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“How far did you get in the book?” He completely ignored my question, right back to being Percy 1.0 who was insufferable, but still terribly clever.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I never made it past the first page of the Marigold heirloom book of magic. Even with my magic unblocked, it was impossible to understand.”
“Where is it now?”
“I left it in my room, but I’m not sure there’s anything left of my room. The living room was pretty…” I shuddered and he put his arms around me, holding me for too short a time before he grabbed his computer and sat down on his bed to start typing on it. He shouldn’t look so good with a computer on his bed, particularly right now when everything was such a mess, but he did. He looked like he should have two cups of hot cocoa, and we could curl up together and watch a movie, not try to find my mother’s kidnappers, maybe murderers.
He shook his head. “This couldn’t be about something so trivial as a magic book.”
“A Marigold heirloom doesn’t sound trivial, but you’re probably right because it felt like it was a setup, like her phone was left in all that blood where my dad would find it, like they wanted to trigger the next stone age.”
He flashed a smile at me. “It’s irresistible for gargoyles to make stone puns. It’s incredibly satisfying, isn’t it?”
“Finding my mom, that would be incredibly satisfying,” I said, but he wasn’t wrong about the pun thing. “Who would know that my dad would have so much potential for destruction, and that he could be set off like that?”
“Basically, everyone at the party earlier. Someone there must have taken your phone, but it’s hard to believe that a gargoyle would willingly work with a demon.”
“It makes perfect sense, because no one would believe it. What about Mrs. Hanley?”
He blinked at me. “Was she at the party?”
I shook my head. “No, she lost her job after the demon in the library incident, like it’s her fault that someone summoned a demon, unless it was her, because she was right there, and it would have been much easier for her to do it than anyone else.”
He raised a hand. “Actually, she got fired because she almost ripped someone’s arms off.”
I stared at him and pointed at myself. “She lost her job over that? That was nothing.”
“It took me so much energy to heal that ‘nothing,’ so, yeah, she deserved to get fired if she couldn’t control her emotions and put other lives in danger.”
“Are you telling me that you’re the one who got her fired? She hired me in the first place, and maybe she was…” I shook my head. “Let’s focus. She’s a suspect, and we can clear her after we finish compiling a list. Who else had a motive?”
“Many, many people hate Singsong and would destroy it and the unnatural marriage between light and dark, but most of those people would never harm a gargoyle to do so. Scott wasn’t at the party earlier, but perhaps one of his friends could have taken your phone when you weren’t paying attention.”
“He was at the party. He blocked my way, so he was close enough that he could have stolen my phone… but no, because I texted my mom after that. Only…” That message had been weird, sudden, and she wouldn’t have remembered the earlier conversation about asking him, most likely.
“What about the bodyguards? Could one of them have been bought off? I’m feeling like there was a decoy phone, like he ripped off all my info and had a spy in our courtyard.” My heart pounded rapidly at the thought of being spied, someone setting up this elaborate plot and murder, while I obliviously thought that I was safe.
Percy whistled and clicked a few more buttons. “Looks like we’ve got a motive for Scott. He was the Bellham heir before you showed up.” He looked at me over the computer with sadness in his eyes that didn’t match his light tone.
I stared at him while my stomach dropped into my shoes. This whole thing was impossible. Only an evil person would summon a demon, not a gargoyle, a protector of humanity. “He’s my cousin or something?”
He shrugged. “Second cousin, but he may have had the loyalty of one of your father’s guards over you, if they had a more traditional view on half gargoyles or females taking a position of authority…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I need direct access to the mainframe to get everything on Scott. Mrs. Hanley’s office is unoccupied. Shall we? I’ll let you break in, since you’re so good at it.” He opened the door and gestured me out, still holding his computer with one hand.
I swallowed hard and went out into the hall. “Why do we need the mainframe to find out more about Scott? He sounds like a dead ringer.”
“Except that it’s still unthinkable that a gargoyle would summon a demon. I can get all the personal information on him from the mainframe, assets he owns, roommates he’s had, family members who might know where he is that can be threatened or bribed…” He shrugged. “We need to find your mom fast.”
“The Librarian and The Scholar are trying to keep my dad’s stone from spreading. I have no idea what they’ll be able to do, but hopefully something.”
“Ah. I forget how scary you are sometimes.”
“And then I enchant bugs.”
“On accident.” He flashed me a smile and grabbed my hand, the contact somehow giving me more comfort than I should take from a vicious liar like him. “We’re going to find her,” he said as we jogged down the hall, passing random students who I couldn’t help look at suspiciously.
Had a random student raised a demon that we’d never be able to track down? What if there was a secret cult of demon worshippers led by Mrs. Hanley?
We got to her office in the same building as the library, but on the opposite side. It was a small nondescript door, and I fumbled with the lock for a few minutes before it turned and a spell came flying at me that would have killed me if Percy hadn’t blocked it almost negligently, before casting his own spell, kicking the door open and then throwing a paralyzing spell at the person inside Mrs. Hanley’s office, which was… Mrs. Hanley.
