Page 46 of Hearts of Stone

Eyes wide as she stared down at the street below, she slowly pulled free of my arm, before carefully stepping backwards and turning to look at the three of us.

“Where the hell are we?” she asked.

“On top of Whiteley House,” Graven replied, stepping in between her and the edge, his wings partially unfurled. “You may know that when Britain first set up the colony of South Australia, a small number of families were granted massive tracts of land by the Crown. The Whiteley family was one of them. They made a great deal of money from farming the fertile land, land that had been taken from the First Nations people who had inhabited it for so long. And some of the Whiteleys spent their money here, creating the grand buildings of Adelaide city.” He gestured towards the examples of classic architecture that lined the quiet street below. “But some of these buildings…they were created for a special purpose. Hold out your hand.”

“Why?!” she asked, still clutching the bouquet against her, while keeping her other hand resolutely by her side.

“You needn’t be afraid,” I said, reaching out and taking her unencumbered hand, rubbing my thumb over the back of it.

“You wished for answers,” Graven continued. “Well, many of them are recorded within this building, and in other sites around the city centre. The original colonists brought rabbits and foxes and guns and smallpox with them when they travelled over the waves,” he said, “but they also brought something of great value.” He moved slowly towards her. “Knowledge. And that knowledge can only be revealed to those with the power to see.”

At first, rather than seeing her power, I felt it, a pulsing sensation, deep within me, that flared out with a burst of heat as light appeared in the palm of the hand I held. I wanted to keep her hand in mine, to feel that warmth drive away all of the night’s chill, but I couldn’t allow myself that luxury. Light illuminates, that was what the adepts had always told us, even as we lurked in the shadows. And as Graven took her hand from me and raised it high, I saw the truth in it. The verdigris bronze of the pavilion roof, the polished green and white marble of the floor all came to life.

“What…?”

She couldn’t even put her question into words as she stared up at the incised markings that came to life all over the domed ceiling. Stars were drawn there, with mathematical precision. Clouds were illustrated, too, but it was the falling gargoyles that caught our attention.

“You have questions and we have answers, if you are brave enough to hear them,” he told her.

I was so damn proud of Jade as I saw her back straighten, her chin lift.

“What do I do?”

“Touch the medallionin the centre of the floor,” Graven instructed. When she did, the power pulsed out, washing over us all, taking our breath away. The pulsating power engaged a mechanism which began to whirr, lowering us down into the upper levels of Whiteley House.

Chapter 26

Jade

What in the Indiana Joneswasthis shit?

What I’d thought was the very solid floor of an unusual little stone gazebo, located on top of a beautiful old building I’d walked past many times, had become some kind of clockwork lift, sinking down through the roof of the building and bringing us here.

“What…?” When the platform came to a stop, I couldn’t help but stare, so much so that I stumbled off the podium, misjudging the distance, or perhaps it was just the impact of the massive room, which had to be the length and breadth of the building, and its gleaming parquet floors and elaborate polished timber moulding. But where the usual historic building might have had oil paintings on the walls, complete with gilt frames, this had a massive mural that spanned the entire length of the room.

The roses fell from my fingers, left discarded on the floor as I moved closer. The mural was designed with the angular precision of the Art Deco movement, and was coloured in deep burnished tones. War-like gargoyles raged across the walls, wings flung wide, the sun behind their backs.

“The sun—?” I asked.

“This isbeforethe Fall,” Graven informed me as we all moved closer. “We were a warlike race, a careless one. What European cultures recorded as demons was probably the best way to describe us.”

At that, I looked him and the others up and down.

“Well, you don’t seem especially demonic now.”

“My mother would’ve torn strips from me if I had dared try that kind of thing,” Carrick said, nodding towards the images of gargoyles swooping in and lifting screaming women in their arms, women who just happened to have their breasts bouncing free, as seemed to happen so often in paintings of historical events. “That is not how we were taught to pay court to our mate.”

“Mate…?” I said the word cautiously.

“That was the ‘curse’ of the Fall,” Graven said, stepping closer to the mural, looking just like a Sunday gallery goer peering at a painting by one of the Old Masters. “One of our forebears killed his fated mate before he even knew what she was to him. Not deliberately but…”

He nodded at the next panel, where a fierce looking woman hunched protectively over the fallen form of her daughter.

“In her fury, she turned the gargoyle who had killed her daughter to stone. She wept for her child for days and nights. Then, when she calmed down…”

In the next panel, the woman now stood, hand outstretched with great streams of what looked like lightning shooting from her fingertips.

“She made sure no gargoyle would ever hurt a woman again. They would turn to stone during the day, return to their true forms at night, and all of their considerable power would be tied to the witch that bound them.”

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