to withstand the pressure of them. So you can only use them once or they’ll drain you completely. You’ll know when you need them. Only once, though.” He gives me a searching look. “Got it?”

Not even a little bit. I’m so mixed up inside right now that my brain feels like a box of confetti—lots of individual pieces in a confined space but nothing actually working together. I can’t say that, though, so instead I just nod. “Yeah. Got it.”

“Good. Now, get out there and show my father exactly what one gargoyle can do.”

112

It’s High Noon and

Justice Doesn’t

Serve Itself

I reach deep inside myself and start to separate the colored strings as I walk the final steps to the field with my heart in my throat. When the others were in the arena with me, it was no big deal to shift out in the open. But now that I’m alone and everyone is staring at me, it feels uncomfortable.

Still, there’s nothing to do but suck it up. So I do, and I shift right out in the open—in front of anyone who wants to look.

Which, it turns out, is everyone. I mean, who doesn’t want to gawk at the new magical creature?

It’s just one more indignity in a long line of indignities I’ve suffered at the hands of paranormals over the last five months, and I refuse to let it faze me. Especially since people watching me become a gargoyle like they have a right to see it is the least of my problems right now. The biggest? Figuring out how to do this without Jaxon next to me or Hudson in my head.

As I walk up to the gate that leads to the field, I can feel everyone staring at me. Discomfort crawls through me, and I realize how much I’ve come to depend on Jaxon—and Hudson—in the time I’ve been at Katmere.

Jaxon acted like he owned the place, so it was easy to just accept people’s stares as par for the course. Hudson, on the other hand, basically had a kiss-my-ass attitude that made it a lot harder to care if other people were watching me, just like it made it nearly impossible for me to care what they thought.

But now I’m on my own. No Jaxon to hold my hand, no Hudson to say irreverent things that make me laugh and gasp at the same time. It’s just me and a field full of people who all want to see me fail.

Too bad I’m not about to give them that satisfaction.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and pretend for a moment—just a moment—that everything is going to be okay. That somehow I’ll step off this field safe and in one piece. It’s a good picture, so I put it out into the universe.

Then I square my shoulders and walk straight out to the center of the field, where the king is standing and Cole’s team is lined up on one of the now-bloodred lines. Trust the king to change a detail like that…along with a few other ones that have my heart pounding and the dome closing in on me.

The other day, it was bright and cheerful in here, with pennants waving and people cheering and delicious snacks being sold. This morning, it’s pretty much the exact opposite. The weather outside has turned everything dark and ominous…or maybe that’s just the king’s malicious presence. Whatever it is, it’s absolutely terrifying to see dark shadows encroaching from every side. Which, I’m pretty sure, is exactly what Cyrus wants.

Chills slide down my spine, and the cold wind whipping through the whole arena with the dome open has fear settling in my stomach like a fifty-pound weight. It drags me down, makes me realize just how impossible a task I’ve set for myself. Just how impossibly tired I already am.

I want to turn around, want to run away, want to be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

The feeling is so overwhelming that it all but smothers me as I try desperately to get it under control. But it just grows and grows and grows until I can barely breathe, barely think. As I finally find the strength to start the formidable job of fighting it back, I can’t help wondering if the grayness is coming from inside me or if Cyrus has done something to the arena to make me feel like this.

Just the idea that he—or some member of the Circle—is messing with my emotions pisses me off beyond words. And makes me even more determined not to cave to these people. They think they can do whatever they want, that they can run over anyone in their path.

But they aren’t running over me. Not anymore.

Besides, they may be pulling this with me now, but if it works, I won’t be the only one. If I don’t take a stand, if I don’t make a point of showing them that they can’t do whatever they want to whomever they want, then what’s to say they won’t do this again? I can’t be the only person they’re threatened by, can’t be the only paranormal the king hates just because of who I am. If I don’t stop this, now, he’ll lock up a lot more people in that dungeon of his before he’s through.

So I don’t turn around. I don’t run away. I don’t even falter in my steps as I stride to the center of the field. Instead, I keep walking as I ignore the ominous feelings pressing in on me from all sides. I might very well die in this ridiculous quest today, but if I do, I’m going to die fighting. For now, that’s all I can promise myself.

But it’s enough. It carries me right up to the king.

Right up to the Circle, who are standing behind Cyrus in a semicircle of support as he whips the crowd into a frenzy.

Right up to the bloodred line that I have to stand on all alone.