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Rosamunde grabbed a deep breath and shouted. “Joseph, I just spoke with Vojalie. She wants Stone in your house now.”
When she heard the sound of locks turning, hope rose.
A moment later, the door opened a crack, then wider so Joseph could see both her and Stone.
With his forehead wrinkled like an old man, the gremlin wore a severe expression. The color of his skin was paper white except for a few yellowing spots. He had a long narrow nose and stood a foot-and-a-half tall. Even so, he wore hip boots to fit his diminutive size, leather pants, and a woven shirt in the Guardsman style. His hair stuck out in long reddish-brown tufts. His fingers were his best feature, however, long and shapely. They moved constantly. Gremlin’s loved to work with their hands.
Mostly, they pilfered.
Stole.
Burgled.
Schemed.
And were a wretchedly secretive bunch.
Joseph lowered his gaze to Stone. Rosamunde followed his widening eyes, and for the first time she saw the wound Margetta had inflicted.
Her stomach turned.
Blood seeped from a messy through-wound in his abdomen where Margetta’s battle energy had blown straight through Stone.
Joseph made a disgusted snorting sound, rolled his eyes and threw the door wide.
With her wind still swirling behind her, she tried to levitate Stone straight in, but nothing happened.
“This area out here is a magical dead-zone, stupid fae-wolf. I’ll have to get my sling.” He flung a hand toward the ceiling. She saw an overhead track running from the doorframe that held a series of pulleys and hooks.
She didn’t understand how a simple forest gremlin could be in possession of so much power that he could block some of her abilities. Had to be a black market spell of some kind.
He came back with a wheelbarrow piled high with canvas. She levitated Stone forward to the point where the magic stopped her. Joseph intervened and used his own considerable kinetic levitating abilities to unfurl the canvas beneath Stone.
With Joseph’s directions, Stone was soon secure in the sling. Tears were in her eyes with this terrible, useless delay in getting him safely inside.
But the moment Joseph moved the sling, the wheels on the rails whipped forward like lightning. The well-oiled apparatus shot into the house and Rosamunde had to fly quickly to keep up.
The house was entirely underground with dozens, maybe hundreds of small rooms jutting off either side of the main hallway. Each room was well-lit and full of so much polished junk, it looked like a hoarder’s paradise. If there’d been any doubt about Joseph’s essential nature, the gaudy showrooms confirmed him as a gremlin thief.
Joseph stopped the sling abruptly near a long slab of beautiful gray marble. He guided the sling directly overhead, then lowered Stone until he lay flat.
“He’s bleeding.” Joseph made another raspberry-like sound from the side of his mouth.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” She resisted the urge to scream her frustration.
She thought Joseph would either begin the healing process himself or summon Kaden. Instead, his gaze roved the metal clasp at the shoulder of Stone’s Guard uniform, then down to the dozen antique silver studs lining the outer seams of both boots.
“Would you stop weigh
ing the value of Mastyr Stone’s silver embellishments and start healing him?” Her voice had moved into a screech that sounded more owl-like than wolf. But she was desperate.
Joseph, levitating across the slab from Rosamunde, made another disgusted snorting sound with the usual accompanying eye-roll. “I don’t have the power to manage a battle wound like this one. Besides,” he sniffed the air, “it carries Margetta’s taint which means a poison is working in him. This man is dead.”
Rosamunde lifted both hands in the air. “But I thought you could do something.”
“You thought wrongly. Goddess save me from idiots.”
Rosamunde had never known such distress as in this moment. Tears rolled down her face. “Dear Goddess, what have I done? What I have done?”
