“Prepare for what, though?” she shouted. “What does your father plan to do?”
“I am not sure,” I said, working my wings to lift me higher into the night sky. Already the dominant voice was directing me back out over Manhattan, heading out to sea and the freighter. “The question is, will you be ready?”
Nine
Alexandra
I’d had nightmares where the totality of my great-great-grandfather’s knowledge was lost to me, destroyed, but no matter how horrific they had been, the reality of his tossed-around studio space felt far worse. The Belarus Building had been my home, but the library and art studio had been my heart, my inner sanctum all my life. To see it as a mass grave of books and art crushed that heart. Then to find Stanis the one responsible only drove a stake through what was left of it.
Seeing him tonight—cold though he was toward me—only reminded me how much I missed the warmth of his protection. Even though I was proving capable of watching out for myself, it had always been a comfort to know he had been watching my back. I missed it more and more in the face of his not being at—or on—my side now. I longed for the companionship of the old Stanis, but all that remained of him, unfortunately, was the destruction he had caused, still plentiful all around me.
Although I had promised myself to keep my friends out of harm’s way, I needed to reach out to someone and called Rory and Marshall. The danger had passed, the damage done, and I doubted this new, corrupted version of Stanis would return—at least not for a little while.
I couldn’t just stand there amid the chaos of the broken room waiting for them. I’d go mad. I needed to feel productive somehow and grabbed up one of the mannequin forms and set about designing a new gargoyle from scratch. It was clear the current one wasn’t going to prove very helpful to us, and the distraction of modeling a wire-and-clay frame for wings was very therapeutic just then.
I was still standing back from the figure, checking the symmetry of the wings, when I heard Rory and Marshall scurrying up the fire escape outside, still not quite able to take in the events of my evening.
“What in holy hell happened here?” Rory asked as she stepped with caution past the broken French doors.
“Are you all right?” Marshall whispered, grabbing me by the shoulders and looking me over.
I nodded. “Physically? Yeah. Emotionally, not so much.”
“What happened?” Rory asked, dropping her dance bag.
I paused, trying to keep myself together before answering. “Stanis happened.”
Rory’s eyes went wide. “You saw him?!”
Marshall let go of me and spun around quick.
“Is he still here somewhere?” he said, whispering as he peered off into the darkness surrounding us.
I shook my head.
Rory leaned down and picked up one of the broken puzzle boxes at her feet. One of the drawers—once secret—slid out and fell onto a pile of books. “What the hell was he fighting that caused this much damage?”
“Stanis wasn’t fighting anything,” I said. “He did this all himself.”
Rory stepped back, narrowing her eyes at me. “Lexi, do you know how insane that sounds?”
“I do,” I said. “And I wish I had a different answer for you. But honestly, I don’t. This was all Stanis.”
“Why would he do this, especially to you?” Marshall asked, flipping one of the upended couches back over before collapsing onto it.
“We freed him,” I said. “Now he serves a different master.” Just saying the words out loud sent a sharp pain through me.
“How?” Marshall called out.
I shrugged. “I don’t know how they did it,” I said. “I just know they did.”
Rory’s eyes lit up, and she raised her voice in disbelief. “Hold on,” she said. “Stanis left—went with Kejetan—to protect us . . . I mean, really you, right?” I nodded. “This is how he does that?”
I looked at the couch to see Marshall shaking his head.
“We freed him,” he contested, “so he didn’t have to serve anyone. That was the whole point!”
Rory looked around the room. She pulled the art tube off her back, put together her pole arm, and scooped up a half-torn book with the end of it. “And whoever did this to him made him a dick,” she said.
“Rory!” I scolded, more out of frustration than anger with her. She was right.
Marshall stood. “So if Stanis is serving a new master, and they put him up to this . . . did he actually get the secrets he came for?”
“I think I have an answer for that,” I said, going to the spot where I had laid my backpack down earlier. I undid the upper straps and pulled out the heavy stone book from within. “No.”
“That book right there is great power,” Marshall said, pointing to it. “Alexander knew it. It’s why he hid it all away from the world. You put that much power out there, and people are going to want it; and not all of those who wish to wield great power want the same thing. In your hands, Lexi, and with your motivations, there’s a chance you’d be asked to join the Justice League. In another person’s hands? Totally Legion of Doom.”
I nodded. “Stanis knew I had the book on me, but . . . he went out of his way to stop me from talking about it.”
“But why not just take it?” Rory asked.
“Because despite who or whatever is controlling him now,” I said, “Stanis is still in there somewhere, trying to keep us from harm. He could have crushed me and taken the book, but he didn’t. Stanis is in there with whatever else is in control, and he’s fighting to find ways around it.”
“So what do we do?” Marshall asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. There’s a good chance that if he sees me again, Stanis will be forced to take the book from me, or do something . . . worse.”
“How do you take a gargoyle down?” Rory asked.
I glared at her. “Rory!”
She shrugged. “Sorry, Lexi. It’s just . . . I know it’s Stanis and all, but if it comes down to you or him, I’m always going to choose you.”
Everyone was silent for a moment before Marshall spoke. “I’m afraid I’m with Rory on this one, Lexi.”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks about what the Servants of Ruthenia might force Stanis to do,” I shouted. “I won’t believe even then he would hurt me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to find out the hard way,” Rory said, just as loud, getting up in my face. “Lexi—”
“No,” I said, interrupting. “I’m taking Stanis back. They made him like this, and I’m taking him back. He won’t hurt me. I know it.”
“I’m not willing to take that risk,” Rory said, stamping her pole arm on the floor.
“Ladies,” Marshall said, speaking up. “Stop it.”
“No,” I said. “Let’s have this out. So this is how we operate now, Rory? At the first sign of trouble, we abandon our friend when he needs us?”
“You haven’t seen him in months,” Rory countered. “You don’t know what’s been going on or what’s happened to him. For all you know, he’s just as likely to snap your neck because his new master told him to do it. There may be Stanis’s soul still in there somewhere, but someone else is calling the shots, and that body is still—what’s Marshall’s word . . . ?”
“A construct,” he said, “but listen. We can’t fight like this . . .”
“We don’t abandon our own,” I shouted back in Rory’s face.
“Ladies,” Marshall repeated.