Page 130 of Oath of Rebellion

He'd gotten a surge of energy when they'd finished the mating rituals earlier. He pulled her to his side and wrapped an arm around her waist.

She bit her lip and hesitated, then led him off the Lone Road and parallel to the edge of the forest. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He squeezed her hip. "Come on. Out with it. It doesn't sound like you're fine. What's bothering you?"

She sighed as they neared a familiar glen. She waved a hand at the sight before them. Lailant stood next to the secret entrance to the castle, the grate open as Ashur helped pull people up the ladder.

Knox frowned. "I thought all the prisoners would've been out of there by now. What's going on?"

Ashur looked up. He looked like he'd aged in the hours since they'd been separated. He turned back to help someone else up through the grate.

Knox blinked. It wasn't really a person though, was it?

The heavyset man heaved through, another voice grumbling behind him. But the man had clock hands for a mustache. His hair looked like the curling wood of a grandfather clock. He stepped to the side and opened his jacket, popping the buttons on his shirt.

"Hobbs!" Eirwyn gasped, running to the man and touching his arm in comfort.

He began to curse. "Hells, your majesty, what am I supposed to do with this?"

Knox rubbed his head but before Eirwyn could answer, the next person came through the grate.

"You're a clock. That's not so bad. Look at me, for drake's sake."

"Miere! Oh thank the gods, I was worried about you two. Cookie is safe. Did you see her come up? She's just gone through to the Lone Road where we've set up camp."

Knox looked at the thin man, his hair dripping wax as a flame flickered from the top of his head. Two more flames rose from his shoulders, and he turned and blew one out.

It relit itself, and the two men began arguing over whose curse was worse, each seeking Eirwyn's counsel as she led them to the road. She smiled and nodded, but just let the men talk. She handed them off neatly to a large woman with an apron.

Lailant stood to the side of the glen, and Eirwyn walked back to her with a frown as she whispered. Knox wanted to wrap an arm around her waist, needed to touch her.

He looked back at Ashur as he handed someone else up from the ladder, but he didn't appear to need any help. So he followed his heart and stepped over to Eirwyn, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Eirwyn asked Lailant, "They were caught in Bella's curse? Did it change all the people in the castle into something else?"

Lailant nodded. "Yes, the poor girl's gone quite mad in her grief. She's mixed her illusions with transmutation and who knows what else."

Eirwyn's voice shook as she asked, "Did she really love my brother, then?"

Lailant looked at them both. "She thought she loved him, mostly because of that awful mirror."

At the mention of the mirror, Knox' mind whirled. What was so important about that? It nagged at him, but he was too tired to remember what was so familiar. He raked a hand down his face.

Ashur began to close the grate, but Lailant stabbed the ground with her cane.

"Wait, gargoyle. There's one more."

Ashur rubbed his head, and his hair didn't move. Knox blinked, but Eirwyn snapped her fingers. "That's it. That's why you look so familiar."

His friend had been cursed too. His skin was as marble, and his brown hair now looked to be chiseled in stone. Wings hung heavy behind him.

"Did you say gargoyle?" Knox asked, his brows high.

Ashur glared at him, then reached a hand inside the hole in the ground. "Don't start, mate," Ashur growled.

Eirwyn said, "You look just like the gargoyle's that were on the roof of the castle. I used to pretend they were my friends when I was a child, before I learned to escape."

Ashur shook his head with a sigh and pulled a woman up. Knox was tired and still trying to comprehend the change that had come over Ashur.

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