I was there again, in that little hut, but the women were gone. I stood there all by myself, staring at a small sculpture of a gargoyle. Clay, it seemed, fairly crude, and not like the sexy ones Ebrill and her friend had proven to be. In fact, this one was more like a cross between them and the Okinawan lion statues out front of my aunt’s house. It got me thinking, wondering if those statues could somehow come to life. But it also got me wondering what these elves, if that’s what they were, knew about gargoyles.

For the first time, I considered that maybe they weren’t elves at all, simply gargoyles if gargoyles didn’t turn to stone during the day. Wherever I was, could it be possible that these ones turned into the women I had seen last time?

The rest of the room wasn’t anything special. Wood floors and beams overhead, a trunk with clothing, and some paper under a bodice that had been tossed aside. I took a step closer to the paper, lifting the bodice at the sight of swirling patterns. These patterns… I recognized them. In fact, even the writing looked familiar.

On a hunch, I held up my hand to see if I could access my screen from here. Sure enough, it popped up and let me access the pages I had scanned from the Llyfr Sillafu, the spell book. Only, these ones weren’t complete. It was like they were copying it over, or possibly even creating it.

Could these women—elves, gargoyles, or otherwise—be the ones who created the spell book?

Voices sounded from the main entrance, and they weren’t friendly. One was the goblin with the snake eyes from before, I was sure of it. Another was the deeper, terrifying voice. I snuck to the back of the hut, about to make my escape, when I saw a stream nearby. It wasn’t the stream that caught my attention, but an elf… the one I now knew was Ebrill, somehow before she became a gargoyle, if that made any sense.

One way I could tell she wasn’t really a gargoyle here was that the sun was shining on her nude form, her back to me, water dripping down her round ass as she bathed herself. She started to turn, looking up at something, the underside of her breast exposed. I told myself to look away, tried even, but damn, that was impossible. You don’t see beauty like that and avert your eyes.

The voices reminded me that danger was coming, and I knew that if they caught her there like that, she would be in serious trouble. Realizing I only had one move here, I darted out, staying low as I sprinted toward her.

Shit, shit, shit, my mind was saying, while my mouth moved as I tried to think about how to warn her. In an instant, she turned, fully exposed and facing me, and a figure rose from my left as a shout came and motion of hands.

A force knocked me sideways. My ears rang. Two women moved up on me. One had red hair, the other black, and green light emitted from one of their hands in a way that made me wonder if I would live to see the next few seconds.

“Enemy… coming…” I managed to get out, hands up as I knelt. “I’m on your side.”

“You again,” I heard from one side, and then they had me, all of us running.

“Grab your damn clothes!” the other sort of hissed and shouted at Ebrill, who still stood there nude, staring in confusion. At those words, though, she snapped into action, running from the water and going for a dress nearby.

Only, there wasn’t time to dress, so she ran with us, clutching the garment to her chest and eyeing me with confusion.

“You two, that way,” one of the others said, and then they broke left. We darted right, going along the curve of the hill. I glanced back to see the forms of one horned man and one shorter figure that I took to be the goblin from before, but really had no idea.

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“Get down,” Ebrill hissed, pulling me with her so that we slid down the grassy hill, out of sight. As she started to pull the dress on to cover herself, she glared at me. “Avert your gaze.”

“Sorry, I…” I turned, thinking I would peek to ensure that we weren’t being followed. “Will they be okay?”

“They can handle themselves,” she said, and clucked her tongue, motioning me to follow now that she was dressed.

She guided me along a ledge, the two of us leaping down. We ran in a crouch, stopping at a grouping of trees. There in hiding, pressed together to avoid being caught, we stared into each other’s eyes.

“Who are you, sir, and why do you look at me like that?” Ebrill whispered.

“I…” No answer came to mind, only the intense need to lean forward and kiss her. Our lips met, her eyes wide, but then they closed as she got into it, tongue in my mouth, hands moving along my arms.

She pulled back. “What sorcery is this?”

“None,” I replied. “Other than your beauty pulling me, leaving me with little or no will of my own.” Her scoff was accompanied by an eye roll, making me wonder if what I’d said had really been that bad. It didn’t matter though, because it was true. “My name is Jericho.”

Her hands, I noted, were still on my arms. The mocking in her eyes faded to curiosity again. “Very well, Jericho. Would you mind explaining what you were doing with the likes of them?”

“I wasn’t. I had just come out of the shed and spotted you bathing when they arrived.”

Now her hands pulled back. “You were watching me?”

“No. Not like that.”

“You weren’t watching me?”

“I mean, I didn’t mean to. But there was the threat, and then they—”

A hand on my leg. A smile. “It’s nothing to worry about, as long as you… liked what you saw.”

I gulped and then blinked, remembering where we were. “And those two? The goblin-looking one and the other, who are they?”

“Danger,” she replied, hand on my leg. “Are you afraid?”

“Never,” I lied, although the answer was a tricky one—at the moment, I was more afraid she would pull her hand away than anything else.

“Good, because there’s no need to be. I have you.”

I leaned over to look out at the grassy field and hills beyond. The scent in the air reminded me of honeysuckle, the warm breeze pleasant compared to the humidity of D.C.

Glancing over at Ebrill, I had to know. “Are you, I mean… do you ever change form?”

Her eyes narrowed as they darted over. “I’m no shifter.”

“Even at night?”

She shook her head, confused. “Do you?”

I chuckled. “No.”

“I have to assume you know some who do, or you wouldn’t be asking such a ridiculous question.”

“In a sense, yes.”

“You seem… decent.” Her eyes lingered on me, weighing. “And yet, you saved me. Or, helped me, anyway, while sneaking a peek.”

I laughed. “Come on, we’re even. You said so.”

“Fair enough. But with your strange style of dress, your odd… accent? You don’t belong here, that’s plain to see. Tell me.”

“You’ll find out more, eventually. The easy version is, I think I’m here to help you, somehow.”

“And how would you help me, exactly? Are you a mage?”

“In training.”

She nodded, eyes moving over me. “But not strong enough to take the likes of those two on, or we wouldn’t have run.”

“Not yet,” I agreed. “Although I have a good trainer.”

“Here they come,” Ebrill said. “Kordelia and Aerona. Act natural.”

“Don’t I always?” I started, only to feel a splitting headache, followed by everything going blurry.

“Are you feeling well?” she asked and then frowned, eyes roaming over me as I started to fade.

A jolt hit, and then I was back in my room in my aunt’s house.

Ebrill hadn’t left my side—gargoyle Ebrill, that is. As soon as our eyes met, it was clear that she remembered everything that had happened. She cringed, apparently feeling it too.

“The wards,” I said.

Ebrill met my gaze and shook her head. “Fuck it, right? The wards might hold. They should, and we can be fast.”

Again, the shooting warning, this time so hard it was painful.

Fatiha appeared at the doorway, clearly expecting to find us exactly like this, and motioned. “No time for that. They’re breaking through.”

“How long have they been attacking?” Ebrill asked.

“First strike.”

We all shared a look of horror. Then Ebrill and I were up and dressing before running to follow Fatiha to the rooftop. Halfway there, however, the house shook as explosions sounded, and a wall in the room visible down the hall and to the right suddenly crumbled.

“Shit,” I shouted, motioning them away from that direction.

“Kordelia,” Ebrill said, pulling my arm back. “We can’t leave her up there, we can’t just…”

“We won’t,” I said, and shouted for Fatiha, who was already moving. “We need to go to the rooftop. Defend from there.”

“It’s too exposed!” she countered.

“We have no choice.”

She saw the determination in our eyes, grunted, and motioned for us to follow her to the roof.