Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

“No.” Kordelia’s eyes flicked to Steph, then back to me. “How?”

“It wasn’t the enemy,” Steph said.

I nodded. “At least, our best guess is it had to do with me rearranging the house for our defenses. There are a series of old runes below the house, and—”

“Wait, what?” Aerona interrupted.

“Yeah, old runes, carved deeply into the stone. My actions caused other stones to fall down there and affect it, creating a break in a rune, changing the spell.” I took a breath, making sure they were following. “And… while I think the runes were meant to amplify magic or do something of the sort, when I broke it like that, it did the opposite, or maybe created a new pattern that had a limiting effect.”

“Meaning…” Ebrill’s eyes lit up. “If we could learn to control that, we’d have the option to turn magic on and off. Or at least as it relates to our general vicinity.”

“That might work,” I admitted.

We all turned back to watch the fireworks as what had to be the grand finale started, each of us likely considering the runes below and the implications. I was thinking mostly how we could use them to amplify our powers even more, but first I would need to create some sort of digital map of them with my powers, as I had for the screen that tracked my levels. From there, I could study the patterns, maybe figure out ways of altering the runes for various effects.

“I don’t get it,” Aerona said, the reds and blues highlighting her face as she turned to me. “Some sorcerer just showing off?”

Steph chuckled, but motioned for me to explain.

“Not magic, actually.” I tried to indicate the spot the fireworks were coming from, telling her about how the fireworks were shot off from there, made from gunpowder or something for the point of celebrating.

Aerona frowned, then turned to Ebrill. “Still sounds like a sorcerer showing off, to me.”

I scrunched my nose, then nodded. “Sure, but it looks pretty, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does,” Kordelia chimed in, unable to take her gaze from the fireworks. Every once in a while, she would startle at an especially loud firework.

Steph leaned against me, watching as her hand found mine, but soon the last of the fireworks drizzled out and faded, leaving only purple tails of smoke in the sky.

“How much did we miss?” Kordelia asked.

“Of the night?” I glanced around, realizing that without a phone or watch, I didn’t really have much concept of time.

“No, the show. I want to see it again. When can we?”

I chuckled. “Once a year, although… we could go to Disneyland or SeaWorld, where I think they do them every night?”

“Let’s do that!”

“Right…” Steph put a hand on Kordelia’s arm, moving away from me as she provided mock comfort to the gargoyle. “Considering your wings and whatnot, I don’t know if going to some of the most crowded places on Earth would be prudent.”

“Prudent? Fuck prudent.” Turning to Ebrill, Kordelia added, “Can’t we just illusion ourselves to fit in?”

“Not if it’s that crowded.”

“Ladies,” I cut in. “There’s no point in talking about it right now. We have to find the rest of your group, to figure out what we’re going to do about the rest of the Nine that might come after us—”

“And we don’t have the money,” Steph pointed out. “It’s a bit of a trek from D.C.”

I shook my head. “Fatiha had said Gertrude took care of me, or left us well provided for. While she was a traitor, I believe a lot of what she did had truth to it—every good lie has at least some level of truth.”

Steph looked impressed. “Shit, we might be loaded.”

“We might be very loaded. Worst case scenario, there have to be some vases and whatnot worth money in here… And actually, Gertrude confirmed it, too. Another thought—maybe some closer theme parks have shows?” Turning to Kordelia, I held out a hand for her to shake. “I’ll make you a deal. We take care of all this stuff we have to do like finding the others and staying alive business, and I’ll do my best to get us to another fireworks show as soon as possible. Yeah?”

She grinned, shaking my hand with a strong grip.

“Wait, the show’s not over,” Kordelia said, dropping my hand and stepping toward the edge of the roof.

I looked up, wondering if the fireworks show had been slow to release the true finale, or part of the display had been late to trigger, but this wasn’t that at all. It was several lines of light blue and green moving our way in a sort of wavy pattern.

A moment later, they were converging on us, exploding in puffs of smoke that turned into one man. He stood tall right there in front of us on the roof, head bent, hands at his side, feet spread shoulder-width apart. The city lights reflected faintly from his armor.

“You…?” Steph asked, shaking her head. “But it’s… impossible.”

I turned to her, my mind reeling with which attack I should use, but she wasn’t getting ready to attack. In fact, she was staring at the man as if she had seen a ghost.

“Steph, what’s up?” I asked.

Instead of responding, she summoned a wraith knight. The knight appeared, sword at the ready, and turned toward the man. Sword vanishing, the knight took a step toward him, froze, and then vanished.

“That was him, wasn’t it?” the man asked.

“Not… you?” Steph asked.

“My brother,” the man replied.

Now I was starting to catch on. One of the men who had sacrificed himself so that Steph might live on, so that she might help me, was the brother of this witch-knight. And more of the story came together in my mind, including the fact that, if there was a group that helped her before, it stood to reason that there was at least one group still out there, maybe more, who were working on our side.

“How can we help you?” I said,