cracked his head. He’s going to have to be carried home.”
“Oh no, I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“Should we send someone to get a truck, and we can haul him home that way?” I asked.
“One of the others can carry him,” Niamh replied. “Mind you, one of ’em will need to drag him out first. There isn’t enough room to fly over him and scoop him out.”
“I’m not going to make them cut themselves up. He’s my responsibility. I’ll do it,” I said with a sigh.
Of all the days not to bring a metal suit. Not that I had one, but still…
“Okay, Mr. Tom, I’m going to come in and get you, okay? I’m going to take your hand and drag you out. It won’t be pleasant.” I reduced my voice to a mumble. “For either of us.”
After walking around the perimeter and finding a smallish break on one side of the brambles, I steeled myself and shoved the branches aside, making room for me to work my way in. Given my escalated healing rate, this would merely be painful. Tolerate that for a bit, drag him out, and I was done.
“No.” The large gargoyle stepped forward, his wings opening just a bit more, the ends dusting the ground. “I. Go.”
“It’s fine, honestly. It’ll just be—”
“No.” He gently placed his hand on my shoulder, the warmth sending a wash of goosebumps across my flesh. “I. Go.” The pressure of his touch made me step back, out of the way. “Me.”
Given his skin was coarser than mine, and he seemed tough and no-nonsense, I stopped arguing. Brambles shouldn’t hurt him as much as they would me.
He didn’t enter the mess of thorns gingerly, like I’d planned to. He marched in, thorns scraping across his arms and crushed under his feet. Red lines opened up along his skin, blood welling quickly and dripping down. He turned his head to the side and reached. His arm flexed, and then he was turning and walking back out, dragging poor Mr. Tom behind him.
“Not as fun as exfoliating with a Brillo pad,” Mr. Tom said, his wings catching and the split one leaving a trail of blood behind him.
The large gargoyle dumped Mr. Tom on the ground, looked down on the badly torn wing, grunted, and resumed his place in front of his men.
“Ouch.” Mr. Tom didn’t bother getting up. “That was mostly unpleasant.”
Another peek into the connection, and I saw Austin was almost here. As soon as we found Alek, we could all head back. I’d about had it. World’s worst flying lesson. I wished I could just throw in the towel. And now we had yet another problem on our hands—the attack, and how these mages had known where I’d be.
Suddenly exhausted, I didn’t have it in me to be nervous about the future. I’d get to that later.
“Mr. Tom, change into stone so you can start healing. Who volunteers to carry him?” I lifted my eyebrows as I faced the gargoyles. “He is the caretaker of Ivy House, and I am its mistress. Really? None of you want the honor of carrying him?”
The bright pink gargoyle stepped forward, his chest shimmering with an electric sheen of blue. I hadn’t known they could come in disco colors. I quite liked it.
“Thank you.” I nudged Mr. Tom with my foot. “Come on, change. Hurry up now.”
“Of course, miss. I am just now summoning the energy. It is not easy, I assure you. I feel rather like a wad of gum that has been swallowed and has since been worked out the other side.”
I frowned down at him. That wasn’t a great image, but it did seem accurate.
In another few moments, the pink gargoyle lifted off with the stone version of Mr. Tom, the weight not seeming to affect him at all. The gargoyles who were toting our possibly alive but maybe dead attackers left with him. Only the uninjured stayed behind.
“We don’t have long to wait for my friend,” I said as the gargoyles stood in place. They didn’t seem impatient, but then, they didn’t really have facial expressions.
A moment later, I heard the soft rustle of something coming through the trees, something that sounded about half the size of what I was expecting. My connection said it was Austin, though, and a moment later he edged out from the dull green foliage, a massive polar bear bigger than any such creature in the wild. Standing on all fours, he was tall enough