And now a moment I can’t change or take back, no matter how much I wish I could, stretches before me.

Behind me, Macy screams in agony, and I know what I’m going to find even before I look. Still, I turn around—keeping one arm extended to the beast to show that I mean him no more harm—just as she sinks to her knees, sobbing, beside Xavier.

I watch as she gathers him up in her arms and rocks him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

“No!” Flint yells as he tries to limp over to where we are. “No! No, don’t tell me that, please don’t tell me that. No!”

Eden’s back in human form, tears streaming down her face and Jaxon…Jaxon looks broken in a way I’ve never seen before.

Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, the voice inside me says. Wolves are bad. I must protect her. I must save her.

I don’t know who he’s referring to and right now, I don’t think it matters. All that matters is that Xavier is dead. He’s dead and this poor, broken soul killed him, not because he wanted to but because I wouldn’t listen. Because I refused to see.

The horror and the grief turn my knees to nothing—just like the rest of me—and my legs go out from under me.

I hit the ground hard, my shin scraping against a slab of rock that fell from the walls, but I barely notice. How can I when Xavier is right here, his sightless eyes staring into the distance?

He was alive. Two minutes ago, he was alive, and now he’s not. Now he’s gone, and I could have stopped it all if I had just listened to what Hudson had tried so desperately to tell me.

This is my fault. This is all my fault.

Eden drops to her knees behind Macy, wraps her arms around my cousin, and holds her while she sobs. I should be doing that, should be doing something, anything to fix this mess that I’ve created. But I can’t move. I can’t think.

I can’t even breathe.

“You have to finish it,” Hudson tells me. “You have to get everyone home. You have to let Xavier go and save the people you can save.”

“I don’t even know how to get home,” I whisper, and it’s true. Neither Flint nor Eden is in any shape to fly us back to Katmere.

And the Trial is in less than four hours. I have to be there, or we will all suffer more than we already have. The king and queen are just the type to punish all my friends—and Jaxon—for my perceived indiscretions.

Ironic, really, considering the many mistakes I’ve made here tonight, and they’re going to punish me for missing a mere game to see if I’m worthy. For being a gargoyle. For dating their son.

The hits just keep on coming.

“I’m sorry, Macy,” I choke out as I crawl to my cousin, hug her, and press a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Hudson as I climb slowly to my feet.

I’m sorry. I’m so, 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 come back for you. We’ll find a way to set you free, and we’ll come back.

He studies me for long seconds, those bloodred eyes growing more human and less animalistic by the second. And then he asks, very simply, Why?

Why will we come back? To free you—

No. Why did you come to begin with?

Oh. I look down, embarrassed by what I’ve done. Embarrassed by the hubris that thought it would be okay to take something from this creature who has already suffered so much and embarrassed by all the other mistakes I made that led us here, to this moment.

We needed a treasure you protect. A heartstone, I tell him. I’m sorry. We thought we could just take it from you. It was wrong of us. We’re so sorry.

Heartstone? He cocks his head to the side, like he’s trying to figure out what I’m talking about.

Yes, heartstone, I repeat.

Slowly, so slowly that I think I must be imagining it at first, the gargoyle’s chest starts to glow a dark, deep red. He looks down at the color and so do we, more than a little shocked by what we’re seeing.

You need heartstone? he asks, and then he pats his chest.

Oh my God. The heartstone isn’t a jewel he’s protecting. It’s his stone heart. And after everything we’ve done to him, he’s still willing to give it to us for no other reason I can guess than that we stopped trying to kill him.

I fall to my knees again on a painful sob. Who did this to him? Who could be so cruel?

The gargoyle taps his chest again. Need heart stone?

No, I answer. No, I don’t. But thank you.

We’ve crossed too many lines to get here, sacrificed far too many things. Lost Xavier. I’m not going to compound that by killing this innocent creature, too.

I ruined everything because I didn’t fight harder for what I believed in, for what I believed was true. I knew that it was wrong to take away Hudson’s vampire nature. I knew it was wrong for us to sit in judgment of him. And I knew it was wrong to risk all our lives because I wasn’t strong enough to convince anyone that they were wrong, too.

So many wrongs that have led us here that I don’t know how to make right. I don’t know how I’ll ever make my way home again.

“Grace.” Jaxon leans against the wall to steady himself. “I know you’re upset, but you need to take it.”

“I’m not taking it,” I tell him, bowing my head in a silent thank-you to my kin. “I’m not killing this gargoyle, Jaxon.”

“When you calm down, you’re going to regret this.”

“There are many things I regret, but this decision will never be one of them,” I reply without turning to look at him. Instead, I lower my head and rest it against the side of the gargoyle’s foot as I shift back to my human form. Thank you, my friend. For everything, I tell him. I promise I’ll be back.

When I pull away, it’s to find that Jaxon has picked up Xavier’s body and is fireman-carrying him out of the cave. Macy is helping Flint hobble back over the rough ground and Eden is walking behind them, her right shoulder slanted down in a way that looks incredibly painful.