“Have you forgotten your humanity so completely?” I asked.
“All that is behind me now,” he said. Devon spread his wings and arms. “Look at me. Do you see even a hint of my old form?”
“No,” I said. “And that is the problem. Whatever and whoever you once were is lost.”
“Flesh is a weakness,” he spat out at me.
I shook my head. “Feeling a little mad with power, are we?”
“Don’t believe me?” he asked, crunching over the rubble toward me. “Let me show you how weak it can be.”
Halfway across what remained of the room he stopped, raised his hands over head, and brought them down onto the art studio’s floor, again and again. The old boards beneath my feet tore apart as the foundation beneath gave way, and my entire section of floor tilted out into the open air, falling away.
Devon spread his wings to keep airborne, but I tumbled down through the air as the broken section of the floor started to drift away from me.
I needed to get control of it and get it back under me if I was going to live. The piece of floor moved farther below me, crashing and rolling down the landslide of debris that was all that remained of one side of our building.
Determined not to end up underneath it all, I lashed out with my will for the stone foundation of the floor piece beneath me, bending it to my control. I twisted it around until the piece lay horizontal enough for me to land on it, and I slammed into it with both knees, grabbing on, scraping my palms on its jagged edges.
Holding on for dear life, I could do little more than control its fall, riding it like a sled, forcing all my will to keep it from rolling over and crushing me. It bounced and sparked off the caved-in part of the building, a rain of broken but recognizable belongings flying by me as I went until the chunk came to a stop on at least a story’s worth of piled wreckage.
I stood, exhausted, staring up at my family’s building. By my best guess, I was roughly where our main living floor used to be. I felt overwhelmed by a nightmarish burst of the surrealness of it all. The damage to my great-great-grandfather’s work had my soul in torment, and when my brother’s winged form landed behind me, I spun around to face him, a newfound fury building in me.
“Give me the book, Alexandra,” he said, holding out a clawed hand.
“After what you’ve done?” I shouted. “I’d rather die.”
Devon let out a disappointed sigh. “So be it,” he said. “What’s one more dead human anyway?”
His wings stretched out, and his sharp stone claws came up as he charged. Stanis’s roar sounded out of the sky above as it erupted with the sound of combat. The crash of stone on stone filled the air like thunder, and seconds later, the broken form of one of Devon’s gargoyle cronies slammed out of the sky into the wreckage of the building. The sound of battle raged on above.
Stanis had definitely arrived, but given the battle above, I was on my own against my brother.
A primal snarl arose from Devon as he closed, gaining speed as he came, my mind becoming a mix of fear and fury. I braced for the impact as my will whipped out into the debris all around me, and by the time Devon would have crashed into me, there was a wall of broken stone, which took most of the blow, standing between us.
Most, but not all.
Chunks of it fell away as I stumbled back, driving me into the open floor of the building. I tumbled over a couch in what used to be our living room and landed hard on bits of broken furniture.
Devon reeled from the impact, sliding partway down the ever-shifting mound of building debris.
I didn’t waste a second. I rolled off the upturned couch and ran for the edge of the living room where the damage began. Picking my way carefully to the still-stumbling Devon below, I called out to the stone all around me. It responded with ease, having been crafted by the master Spellmason, after all. Like pieces of a puzzle, I brought it close to my body, fitting it over my form as I went. By the time I arrived at Devon, I looked roughly like one of the jagged stone men he and Kejetan had once been.
“What could you possibly hope to do to me?” he shouted. “Kill me? It’s not in your nature, Alexandra.”
He swung at me, his claws slamming into my right side. Pieces of stone chipped away, the pain of the blow cutting into me, but it was lessened by my stone suit.
“That’s the great thing about nature,” I said. “It allows for evolution.”
My mind and body worked as one. When I swung my arm, so too swung the stone of my suit. While my own physical strength stood little chance against my brother, each of my blows was stronger than that, powered instead by my will.
My fists hammered into Devon, driving him back as he fought to strike, but he could not keep up. His own attempts to combat me turned defensive as he curled his wings around him in a ball—but I would not let up. The pain of everything he’d done was too great for me to relent. I smashed at him till his wings fell open, and I brought both hands swinging from left to right at his head, the blow knocking him over.
His body slid down the pile, and I went to him, my rational mind taking over. What was I truly prepared to do? Devon was barely moving by then, just looking up at me, sensing my hesitation and managing to get out a weak laugh.
“You sure have toughened up since I used to torment you down in the family crypt,” he said, and while the words stung, I shook my head.
“Don’t,” I said. “You’re preying on my humanity, my sympathy for who you were. Don’t you dare try to pretend like there’s any kind of connection between us now.”
“But there is,” he said, anger rising in him. “You’ve got your precious memories, your weak humanity, your flesh that makes you hesitate right now. You’re not going to kill me, Alexandra, and even if you did, my spirit has already occupied two stone vessels. I’ll just find another.”
Damn him, but he was right. While I felt like I could end this creature that had once been my brother, there was always a chance he might find a way back. The pack on my back squirmed against me, and I let the stone suit around me fall away, the pieces rolling off onto the pile of debris.
“That’s a smart girl,” he said. “Showing your compassion, even for your annoying older brother.”
“You’re not my brother,” I said, removing my backpack once the last of the stone suit dropped away.
“Of course I am,” Devon said, struggling to get off his back, pressing his wings up to get some leverage.
I unzipped the pack. Bricksley was squished in there with several of my other items. Alexander’s stone spell book, my own spell notebook . . . but it was the box from Caleb that Bricksley’s tiny clay hands tapped against.
“You’re not my brother,” I repeated, sliding the box out and opening it. I plucked the orb from within and held it in the palm of my hand, the elixir which Caleb had used to control Stanis swirling around like a miniature tempest within it.
Devon looked up at it from where he knelt before me, wary. “What is that?”
I hesitated, and this time I was glad for that most human of sensations. To do what I was about to do without hesitation would mean I, too, was as monstrous as Devon.
“An insurance policy,” I said, and smashed the orb down on his head. The liquid oozed over him, a fine mist rising up from it until the air around him became a thick, noxious, gray cloud.
Devon screamed, falling back to the ground.
The sounds of combat overhead had stopped, and the graceful form of Stanis descended out of the air, a stark contrast to the writhing, mewling mass before me that was Devon.
“Forgive my lateness,” Stanis said. “I believe I was what you call tricked.”