Stonewing Guardian Read online

  Then he was gone.

  She looked up at Mace and saw a pensive look on his face.

  "Come on," she said quietly, pulling on his arm. "You heard him. He doesn't blame you. We'll help him, but not when we're this tired." She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the prospect of stonewalking. "We should get back."

  Mace took her hand. "We can do it the old-fashioned way, by walking. There's a path down the hill just over there. It's very beautiful, and I think I could use a walk to work up an appetite for dinner."

  By now, the sunset was flaming gloriously around them, painting the ocean and turning the clouds to pink and gold cotton candy.

  "You know, I wouldn't mind a walk, but I just thought of something better." Thea put her arms around his neck. "You've got wings, right? Can you fly with them?"

  Mace wrapped her up in his arms. He was smiling, shaking off some of the melancholy. "I can. Are you sure you want to fly with me?"

  "I would love to."

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, and all around her, Mace's body rippled through the smooth transformation to stone.

  It was the first opportunity she'd really had to look at him when there wasn't a lot else going on. He was beautiful, not uniform gray as she'd first thought, but marbled and banded with a hundred subtle colors mixed in with the granitic speckle of black and gray. He had the solidity of a statue combined with the animation of a living being. His rocky skin was slightly warm from the setting sun, and gently pinked in the sunset light.

  "You're gorgeous," she said.

  Mace unfurled a pair of rocky wings. It seemed impossible that he could actually fly with those, but she trusted him. She felt him shift his grip so that he had one arm under her hips, the other around her back.

  "Ready?" he said. His voice was a little different when he was like this, a deep rumble that shivered in her chest. She loved it.

  "Absolutely," she said, and rested her head under his chin.

  Mace drove his wings in a powerful downbeat. Dust swirled around them, and they lifted off.

  Thea gasped at the sensation of being in the air, a moment's unsettled feeling sweeping over her. And then she relaxed into the delight of being able to see so high and so far. She looked down, beneath her dangling boots. They weren't too high off the ground, not so high that it would be dangerous to fall, but the ridge sloped away on both sides, steep and covered in scrubby forest.

  She could see the town and the lighthouse, and the rambling slate roofs of Stonegarden, with its gardens below. They swept low over the ridge and down across the stone outcroppings, the scrubby brush and the pointed tops of the pines. And then Mace's clawed feet thumped on the slate tiles of an out-thrust Stonegarden roof. He let Thea down.

  "So we're on the roof," she said, looking around. It was interesting being up here. There were carved gargoyles all along the ridge, each perfectly true to life, but utterly immobile. She squinted at the nearest until she was quite sure that they were only statues.

  "Coming?" Mace said, and she looked around to see him gesturing her to a widow's walk along the roof.

  "Excuse me if I'm not used to coming and going this way," she said, hurrying to join him as he opened a door that led into a long attic full of boxes.

  "Oh, does that mean we need to do it more often?" Mace asked. He closed the door behind them. The attic was long and dim, full of large heavy beams. The few shafts of light coming in through the high windows were filled with dancing dust motes.

  "I suspect that you, Mace MacKay, may be a bad influence." But she linked her arm through his. She was still a mix of emotions, worried over Gio but incandescently happy from the flight. It was a small taste of her life here, she thought. Joy and difficulty, challenges and victories, new adventures and new dangers. Well, her entire life had been spent like that. She'd had enough of her quiet, safe life at U of T. It was time to make a new path.

  "After you," she said brightly, opening the door from the attic before Mace could get to it, and they went down into the house below, and into their new life.

  Epilogue

  "Oh, Mace!" Thea sang out. "Loaded ship coming into port! No lighthouses! Beware astern!"

  She pushed open the door into the library with a full box of books in her arms.

  "I think your nautical terminology still needs some work," Mace called back from somewhere over by the crackling fire.

  It was still a bit warm outside for a fire, but in the cool, dim library, it felt entirely appropriate. Thea pushed on in with her box of books from the attic. She plunked it down on the pile of boxes Jess was going through for the library and bookstore down in the village.

  Thea had taken a job posting at St. John's University. By now, she had grown, if not used to, then at least resigned to traveling by way of stonewalking for her daily commute. The only other option was living part of the year in St. John's, and that she was unprepared to do, although she had a postal box in the city. As far as her colleagues knew, she lived somewhere in St. John's and just liked to maintain her privacy.

  In fact, she and Mace had found that his idea of pressing her face into his shoulder and having a brief conversation was able to get her through a short stonewalk with no issues. She had found a therapist and was working on what was left of her claustrophobia, and hoped that someday she would be able to travel more easily, but for now she spent her weekdays in St. John's, and her evenings and weekends at Stonegarden. Mace stonewalked her through every morning, and showed up in the evening at the university, calling politely (and handsomely) in one of his various dark sweaters with a coat or jacket over the top, picking her up for dinner in town or a quick stonewalk home.

  Her colleagues were all jealous of her handsome beau.

  It was delightful. Aside from a brief, vaguely unpleasant commute twice a day on workdays—which she had hopes of turning less unpleasant over time—she had a life that was more joyous than anything she could have imagined for herself. She loved her new life at the university; she had a heavier workload due to the smaller faculty size, but also more freedom and research opportunities. And living at Stonegarden was like stepping directly into one of the Gothic novels she had loved as a teenager. She was like Jane Eyre without the mad wife in the attic, and a kind and adoring Rochester who was all the best parts and none of the worst.

  Speaking of whom ... he was doing something in front of the fire, wrapping up something, from what it looked like.

  "What's that?" Thea asked, coming over to get a closer look.

  "Ah, yes." Mace stood up abruptly. He was holding something she couldn't get a good look at, a medium-sized bundle in colorful cloth wrappings. "Do you have a moment? I have something I'd like to give you. It's a traditional mate-gift of my people."

  He seemed almost shy. It was such a striking contrast to Mace's usual confidence that she found it unbearably charming. He was actually turning a little pink.

  "Oh, I love presents!" Thea said.

  This was actually somewhere between a little white lie and a massive though well-intentioned untruth. She actually disliked being surprised. Her parents hadn't really gone in for the whole presents-and-cake birthday like most parents did, at least not once she was past the age of six. There had been well-meaning gifts from co-workers, department-wide holiday gift exchanges, and that sort of thing, and she hadn't hated them, but she still could have done just as well without them. And the department's one attempt to throw her a surprise birthday party had not gone well. She had made polite conversation for a few minutes, stuffed a large piece of cake into her mouth, manufactured an emergency student meeting and fled the building.

  Some of her ambivalence must have shown on her face, because Mace said, "It's not a tradition we have to keep if you don't want to."

  "You can't just say something like that and not show me!" If there was one thing she disliked more than having a surprise birthday party sprung on her, it was having a mystery dangled in front of her and then not getting the answer. />
  Mace smiled a little. "Close your eyes."

  There was a slight twinge of some old fear. "Can I keep them open?"

  "Sure," he said easily. He placed a bundle in her hands, wrapped in colored silks.

  It was heavy. Very heavy, in fact. When he took his hands away, she almost dropped it. She had a moment's baffled thought that it might be the Viking medallion, but that didn't make any sense, and anyway, it was the wrong shape for it, almost egg-shaped.

  This had better not be an actual magic egg.

  At this point she wouldn't even have been surprised.

  She had to set it down on the couch to unwrap it, because it was too heavy to hold one-handed. She sat down beside it, and Mace sat on the other end of the couch. He seemed nervous. Maybe it was an egg, she thought; maybe being a gargoyle's mate traditionally went along with caring for some sort of rock-pet. Well, she could deal with that, she supposed, as long as it didn't need to be fed and walked too often ...

  She unwrapped the silks, being as careful as possible because Mace hadn't given her any indication of how fragile it was. He watched her with a look of anticipation.

  When she finally got the silks off, she found that she didn't need to have been too careful after all.

  It was a rock.

  And, as far as she could tell, not a rock egg or a valuable rock or any particular kind of rock at all. It was an oblong rock about the length of her two spread-out hands, made of speckled gray-and-white granite.

  He'd given her a rock.

  And Thea would have died rather than have this kind, brilliant, protective, gentle man, this man who loved her more than the world, believe she was anything less than wildly enthusiastic about it.

  "Oh, wow," she said, trying to channel every bit of acting ability from the time her parents had decided that a signed first edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, in Spanish, would be a perfect gift for a seven-year-old, or the series of unwanted holiday-exchange gifts from her co-workers that she would never use. She widened her eyes and smiled as brilliantly as she could. "Mace, it's so pretty. I love it. Is there a traditional way that you're supposed to display it, or—"

  Mace was laughing softly. He laid his hand over hers. "Thea. It's a rock. You're not going to be excited about it and that's perfectly fine."

  "I know it's a rock!" she said, and curled her hands protectively around it. "But it's a rock that you gave me. It's my rock!"

  Mace reached for it. Thea pulled it toward herself.

  "No, it's mine, and I like it!" she protested, and found that she actually meant it. It was ridiculous, but the fact that he had given it to her—that it was clearly important to him—suddenly made it precious to her. Sure, it was a rock; she could have walked on the beach and picked up fifty more like it. But Mace had picked it out for her.

  And she realized with a crashing epiphany that this was what had been missing in all the disappointing gifts she'd ever received. It was that people had given them to her not because they thought she'd like them, but because it was something they liked (her parents) or the sort of obligation gift that you got for someone you didn't know well (her co-workers).

  As weird as this was, it was clearly something Mace wanted her to have because it mattered to him and he wanted it to matter to her. And just like that, it genuinely did.

  "It's not just any rock, Thea. Here, let me show you."

  She stopped trying to keep him away from her rock once she was confident he wasn't going to take it back. He didn't seem hurt or disappointed, more like amused. He took her hand and laid it on the rock, and her earlier suspicions about eggs came rushing back.

  "This isn't going to hatch into something weird, is it?"

  "What? No, of course not." He covered her hand with his, spreading the fingers out on the stone. It still felt like ordinary stone to her, gritty and cool. "This is a geode. You know what those are?"

  "Of course," she said. Memories of museum trips flashed through her head. "They have beautiful crystals inside, but look like regular rocks from the outside. There are crystals in here? How do you know?" But the answer was obvious. Gargoyle. Stone-sense. Duh. "Do we break it open now?"

  "No," Mace said softly. "Never." He put his other hand over hers. "No one will ever see inside this geode except us."

  "But I'm not a gargoyle, Mace, I can't."

  "You can," he said, his voice deep and soft. "Because you're my mate. I'll show you."

  His face was completely sincere, and she believed him instantly and utterly. "Yes," she said. "Show me."

  "I need you to open your mind. I'll lead you."

  Luckily, this was something she actually could do. She wasn't the world's foremost expert on meditation or anything, but she had done some yoga and she at least knew how to temporarily blank her mind.

  Or, at least, she knew the general theory. What actually happened, as always, was that a bunch of other thoughts and concerns came flooding in, as if her neatly blanked mind was a blank notebook page to write on. She had never been good at not thinking about things. She fought off an urge to immediately go write down three new items for the next shopping trip to St. John's, and a bit of her next research paper that just had to be written now, and then she found herself wondering if she had remembered to return an egg timer she had borrowed from Jess's kitchen—

  And then she found herself sinking into a geode.

  She jerked, startled. "Shhhh," Mace soothed, and she relaxed. His hands were on hers. She was still on the couch in the library. There was nothing bad, nothing to be afraid of.

  But she was also exploring the rock with her mind.

  It wasn't claustrophobic or frightening. She floated together with Mace, and he was there every step of the way. She wasn't seeing it with her eyes, she was feeling it, almost like feeling a part of her body.

  And together with Mace, she traveled into the secret, beautiful heart of the stone.

  It was filled with colors, which she felt more than saw. They seemed to have their own clear and bright kind of music, as if purple rang in one tone and blue-green another. It was full of shape and brilliance. The drab exterior of the rock concealed a wonderland of endless crystalline beauty, and when Mace finally let go of her hands and her heightened awareness faded, she found that her eyes were full of tears.

  "Oh, Mace," she whispered. "That's ... it's ... I don't have words."

  Mace smiled. He closed his hand over hers, and they clasped hands across the rock.

  "You won't be able to do it on your own, I'm afraid," he said. "At least I don't think so. Although you can feel the spells on the house, so perhaps you can, who knows? But if you ever want to explore inside it with me, just let me know and I'll take you there again."

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, I want to." She began to wrap it in silk again, not really sure why except that she felt as if something so precious had to be properly cared for. "Is there something special I'm supposed to do with it? Or put it?"

  "Whatever you like," Mace said. "You could put it in a chest in the bedroom, or in the garden, or—"

  "Oh. The garden. Yes, there."

  She felt the rightness of it as soon as he said it. The garden was Mace's beloved place, with the flowers he enjoyed tending and the statues he liked to make. Being outside wouldn't hurt the geode; it had been outside for its entire existence, probably.

  "I like that very much," Mace said, and he gave her a hand up. "My parents' matestone is in the garden, too. I'll show you where."

  He took her to a secluded corner, underneath a bower of roses. The stone was about the size and shape of hers, but so covered with moss and twining rose canes that it could barely be seen.

  Anyway, she could tell this wasn't the right sort of place for hers. This had been right for Mace's parents, but she needed to find somewhere that felt right for her.

  So they wandered the garden together, Thea with the matestone clasped in her arms; still feeling proprietary, she refused to let Mace carry it. The air was warm wit
h just a hint of coolness in the breeze, but she could tell by the colors already appearing in the heather on the hills that the early northern autumn would soon close on the island, followed by winter. There was a part of her still feeling a bit nervous about going through her first Newfoundland winter.

  But she was also looking forward to it. It would be a new adventure, and if there was one thing she'd learned once and for all, it was that, for her, a life without adventure was a pale, cardboard shadow of a life indeed. And life with Mace would never be boring.

  "Here," she said.

  They had wandered the circuitous garden paths until they came upon a fountain and a statue. The fountain was gravity-fed, with a thin trickle of water rather than a spray; it was more like a big birdbath.

  A statue crouched in the middle of the fountain, down on one knee, with its arm across its other knee. Like many of Mace's statues, it was a life-sized gargoyle, although it was—like all the others—just a little bit different and unique in its own way. This one had a pair of small horns on its forehead, tiny bat-wings folded against its back that were much too small to fly with, and a serene expression on its face, gazing away from the house toward the ocean with a look of peaceful benevolence.

  "This one looks a little like you."

  "It's not meant to." Mace put a hand on the edge of the fountain's basin. "But I suppose it does, now that you mention it."

  "This is one of my favorite places on the Stonegarden grounds. The trickling water is so soothing. I love to read out here. And now I can come visit my matestone too."

  She looked around for a good place to put it, and finally found a nice, shady spot next to the basin, surrounded by ferns and other damp-loving plants. The geode settled into the mossy hollow as if it had been made for it. Thea crouched beside it and critically rolled it first a little one way, then another, and finally twitched a frond of a fern over it, so that it looked like it had been there for years instead of minutes.

  "Perfect," she said, and held up a hand. Mace lifted her to her feet.