“So you’re just going to go back on your deal with the Servants of Ruthenia?” I asked. “Good luck with that.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I know these people, this Kejetan,” he said. “I can’t just drop him and his rocky friends as clients. That would get me killed in a heartbeat, but I can find out some things that might help you out. There may be a way that I can help your Stanis without their knowing about it if I play this smart.”
“I can help him myself,” I said, bitterness in my voice. “I just need more information from you.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I can’t tell you anything more than I have just now,” he said. “You know how dangerous Kejetan and the Servants of Ruthenia can be. The less you know, the greater chance we all get out of this alive.”
“How do I know you won’t just turn around and give everything we’ve discovered together this week right over to Kejetan?”
Caleb thought for a moment. “Honestly, you don’t,” he said. “But if that were what I was going to do, why would I even bring any of this up to you?”
As frustrating as it was to admit, he had a point. He could have just kept his mouth shut. Still, I needed answers.
“Tell me where they are, Caleb,” I pleaded.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not just yet. I don’t need you exacting justice in your own special way. Not with the friends you have. Rory’s got a temper. She’d want to meet them head-on, and right now, for your safety and especially for mine, I can’t have that.”
“I could beat it out of you,” I threatened.
Caleb grabbed for the trim of his coat, pulling it back while his other hand poised over the vials within like a gunslinger over his gun.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” he said. “We know how that turned out the last time you tried to win against me.”
The image of Rory unconscious on the floor of my great-great-grandfather’s guild hall filled my mind’s eye, as well as my pained helpless memory of the situation. “Maybe I’m willing to take that chance on a rematch.”
“Easy, easy,” he said, backing away another foot, his hands staying poised. “We were getting along so well, too.”
I stood there for a moment longer, the two of us staring at each other in a game of chicken. Given the smile beneath his half-crazed eyes, I could tell the bastard was enjoying this just a bit too much, which only angered me.
Pissed as I was, I had to play this smart myself, so, breaking my gaze away from him as I slumped onto the stool behind me, I crossed my arms, then rubbed my eyes.
“So now what?” I asked.
Caleb let go of his coat and dropped his hands to his side, walking back over to me.
“I could have kept quiet,” he reminded. “I could have kept pretending about who I am and what I know. You never would have known where Stanis is or the things I have done to him, but listen . . . that’s not how I want this. Working with you these past few days . . . This makes so much sense to me, and I think you’re of a similar mind, yes?”
“I still think you should tell me everything you can,” I said.
“I can’t,” he said. “As it stands, it’s bad enough that you know anything. And remember, you can’t tell anyone at the Libra Concordia about this.”
Despite the warm fuzzies I had been feeling a few moments ago, I had to shut all that down.
“If I even get a hint of your screwing me over, Caleb, Desmond Locke will be the first to hear of your extracurricular activities. I can promise you that.”
“Believe me, I don’t want any undue attention from either side of things,” he said, backing away toward the rear of the studio. “I’d hate to get a bad rep for my bad rep.”
“I don’t give a damn about your bad reputation,” I said.
“On no?” he asked. “Not you?”
I smiled at that, and instantly the old Joan Jett song filled my head, but I killed it immediately, try to stay focused.
“No more harm can come to Stanis,” I said. “Do you understand me?”
Caleb held his hands up. “Not by these hands.”
“And until we can figure out how to get him back, at least keep him from harm, Caleb,” I said, stern this time.
He laughed, shaking his head. “I think you’ve got your sense of who’s in danger messed up there. He’s the strong, ancient stone guy. I’m the soft, fleshy creature. Just who exactly is capable of harming whom in this little scenario?”
“You . . . tortured him,” I said, barely able to say the word for all the suffering it held in it. “Which means you have some formidable power if you did that.”
“Actually,” Caleb said. “To be fair, the gargoyle didn’t put up a fight.”
I stood, eyes wide. “He didn’t?”
“Not at first,” he said. Caleb looked to the ceiling shaking his head. “I really don’t get that. I mean, what kind of creature like that doesn’t even put up a fight?”
It was clear to me that a man of such questionable character as Caleb couldn’t fathom it, but I could.
Stanis hadn’t put up a fight because he was protecting me and my family. And what pained me more, it was at the cost of his own well-being, which pulled at my heart. It was even more impressive knowing that Stanis had chosen to give himself over to servitude after having been freed from my great-great-grandfather’s sway, his sacrifice only making me feel doubly conflicted about having just kissed Caleb.
Not that anything of that sort could ever happen between Stanis and me . . .
“Go,” I said, the word flat and lifeless on my lips, the sight of Caleb at once enticing and upsetting me.
Was that true, though? Or was I really more upset with myself for momentarily allowing myself to lose focus?
“If you think you can get Stanis back to our side,” I said, “or break Kejetan’s control over him, you need to do it.”
Caleb sighed. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Once I finished binding him, I gave control to Kejetan, which means I don’t directly have the power to break that bind anymore.”
“So it’s hopeless,” I said, not able to hide the frustration in my voice. “Great.”
Caleb held up a finger and waggled it at me. “I didn’t say that, now, did I? Do you think I would have brought all this up just to torment you if I didn’t have a plan already forming in my head?”
“Well, whatever your plan is, get out of here and get on with it, will you? It’s only a matter of time before Kejetan sets him more directly to the task of harming me, my family, and my friends in his search for Alexander’s secrets. We need to be ready.”
“We will be,” he said, turning away toward the broken French doors leading out onto the terrace.
“How can you be so confident?”
Caleb spun back around, stopping. “Trust me,” he said. “When you hear me sounding this confident, that just means my back’s up against the wall, and I’m not particularly a huge fan of that. Luckily for you, it also puts my mind into panic mode, and that’s when I tend to go a bit hypercreative. I don’t have a full plan yet, but the wheels are turning.”
“Please tell me they’re not hamster wheels in there,” I said, rubbing my temples in the hopes it would help dislodge the ice daggers his cheerful tone was plunging into my mind.
“We can use those wings,” he said, pointing at my latest handiwork just behind me. “Keep working on them.”
“Caleb,” I said, stern as I could as I walked over to the statue. “Now is not the time for my fucking art project.”