Page 33 of Witch Untold
“What?”
She blew out a breath. “Yeah. Regular gargoyles turn to stone in the daytime and it’s like an imposed sleep until they wake at dusk, but Lauris’s body is paralyzed during sunlight hours while his mind is aware. He uses that time to sleep, but he can be woken, and if he is, then he’s trapped, awake, aware, and helpless.”
Oh, fuck. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, rumor has it that as a child it almost drove him insane.” She headed for the door and I followed. “I’ll rally him at sundown, and we’ll meet you at the atrium at dusk.”
We headed back through the network of stone corridors and up the steps to the main floor of the mansion. Heat washed over me in a wave of bliss. Thank fuck for central heating and modern amenities.
The smell of food wafted out to greet me from the dining hall and my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.
“Get some food,” Sloane said. “You’ll need the energy.” Her gaze dropped to my feet. “Please tell me you have an appropriate pair of boots for the arctic temperatures in your vast collection.”
I cast my mind across the boots I’d brought along. “I’ve got it covered.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
She headed off, probably back to The Elite quarters, and I made a beeline for the dining hall.
A gust of air brushed my hair over my shoulders and then a spectral form appeared directly in front of me.
“He’s waking up.” Dorothy’s eyes were wide with urgency. “Hurry.”
“What?” I stared at the ghost of the elder witch. “Who’s waking up?”
She made a sound that was part exasperation, part frustration. “Wren. Wren’s waking up. Hurry.”
She rushed past me and up the stairs.
Wren was waking up? Wren, the potential killing machine, was waking up? Fuck!
I broke into a run toward the library.
Chapter Eleven
Wren was sitting on the sofa in the library, silver threads pooled on the floor at his feet, eyelids heavy with sleep. He rubbed his face with his paws as I approached and greeted me with a yawn that exposed his tiny sharp teeth.
Dorothy hovered close by, keeping her distance from Wren like I’d instructed. This was supposed to happen in a controlled environment. If what Conah predicted was true, then Wren would be a monster. He’d be a killer or working up to being one. Except he looked exactly the same as he had prior to being cocooned.
“Wren, are you okay?”
He pouted for a long beat, as if considering the question, and then nodded. “Wren feels okay. Is Cora okay?”
He sounded the same too. “I’m fine, buddy. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”
He frowned and rubbed his head. “Wren had a nap.”
I took another step toward him, Conah’s warnings conflicting with my instinct to scoop him up. “Wren, you’ve been sleeping for days. Do you feel…different?”
“No.” He blinked away the sleep and fixed his huge brown eyes on me.
Cuteness overload. No. No. Focus, Cora. Conah had said Wren would be changed, physically and behaviorally, but this was regular fluffy Wren.
Still, I needed to be sure. “Um…are you hungry?”
He shrugged. “Wren could eat.”
Okay, that wasn’t the gusto of the pre-cocooned Wren. “And what do you want to eat?”
