I look around at my friends, all of whom are spending their Saturday cooped up inside looking for information to help me, and my heart swells. They could be doing anything right now, and instead they’re doing this.
Hudson can call me emotional, he can call me naïve or overly sentimental or any number of other things, but I still have to blink back tears of gratitude that these people have found their way into my life. I came to Katmere Academy at the lowest point in my life, desperate, miserable, sad. I figured I would just get through the year and then get the hell out.
And while nothing here has been what I expected—I mean, a gargoyle, really?—I can’t imagine going back to a life without Macy’s enthusiasm or Jaxon’s intensity or Flint’s teasing (though his murder attempts I can definitely do without).
Sometimes life hands you more than a new hand of cards to play—it hands you a whole new deck, maybe even a whole new game. Losing my parents the way I did will forever be one of the most horrible and traumatizing experiences of my life, but sitting here with these people makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’ve got a chance of coming out the other side of it.
And that is more, so much more, than I imagined just a few short months ago.
“Hey, look at this!” Macy sits up abruptly. “I think I just figured out why the glamour didn’t work on you this morning. It wasn’t me. It was you!”
“Why? Can’t do glamours on stone?” I guess, because that feels about right.
“No.” She shoots me a “you’re being a dork” look, then flips the book she’s reading so I can see. “It didn’t work because it says right here that you’re immune to magic!”
50
It’s Getting Crowded
Under the Bed
“Immune to magic?” Flint asks, closing his laptop and coming over to check out Macy’s find. “Really?”
“And to dragon fire, vampire and werewolf bites, siren calls—the list goes on and on. Basically, gargoyles have a natural built-in resistance to nearly all forms of paranormal magic. That’s—” She holds her hand up to her temple and mimes her brain exploding.
“No wonder Marise always had such a hard time healing you,” she continues. “We put it down to you being completely human, but it must have been the gargoyle thing all along.”
“She had trouble healing me?” I ask, because I don’t remember that at all.
“Yeah, she did,” Jaxon says, a contemplative look on his face. “The first time when she tried to break down my venom and also later, after what happened in the tunnels. With her help healing you, she thought you’d bounce back fast once you got the blood transfusion. But she couldn’t get her powers to work on you the way she thought they should. Everything took longer than it would have with—” He breaks off.
“You can say it,” I tell him. “With a real paranormal.”
“I wasn’t going to say real,” he tells me with a frown. “I was going to say with one of the usual paranormals. Big difference.”
“Small difference,” I answer, but with a smile to let him know that I’m not actually holding it against him. “But whatever. It doesn’t matter. Because I know I’m not—” I break off as my cheeks start to heat up.
“You’re not what?” Macy asks.
“Umm, well.” I glance anywhere but at my friends. The wall. The wall looks interesting. “It’s just that I know I’m not immune to all of those things.”
“I don’t agree,” Macy says, leaning forward. “I mean, how do we know that Lia’s spell would have even worked if Jaxon didn’t get involved? You can’t use her as proof that you’re not immune.”
“Well, she sure went through a hell of a lot of pain for nothing,” Jaxon says.
“No shit,” Flint agrees. “That was awful.”
“Seriously?” Jaxon tells him, and the fact that his voice is mild makes it all so much worse. “You’re going to complain to us about what happened in the tunnels being awful, when Grace still has scars from your talons?”
“That’s what those scars are from?” Hudson demands, a sudden glint in his eye that doesn’t bode well for anyone. “Flint gave them to you?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing, Jaxon.” The look Flint sends him is pleading. “I thought I was stopping a new effing apocalypse by preventing Lia from bringing Hudson back.”
“The apocalypse? Seriously?” Hudson leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and an