so sorry, I tell this ancient gargoyle as I cross the distance between us and put my hand on his giant foot.
He roars at first, tries to pull away, but he doesn’t try to hurt me again. He doesn’t do anything but watch me out of those centuries-old eyes and wait to see what I’m going to do next.
Who did this to you? I ask, running a hand over the shackle on his ankle. Who locked you up like this and made you into the Unkillable Beast?
He screeches a little at the name, and I don’t blame him. For centuries upon centuries, he’s been in this crater, hunted by all kinds of magical creatures trying to steal some precious object he only wants to protect.
The horror of it, the unmitigated depravity it takes to do something like this… I can’t even imagine.
I have to save her, he tells me. I can’t die. I have to save her. I have to free her.
Who? I ask. Who do you have to save? Maybe we can help.
I don’t know why he would believe me, considering my friends and I just tried to kill him, but I have to try. I owe him that much. The world that did this to him and perpetuated it for a millennia owes him so much more.
I look behind me at my friends, all of whom look like they’ve been to hell and back. All of whom are shell-shocked and bleeding and as devastated as I feel. I owe them, too.
At first the beast—no, the gargoyle—doesn’t respond to my offer. Not that I blame him—I wouldn’t, either. But then slowly, so slowly that I’m not sure I’m not imagining the whole thing, he lifts his wrist up and looks at the shackles.
Oh, of course. Of course we’ll let you go.
I turn to my friends—my broken, bloody, devastated friends—and though it kills me, I have to ask them for one more thing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I need your help.”
Flint looks from me to the gargoyle, and I can see what he’s thinking. Why should he help the monster who just murdered his friend?
“Because it’s not his fault,” I whisper before he can even formulate the question. “We came and attacked him. We tried to hurt him like so many of the people who have come before us. None of this is his fault. And because he’s a gargoyle like me.”
Everyone blinks at me, unsure how to process this revelation.
Macy is the first to move. She stumbles to her feet, mascara running in tear-streaked rivers down her face, and aims her wand at the gargoyle. At first, I think she’s going to attack him again, and I put a hand up, try to ward off her magic—and the ensuing rampage such a move might cause. But then she surprises me, my cousin—with her kind heart as big and fierce as any dragon’s.
She whispers a spell under her breath and shoots a bolt of lightning straight at the chain tethering the gargoyle to the wall.
103
Going Through
the Potions
The chain doesn’t break, so she blasts it again. And again. And again.
Each time, the chain shudders and groans, but no matter what she hits it with, it continues to hold.
Soon, Flint joins in, shooting ice at the chain to make it brittle, and I pick up a giant rock and, flying, try to smash the frozen chain to bits. But again, no matter how hard we try or how much the chains protest what we’re doing, they stay exactly where they are.
Finally, Jaxon staggers to his feet. He’s wan and a little gray-looking and in almost as bad a shape as he was that day in the tunnels with Lia. And still he tries to help, too, putting every ounce of strength and power he has left into pulling the chains straight out of the wall.
The wall creaks, and cracks start appearing deep inside it, but the chains continue to hold.
Jaxon starts to try again, but he’s swaying on his feet, and I’m terrified that using any more power will injure him permanently.
And so I turn to the Unkillable Beast—this gargoyle who doesn’t deserve what my friends and I tried to do to him—and my heart breaks just a little bit more to see his head low, his shoulders hunched, like he knew all along that this was going to happen.
I’m sorry, I tell him again. I’m sorry I can’t take you with us right now. But I promise, we’ll