“Oliver, I need you.” My voice trembled. Sirens were supposedly able to spell only men, but her song beckoned me, urging me to look at her again, pulling me toward the water.

  “Should I throw more rocks?” Oliver asked, his voice small.

  I shook my head and shuffled around Marcus to touch the gargoyle, refusing to lift my eyes to the lake. “No. I need you to keep me focused. Fluctuate your boost in me, on and off, but keep it strong in Marcus and Gus. Can you do that?”

  He nodded.

  “Will it keep you too distracted for the siren to control you?” I asked.

  “I . . . I think so.”

  The volume of magic available to me dipped to my limited personal levels, reducing me to an average talent in earth, fire, and wood and leaving me even weaker with water and air. A breath later, Oliver’s boost filled me, opening twice as much magic to me so I felt as strong as a full-spectrum elemental. Then it fell away. My stomach churned at the sickening flip-flop of magic, and I chanced a glance at the siren.

  A ball of lightning bounced between her palms, arching gracefully through the air. Dry land wasn’t going to keep us safe from her.

  Standing on tiptoe to get close to Marcus’s ear and hoping he could understand my words, I shouted, “Shouldn’t we be running?”

  “Stay calm,” he barked. He fanned a complicated shield of water and earth element around our mismatched group.

  “Did you think to find my daughter without protection, humans?” the siren demanded, the sibilant sound of the last word sharp and cutting.

  Daughter? This kept getting better and better.

  The mother eyed the shield, then shifted her attention to the men, altering her song. Whatever compulsion had tugged at me fell away, but Marcus and Gus didn’t react either. Her daughter gestured to Marcus, then to her ears, and I didn’t need to be close enough to hear the conversation to know she’d just told her mom about my quartz distortion cups.

  The mother shrieked, the shrill cry stabbing through my eardrums. I pressed my palms to my ears, expecting to feel blood trickling from my ear canals. As one, the cerberi rolled their heads back and howled at the sky.

  Marcus grabbed my elbow, his lips mouthing words I couldn’t hear. Eyes widening with growing horror, I stared at his chest. Quartz shards glistened against the fabric of his shirt. The crystals over his ears had been shattered.

  The siren had destroyed our only defense.

  I stepped back, out of Marcus’s hold, and his expression shuttered when he saw my fear. This time, I had no trouble reading his lips.

  “Run.”

  The siren’s song died, arresting me in place. The cerberi panted loud enough to drown out the sounds of the sirens’ lashing tails, but the rest of us held our breath, bodies tense. Oliver steadied his enhancement within me, filling me with power, but my body still reeled, this time with the knowledge that Marcus was right: I couldn’t magic our way to safety this time. Fleeing was my only option, and even then it’d be all but impossible. If she could pull me and a gargoyle under her spell, the large siren definitely had the skill to manipulate Marcus and Gus at the same time—if she even bothered with them. She appeared to have plenty of power in her own right.

  The mother looked down at the small siren. “Are you hurt?”

  The daughter shook her head.

  “Which one attacked you?”

  “She did.” She jabbed a finger at me. “And her gargoyle.”

  I fought against the urge to cower behind the cerberi.

  “The female?” The mother swung toward me, lake water churning around her waist. I kept a close eye on her gills, prepared to sprint for the forest if she so much as fluttered out a note. “Explain yourself, human.”

  I swallowed to work moisture into my mouth, thoughts scrambling for a way to reason with the powerful siren. “I was protecting my men.”

  “They are not hers. They came willingly,” the young siren said, her chin lifting defiantly.

  “They came willingly?” her mother echoed in a chilling tone. “You sang them here?” Electricity danced through her wet hair and lit her face with its harsh blue light. If I were her daughter, I would have backed up.

  “I wanted to see if I could.” The smaller siren dropped her eyes.

  “I did not raise a heathen, and you’re no tadpole,” the mother thundered. Electric sparks rained from the mother’s hair into the water, and her daughter flinched as if pinched. “Humans are fragile, and only the weak play with them.”

  The mother lifted her gaze to mine, addressing me as if I stood alone on the beach.

  “Human woman, I apologize for my daughter’s rash actions and for any harm she inflicted on your men. You have my word it will never happen again.”

  “Ah . . .” I said, not sure if I’d heard her right. Did this mean we weren’t going to die?

  The siren dismissed me with a nod, a milky-white film covering her eyes in a quick blink. Wrapping an arm around her daughter, she propelled her away from the shore, but her voice carried back to us.

  “Your rebellious behavior has gone too far this time. No. Don’t talk. I don’t want to hear your excuses. If you’re going to act like a tadpole, I’m going to treat you like one . . .” Still lecturing, she dragged her daughter under the water’s surface. Their long tails slithered through the air; then the sirens disappeared.

  No one moved as we watched the ripples fade, but my relief was so profound I might have temporarily floated.

  “Did we just get rescued by the siren’s mother?” Gus asked, spitting to the side. At the sound of his voice, the cerberi relaxed, dropping their heads to sniff the beach.

  “We got rescued by Mika,” Marcus said, turning to me. He tugged the remaining bloody shards from his ears without so much as a flinch. “If you hadn’t saved us from the first siren, we wouldn’t have been alive when the mom came along. These crystal earpieces were ingenious.”

  “Thanks. I wouldn’t have thought of them without Oliver.”

  The gargoyle preened, especially when Marcus heaped on praise at his quick handling of the cerberi. Gus, busy checking over the three-headed hounds, muttered to himself about needing to retrain the cerberi to respond to signals only he knew.

  “I can’t believe how easily the siren lured me in. Once I heard her song, I had to find her.” Marcus brushed dirt from my cheek with a gentle touch, then pulled me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head. A few bruises and scrapes weren’t worth mentioning.

  “I could have killed you with those fireballs.”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  I used a featherlight brush of earth to collect the shattered quartz from his clothes, then dusted pulverized quartz glitter from his ears, careful to avoid his wounds. “I’m sorry about cutting you,” I said.

  “Remember, I’m a tough FPD guy. I’ve hurt myself worse shaving. Of course, I’m beginning to think the FPD doesn’t have anything on gargoyle guardians. You’ve taken on Reaper’s Ridge, and now you faced off against a siren.”

  “Mika is an extraordinary guardian,” Oliver said, grinning with pride.

  “Mmm, you’re definitely one of a kind, Mika.” Marcus tightened his embrace, dipping his knees in a silent invitation for me to wrap my arms around his neck.

  I happily obliged, savoring both the thrill of his body pressed against mine and my restored sense of safety in his arms. Brushing my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, I smiled to see his pupils dilate. Then he leaned down the last few inches, and my eyelids drifted shut in anticipation of a kiss.

  “I haven’t forgotten what you said,” Marcus breathed against my lips.

  “Hmm?” I tried pulling him the last half inch to me, but it was like attempting to move a mountain.

  “That you love me.”

  My eyes popped open in shock. “Um . . . I—”

  “You also said that I love you. That was a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”

  “Hey! I was defending you—” I saw the mirth crinkling the corners of Marcus’s eyes at the same time that I realized the absurdity of my argument. I changed tactics, teasing back. “After all I’ve done for you, you should love me.”

  “Who says I don’t?”

  My heart somersaulted in my chest, stealing my breath. I searched Marcus’s serious lapis lazuli eyes, the teasing of a moment ago absent.

  Gus harrumphed and spat. “You two are making me sick. Just kiss already.”

  Marcus quirked an eyebrow at my poleaxed expression; then, grinning, he brushed his lips across mine.

  A zing of pleasure jolted through my body, snapping me back into action. I tugged Marcus closer, kissing him soundly, and not even Gus’s curses when he spied the broken carriage could ruin the perfection of the moment.

  I’d just realized I was in love.

  The End

  …But this isn’t The End for Mika, Oliver, and Marcus. Pick up your copy of Flight of the Gargoyles today to embark on their next adventure. Tab ahead for a sneak peek.

  EXCERPT: FLIGHT OF THE GARGOYLES

  “That’s our ride?” I squeaked. I checked Marcus’s expression, hoping I had misheard him. His self-satisfied smile did nothing to ease the queasiness swelling in my stomach.

  The shriek of tree branches clawing against wood made me jump. I spun to face my nightmare. A flimsy dirigible caromed between the cottonwoods lining the street, scraping its bottom against the upper canopies. Broken branches clattered to the cobblestones, splintering against the hard stone, and shredded leaves swirled into the air as the pilot pivoted the airborne abomination to thread the gap and descend toward the street. I cringed as nearby house wards snapped into place, anticipating my landlady’s irritation even as I wished I could duck out of sight behind a ward of my own.

  “It couldn’t be more perfect,” Marcus said. “It’s quick, it’s free—Patrick owes me—and best of all, it’s going our way.” He cupped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his warm side. “I didn’t think we could reach the everlasting tree in time, Mika, but with this, we have a chance.”

  I tucked my head against his shoulder to hide my horrified expression. I wanted to see the everlasting tree, but . . . flying? Why did it have to be flying?

  Up until a few days ago, finding the cure for local comatose gargoyles had consumed my focus. The everlasting tree’s impending once-a-generation blooming hadn’t been important—at least not once I determined I couldn’t rely on it as a means for curing the gargoyles. Although the magical tree granted answers to seemingly impossible questions when it bloomed, no one knew exactly when the tree would release its knowledge. I hadn’t been willing to leave the lives of the fading gargoyles to chance.

  Now, with the comatose gargoyles on the mend and the tree yet to bloom, I had still resigned myself to missing the momentous experience. The everlasting tree was too far away. No trains stopped anywhere close to its grove, and even if we rented the city’s fastest horses or powered up an air cart right now, it would take well over a week to reach the tree. Besides, we had only just returned to Terra Haven. My bags were still packed, my clothes still wrinkled from being slept in the night before. I had already decided to wash away the disappointment of missing the everlasting tree with a long soak in my bathtub.

  I never considered flying. It was expensive and extravagant, and most important, terrifying. But Marcus Velasquez, a Federal Pentagon Defense warrior who never met a challenge he didn’t tackle head on, wasn’t scared of something as trivial as being suspended thousands of feet in the air on little more than a few planks of weathered wood, poised to fall to his death.

  I glanced past Marcus’s shoulder to Ms. Zuberrie’s Victorian, where I rented a room. Home. It was so close. My travel-frayed nerves needed a dose of the serenity that could be achieved only by being surrounded by my belongings. And my gargoyles.

  I had sensed them from several blocks away, each a glowing bundle of energy inside my head, but nothing compared to seeing them in person. The four gargoyles talking animatedly on the eaves of the Victorian were as different as any collection of gargoyles—Lydia, a plump pink, purple, and orange agate swan with lion’s feet; Anya, a sleek dumortierite-and-aventurine panther with wings that stretched nearly as long as her tail; Herbert, a compact dumortierite-veined rose-quartz armadillo with a toucan’s beak and stubby wings; and Oliver, a slender carnelian dragon with eagle wings. Anyone unfamiliar with the quartet would never suspect they were siblings from the same clutch. Only Quinn was missing, having accompanied my best friend, Kylie, to the everlasting tree days earlier.

  I barely had time for more than a cursory check of each gargoyle, assuring myself their living-quartz bodies radiated robust health, before Marcus whisked me back to the street. Oliver remained behind to share our recent adventures, but when he caught my gaze, whatever he saw in my expression made his wings unfurl in alarm. With a flick of his tail, he launched from the roof. His carnelian wings fractured the sunlight, bathing Marcus’s face in an ominous crimson and flaring bloodred outlines around our shadows.

  “What is it?” he asked, landing with a clatter of quartz paws.

  I reached for Oliver, taking comfort in the smooth curves of his stone mane beneath my fingers.

  “Nothing,” I said. At least nothing that would make sense to him.

  “Ahoy!” a male voice called from above.

  Marcus released me to wave back. Thick coils of air and earth magic wove from his fingers and hooked the sinking dirigible, anchoring it to the street as it landed. Marcus wielded the bands of elements effortlessly, but it would have been just as easy to imagine him stopping the airship with sheer physical strength. Even in civilian clothes, Marcus looked the part of a warrior. It was partially his military-short black hair and partially his anvil jaw, but mainly it was the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles cording his body beneath his white cotton shirt and khaki trousers. Happiness glinted in his blue eyes as he strode toward the ship with his usual energetic grace, exhibiting none of the travel fatigue that clung to me.

  If the dirigible hadn’t loomed behind him, I might have possessed room in my brain to be self-conscious. Marcus was a powerful full-spectrum fire elemental who tenaciously defended Terra Haven from deadly monsters—human and otherwise. I, on the other hand, was a mid-level earth elemental with a quartz specialty. I could heal gargoyles, but until recently, I spent the majority of my time holed up in my room, fussing over commissioned quartz projects. On a good day, I appeared ordinary and insignificant. With my snarled braid, rumpled clothes, and teetering equilibrium, today wasn’t a good day.

  “Come on, Mika,” Marcus called, waving me forward.

  I fluttered a hand in his direction, my smile a grimace. Let’s go, I urged my feet. Before Marcus realizes I’m a complete coward.

  My boots remained fused to the cobblestones, my feet transformed into granite blocks.

  Movement atop the ship gave me an excuse to jerk my gaze from Marcus’s puzzled frown. A lanky black man strode across the airship’s deck with the loose-kneed gait of a lifelong flier. Canary-yellow pants bagged around his thighs and cinched his calves just above lace-up leather boots. A form-fitting lime-and-yellow-striped shirt clung to his lean torso. What the outfit lacked in aesthetics it made up for in visibility, which was likely the point. With no regard for the neck-breaking drop to the cobblestones, the man leaned over the nominal railing and grinned down at Marcus.

  “You’re lucky you caught me before I left town, Velasquez. Another ten minutes, and I would have been gone.”

  “You would have turned back for me,” Marcus said.

  The pilot scoffed. “You? No. Her?” His gaze landed on me, and a slow smile pulled up the corner of his mouth. “You know how I feel about redheads. Those flaming locks are a siren song for my eyes.”

  Marcus grimaced at the mention of a siren. “Patrick, meet my girlfriend, Mika. Mika, this is my childhood friend, Patrick.”

  My stomach flipped. This was the first time Marcus had introduced me as his girlfriend, and I liked the way it sounded. Clumsily, I got my feet unstuck and shuffled toward the dirigible. Marcus retreated to meet me halfway, his eyes searching mine. I gave him a tremulous smile.

  Patrick whistled. “Girlfriend, huh? You don’t look big enough to have wrestled Velasquez into submission. You must have hidden talents or some really impressive”—his eyebrows waggled—“magic.”

  “Did I mention he’s got the wit of a sixteen-year-old?” Marcus asked, shooting his friend a glare.

  I forced a noncommittal noise past my numb lips. This close, it was impossible to ignore the airship or its striking resemblance to a diseased fish. Convoluted rigging secured faded chartreuse cloth sails against the bloated cabin like crumpled gills, and spells netted the entire ship in a distressing mesh of air and fire elements. Beneath the magic, more than one scrape cut through the flaking yellow paint, exposing raw wood. Six fragile ropes attached the slipshod craft to a slender cigar-shaped balloon, its canvas a sun-bleached exaggeration of Patrick’s eye-popping green-and-yellow-striped top.

  “Patrick, this is Oliver,” Marcus continued. “He and Mika are a team. Oliver, you can ignore everything Patrick says. He’s just a means to an end.”

  “Ouch.” Patrick pretended to clutch his heart, but his eyes lit upon Oliver with open curiosity. “I would never disparage a gargoyle, especially not one as handsome as you, Oliver. Now, what are we waiting for? Come aboard, and we’ll be off.”

  My stomach burrowed toward my toes, a ricochet of bile climbing my throat. Patrick flipped a rope ladder over the railing. Eyes unfocused, I watched dust motes explode from the twisted hemp when it smacked the side of the dirigible, and I carefully did not move. If I so much as twitched, I was afraid I would run and not stop until I locked and warded myself in my apartment.

  Marcus tossed his bag to the deck, then my satchel, followed by my bag of seed crystals.