Logan grabbed me and kissed me properly, hard and thorough on the mouth. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. And then he let go of me and gave Naelen a challenging look.
Naelen shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay, dude, we’re even.”
Logan snorted. “Not even close.”
* * *
Riley wasn’t pleased with the damage to the house. There were several broken windows and busted doors and things. He was trying to sell the place, and now it was in need of more work.
“Don’t worry,” said Logan. “The gargoyles won’t mind. They’ll probably be planning a lot of remodeling on this place, anyway.”
“How do you know that?” said Riley.
“Oh, I was talking a little bit last night to Sonya,” said Logan.
“Sonya,” said Riley. “She’s great. Really friendly.”
Logan’s ears turned pink.
What the hell was that about?
Naelen didn’t seem to have noticed. “Um, so what just happened? Was that some kind of freak rogue attack? Is that a thing that happens?”
I narrowed my eyes at Logan. Who was this Sonya and how friendly was she?
“Clarke?” said Naelen. “You’re our resident dragon expert. Is this random?”
“Uh…” I chewed on my lip. “Well, basically all dragon attacks are random. The rogues are violent in general, they’ll attack anything. But this was weird because there were so many of them.”
“They don’t travel in flocks or something?” said Riley.
I shook my head. “They tend to be pretty solitary. When they get together, they fight each other. So, anyway, I don’t know why there were so many of them. Maybe if they’d all been in one place and they got free, they might be traveling together?”
“Like they were held captive?” said Logan. “When would that happen?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Could someone have been controlling the dragons?” said Naelen. “Like Riley’s brother?”
“Well, dragons are magical creatures,” I said. “Normal compulsion doesn’t work on them. But compulsion from dragon sacrifice might, I don’t know. So, I guess it’s possible that someone could have been controlling them. And I guess that if they broke inside, the wards might have broken that compulsion magic, but it wouldn’t much have mattered, because they’d still have attacked.”
“If it’s my brother, I wish he’d show his face,” said Riley. “I wish he’d stop all this insanity and face me like a man.”
“We’d like to face him too,” said Logan. “I don’t know how else we’re going to stop him. Can you think of anywhere he might be?”
“I haven’t seen him in years,” said Riley. “As far as I knew, he was off somewhere else with no memory of me or my family. I have no idea where he might be.”
“Well, I think he might be in the attic,” I said.
Riley’s nostrils flared. “I’ve told you, there’s no one in the attic.”
“Actually,” said Logan. “I was thinking that maybe your mother’s up there. And maybe she’s got the cup.”
“What?” said Riley. “My mother is dead. And I’d thank you not to ask anymore questions about her.”
“You sure she’s dead?” said Logan. “You sure maybe your father didn’t just tell you that she was dead? Maybe her madness had grown too far, and he didn’t know what to do with her.”
“What are you going on about?” said Riley.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m confused too.”
“Well,” said Logan, “I was talking to a gargoyle last night.”
“Sonya,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
Logan looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. Anyway, um, she told me about Riley’s mother.”
“Well, she had no right to do that,” said Riley.
“Apparently,” said Logan, “she kind of lost her mind using the cup. She was addicted to it. She would use the cup to create unlimited amounts of alcohol or food or drugs. She apparently would have rooms full of cocaine, be dumping it out of the cup and laughing. When Riley’s father tried to take the cup away from her, she couldn’t deal with it. She would turn the house apart looking for it, so much so that she had to be locked up. First in your room, Clarke, and then up in the attic.”
“My father did horrible things,” said Riley, “but even he wouldn’t do something like that to my mother. She was ill. She died. That’s all there is to the story. Whatever this gargoyle has told you—”
“He kept it from you,” said Logan. “He knew it would be painful to see your mother that way. He had a certain group of gargoyles take care of her, and they’re all sworn to secrecy. So, it’s very possible that she’s actually alive up there in the attic and that you don’t know a thing about it.”
“No, it’s not,” said Riley.
“Look, you never considered why your sister is so unstable?” said Logan. “You don’t think that maybe she inherited that from your mother? That the reason your mother couldn’t handle the cup was because she was predisposed to that kind of mental illness?”
“Sure I did,” said Riley. “But that doesn’t change the fact that my mother is dead.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind us taking a look up in the attic,” said Logan.
“I most certainly would mind. In fact, I won’t let you do it,” said Riley. “There’s no one up there, especially not my mother.”
* * *
“You see?” said Riley, gesturing with his hands. We were all standing in the narrow corridor in the attic. “There’s no one up here.”
“What about through this door?” said Logan.
“I don’t even have a key to that door,” said Riley.
“You don’t?” I said. “But you own the house. Don’t you want to know what’s back there?”
“No, I don’t care,” said Riley. “You can’t go through that door. You can’t.”
Naelen pushed past him. “Let me try a little magic on that lock. I’ll pay you back if I break it.” He went to the door and put his hand against the lock. The knob came off in his hands. But the door didn’t budge.
Naelen put his shoulder against the door. “It’s stuck. I can’t get it open.”
“Here, let me try,” said Logan.
Naelen moved aside for the stronger gargoyle.
Logan pushed at the door. It didn’t move. He turned, leaning against it, using his legs to push his back into it. No joy.
“Leave it alone,” said Riley. “I can’t let you through that door.”
Logan punched the door. Nothing.
“Leave it alone!” screamed Riley, and turned and fled from us.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“All right, there’s something in that attic,” said Naelen.
“I think it’s the cup,” said Logan. “I think it’s the mother, and I think she’s got that cup, and she’s not going to let it go. She loved it, and now that her husband is out of the way, nothing’s going to stop her from having it.”
“But Riley says she’s dead,” I said.
“She’s not, though,” said Logan. “She’s in the damned attic.”
“Wouldn’t he know if she was dead?” I said. “He would have been to her funeral.”
“His dad’s a mage,” said Logan. “Who knows what kind of illusions that guy could create?”
“Maybe,’ I said. “I guess it doesn’t matter, because we can’t get through the door to find out. Do you think it’s nailed shut or something?”
“There was no give to it,” said Naelen. “Like it was a wall, not a door at all.”
“Maybe it’s magic of some kind,” said Logan. “Or maybe it needs a special key or something. If you want, I can go back to talk to Sonya about it, and she might know someone who knows how to get in.”
Sonya. My lip curled. I didn’t like her, and I hadn’t even met her.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” said Naelen.
“Just how friendly is Sonya?” I asked.
Naelen raised his eyebrows at me. “What do you mean by that?”
Logan wasn’t looking at me. “Clarke, leave that alone, please?”
“Why?” I said.
“Because I’m trying to abide by your ground rules, the ones you set for us, and you’re making that really hard by digging at it,” he said.
“My ground rules?” My jaw dropped. I had said that I didn’t want to know if one of the guys slept with another woman. Did that mean…? “What did you do with Sonya?”
Logan met my gaze. “You really want to know this?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want to know.”
“I slept with her.”
I shook my head, stunned. I had figured that out already, but hearing it out of his mouth, it was… I swallowed hard. “But Logan… you…” A rush of emotions swirled around me. Rage. Hurt. Jealousy. Disbelief. I felt like I was going to cry. I buried my head in my hands.
“Hey,” said Naelen, patting me on the back.
“Don’t.” I flinched from him. I lifted my head. “Logan, when we were apart, I would tell you to try to move on, and you would say there was no one for you but me. And then, now that we’re back together, you take the first chance you get to exploit that little loophole I agreed to on the plane. I just don’t… it’s not like you.”
Logan studied his fingernails. “This was different.”
“How?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know if it happened,” he said.
“Well, now I know, and I don’t understand. I want to understand.”
“Are you jealous?” said Logan.
“Yes,” I said. “I am. Is that why you did it? Because you’re jealous of Naelen? Did you want to give me a taste of my own medicine or something?”
“No,” he said. “I really didn’t mean it maliciously. I didn’t think you’d ever find out.”
“So, then why’d you do it?”
“I’ve never had the opportunity to be with another gargoyle,” he said. “And I am a gargoyle, and…”
“So, that’s what you gets you going in the end? Your own species?” I had a horrible thought. What about Naelen? Naelen had a mate out there. A dragon mate, a person he’d be drawn to, and if he met that person…. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I started to pace. “If you’d met another gargoyle girl during the time when we were apart, you would have settled down with her—”
“No,” said Logan. “Look… to be honest, Clarke, I think I thought that being faithful to you, even when we weren’t a couple, was romantic in some way. I thought that if I loved you enough, I could make you come back to me. But then… Naelen showed up, and the two of you are—”
“I’m with both of you,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “We are in a polyamorous relationship, and we are no longer monogamous. I’m not. You’re not. He’s not.”
“I am,” said Naelen. “Actually. I’m not going to sleep with anyone else.”
Logan shrugged. “Whatever. Fine. Your choice, Naelen. I just… it felt like I was being juvenile about the fidelity. I mean, I’m not a kid anymore, and you’re the only woman I ever slept with, and… and I knew that a gargoyle would be safe, that there would be no hurt feelings or broken promises.”
“What? Why not?”
“Do you understand how gargoyle families are organized?” said Logan.
“I know that they’re matriarchal.”
“Exactly,” said Logan. “So, gargoyle children stay with their mother until her death. Both male children and female children. If a female child has her own children, they all stay with the matriarch. There’s no pair bonding. A male doesn’t get into a relationship with a woman and raise children with her. He just, you know, mates. And then goes home to his mother’s house. And he’s a son and an uncle and a brother, but he’s not a boyfriend or husband. Ever. So, I knew that it wouldn’t be like with you. I hurt you when I left you, but a gargoyle woman wouldn’t expect anything from me.”
I blinked. “Is that why you are the way you are? Always needing to move? Not being able to stay with me? Because that’s what male gargoyles do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” He thought about it. “I don’t think it’s like coded in our genes to behave that way. I think the family organization came about because the mages were always killing off the men by having them fight dragons, and the only family structure that lasted was through the mother’s line.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah,” said Logan. “It is.”
And then no one said anything.
Naelen cleared his throat. “Uh, do you want me to give you two a few minutes alone or something?”
“I don’t care if you stay,” said Logan. He looked to me.
I shrugged.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Clarke,” said Logan. “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to follow the rules.”
I took a deep breath. “I did say it was okay.”
“Yeah, but maybe you want to take that back,” said Naelen. “I mean maybe you want to make it so that it’s not okay for either me or him to do that again.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I can’t. I can’t sleep with both of you and then demand that you’re both monogamous to me. It isn’t right.” I squared my shoulders. “Let’s just drop all of this.” I turned to Logan. “Did you find anything else out from the gargoyles?”
“Well, she did tell me how it was that they’ve put together the money to buy the place,” he said. “Apparently, most of the female gargoyles in the clan work outside the home in various capacities. One of her sisters is a doctor, apparently. And another works with stocks and bonds online. I don’t know, they’re all loaded. They want to buy this house and turn it into a bed and breakfast that caters to vacationing gargoyles. There aren’t a lot of places that are able to facilitate the really big gargoyle clans. This place would be perfect for that, though.”
“So, they don’t need the cup?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“And Frederick was probably trying to hide the fact that the mother is hidden up there in the attic from me. That’s why he took the painting.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Logan.
“Although…” I tapped my chin. “When Riley was talking to Calliope and said that he’d made arrangements for her to leave, he said, ‘He says you can go.’”
“I remember that,” said Naelen. “So? He said he was talking about himself, right? Talking in third person.”
“I just don’t know if that rings true to me,” I said. “What if he was talking about his brother? What if he’s known his brother was here all along? That would explain why he won’t let us into the attic. He knows his brother’s up there. And the wards we set wouldn’t be much help if the brother is in the house.”
“Why lie to us about it?” said Logan.
“Maybe he has to. Maybe it’s a compulsion. Maybe he managed to get us here under the pretext of finding the cup—”
“Or maybe the brother wants us here,” said Naelen. “Because he wants us to find the cup for him. A guy like that, who’d be willing to do sacrifices for power, he’d be interested in the magical objects.”
“Yeah, he’d probably rival Cunningham,” Logan muttered. “Asshole against asshole.”
“All right,” I said. “Well, Logan, you find out if you can get into the attic, okay? Talk to Sonya or whatever you need to do.”
“Sure,” said Logan. “But we’ll have to wait until the sun goes down for that.”
“Damn it,” I said. “So, what do we do until then? Keep looking for the stupid cup?”
“Might as well,” said Naelen.
“Ugh.” I rubbed my temples. “I think searching through all those boxes is giving me a headache.”
* * *
There was no pretense made of dinner that night. We couldn’t find Riley anywhere, and the gargoyles seemed to be ignoring us.
None of us could make heads or ta
ils of that. If Riley was so angry with us, why not just kick us out of the house? Unless, of course, he couldn’t kick us out, because his brother was the one who wanted us here after all. We discussed various ways to try to break the compulsion.
The best that we came up with was to take him out of the house and get him far enough away from his brother’s influence that the compulsion would stop.
But we had to get him out of there first. And we couldn’t find him.
The wing upstairs was completely destroyed by the dragons. We couldn’t sleep up there. We discussed possibly leaving the house and going to try to find a hotel. But we felt as if we might be abandoning Riley, and maybe his brother would get angry with him and hurt him if we didn’t stay.
Logan said he’d go and talk to Sonya. Maybe she’d have a solution. He disappeared for a while.
When he came back, he had his arms full of bed sheets. He said there were some rooms in the first floor wing that we could sleep in. Apparently, he’d insisted that we could make up the beds ourselves. Logan and I were fine with it, but Naelen was hopeless. He’d never made a bed in his life, or so he said.
Logan and I showed him how to do it, and he still pronounced himself bewildered.
While we made the beds, Logan told us that Sonya had no idea how to get into the attic room. She said that even the gargoyles who might have that kind of access were acting strangely these days. Sonya didn’t live at the manor full time. She’d been here visiting her uncle, and she said she was concerned, because she’d tried to go out this evening, and she’d had problems with the doors out of the kitchen. They wouldn’t open for her, and she said it sounded pretty much like the door to the attic.
She had given Logan the bedsheets, but she’d been preoccupied. She was heading for the front door to leave, but she had to be stealthy about it, because Frederick didn’t like gargoyles to go out through the front.
Naelen and I listened as we tucked in sheets and moved around his bed. There was hardly room for all of us to fit. These rooms were much smaller. I wondered if they’d maybe been used for servants at one time.
Anyway, once we had the beds made, Naelen closed himself in his room, leaving me alone with Logan. It was his night after all.
Ashes (The Slayer Chronicles Book 3) Page 13