He did not return.
Not the monster, and not the stonemason.
Mayka waited on top of the roof for a long time, watching the horizon, while people swarmed below, tending to those who had been hurt by fallen stone, clearing the debris from the street, and comforting one another. Several blocks had been damaged by the monster, in a swath that led from the Festival Square to the Inn District.
The two birds perched beside her, and Kisonan stayed as well, holding himself still and watching the horizon with them. When the first few stars began to appear, Kisonan spoke. “I do not think he is coming back. Strong, fierce, and merciless, the monster defended Skye.”
Far below, in the square, the owl was wailing about curfew, but Mayka ignored him. Let them come up here, if they wanted, and drag her down. She wasn’t ready to leave yet.
They waited through the night, watching the stars march across the sky.
Only when sun rose again and the monster did not return did Mayka and Kisonan come down from the arch—it wasn’t an easy climb, since they hadn’t gotten up there in a normal way. But she used her chisel and hammer to make handholds for herself, and Kisonan had his claws. The two birds, of course, flew.
The Stone Quarter was a disaster. Master Siorn had marched his monster through the wall to the Festival Square. Mayka saw stone creatures out cleaning with their stonemasons, going through the rubble looking for what was salvageable.
At Master Siorn’s, the house itself was standing, but the back was torn open—the monster must have stomped out through the back wall of the workroom.
She hurried toward the door, and the otters came out to greet her. “You did it!”
“We all did it,” she said, examining them—all of them seemed whole, though one had a chip in its tail. “He’s gone, and I don’t think he’s coming back. The monster carried him off. Is everyone okay? Is Garit here?”
“Inside,” they said, and then they clambered over Kisonan, greeting him.
She found Garit in the workroom.
The wall had been shredded, and the roof was ripped off. Sunlight poured in, and stone dust twinkled in the air. Jacklo and Risa flew in from above.
Garit was still dressed in his apprentice gear, but he had a bandage around one arm. He was cleaning up rubble around the worktables.
“It worked,” Mayka said.
He smiled, a broad happy smile, as if his home hadn’t just been destroyed. “It really did. And no one blames me for what he did, or what he tried to do.”
Mayka smiled back.
“Everyone’s saying the mark was a disaster.”
“Good,” Mayka said.
“Even better, they know that stone creatures were the ones who stopped the monster,” he said. “Lots of people saw you all attack him. You’re heroes. There’s a bunch of different stories already about what happened. No one knows you changed the mark.”
“Good. Very good. Let them tell whatever stories they want. So long as the stories have a happy ending.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other creatures filter into the workroom: the otters, the mishmash creatures, Kisonan. “We’re going back home. I just wanted to make sure all of you were okay first.”
“We’re fine,” Garit said, “but Si-Si . . .” He knelt next to the little dragon and then looked up at Mayka. “Will you stay long enough to help me finish her? You’re good with marks. I could use your help.”
Mayka opened her mouth to say that she was needed at home, but then she closed it. He thinks I’m good! I think . . . maybe he’s right. She could take the time for this. She had already found the perfect stonemason for her family. Mayka glanced at Risa and Jacklo.
“Of course you have to help her,” Jacklo said.
Risa nodded. “Of course.”
Si-Si beamed at all of them. “Really truly?”
“Really truly,” Mayka told her.
Garit taught her as they worked, explaining techniques she’d seen Father do so naturally, breaking them down into steps. She practiced on shards of stone, and then she and Garit worked on Si-Si, reshaping the little dragon so that her wings would hold her. While they carved, Mayka told him about the new story she’d given the monster, and then, when he asked, she told him other stories, about Father as she knew him and her friends on the mountain.
As they worked and talked, flesh-and-blood people began to arrive. First were guards, who came to thank them. Others—men, women, and children of all ages—came to gawk at them, the stone creatures who had attacked the monster.
At dawn the next day, Ilery came with her parents. The mishmash creatures fed them breakfast while Ilery visited with Mayka. Garit continued to work on Si-Si while the two girls talked.
“The mural is gone,” Ilery told her. “I’m sorry.”
Mayka considered it for a few minutes. “It’s okay. That’s not the way I remember Father anyway.” She thought of the image of the two graves. He may have carved her to replace his daughter who died, but did that make Mayka any less of a daughter to him?
No, she thought. I was his daughter too. He loved me.
She’d never doubted that, and she wasn’t going to start now. She was sure he’d loved his first daughter, and he’d loved her too. She was just as real to him. “To me, to all of us, he was Father, not the famous Master Kyn. He made us, and he loved us.” Saying it out loud made her feel better. He may have been a hero to Skye, but she had her own stories about him, and she liked those better anyway. He was happier in her stories.
“What will you do now?” Ilery asked. “Will you stay, or do you still plan to return home? I’ve heard the council is going to end the curfew, and there’s even talk of not rebuilding the wall around the Stone Quarter—the people liked that stone creatures stopped the monster, and all the stonemasons have been denouncing what Master Siorn did. Things are going to get better for stone creatures here.”
“I belong at home,” Mayka said. “We’re going to leave as soon as Si-Si flies. But the offer still stands for you to visit me.”
“I will someday,” Ilery said, “when I can.”
“Whenever you want to,” Mayka said. “You’re always welcome.”
After they finished carving Si-Si’s body, Mayka lay on the floor with papers in front of her. She drew, sketching out mark after mark, telling of Si-Si’s wish for the sky, her wish to be free of the earth, her wish to be one with the wind, like the dragons of legend whose story she bore.
Peering over her shoulder, Garit frowned. “But that’s not like any of the flight marks I’ve ever seen. It’s all about wind and the sky. It doesn’t even match what’s on the birds.” He pulled out his notes. “See, I’ve studied all the attempts at flight marks by dozens of stonemasons over decades.” He then brandished a fresh piece of paper, with new marks on it. “And here’s what I think we should do, based on what they’ve already tried.”
Mayka looked over the marks, both Garit’s and the other older stonemasons’. All of them, without exception, were about the mechanics of flight: lift, thrust, balance. Garit’s was more advanced, but it was still all about the technical details of how to fly. It didn’t touch the heart of what it meant to soar, free on the wind, with the sun above and the world with all its worries and regrets shrunk small below. “Mine will work. Si-Si, what do you think?” Mayka asked.
“Mayka’s marks tell my story,” Si-Si said. “Carve those.”
And so they did, carefully and painstakingly. Garit did the majority of the work, since he had both more experience and more training, but Mayka was there every step of the way, guiding the lines and carefully watching to be certain the story was right.
At last, when it was finished, they stepped back and studied Si-Si.
She was the same, but sleeker, with bubbles of air within her that reflected the light shining through her stone. She spread her wings. “Are you certain this will work?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Mayka said. “You have the story now. You just have to make it yours.”
“We’ll fly with you,” Risa said. “Follow us.” She flapped her wings and took off in an upward spiral. Sunlight glittered above her, and soon she was a dot against the sky.
Jacklo stayed with Si-Si. “You spread your wings and then push down, catch the wind beneath them. And then—look to the clouds!”
Si-Si began to flap. She rose off the workbench.
“You’re doing it!” Garit cried.
The little dragon smiled. One wing flapped harder than the other, and she veered to the side and crashed into a boulder.
Garit started to go to her, but Mayka put a hand on his arm to stop him.
Si-Si righted herself. With Jacklo and Risa encouraging her, she flapped again, and this time rose higher. She spiraled up with the birds toward the hole in the roof. Wobbling in the wind, she flew unsteadily toward the sky.
She looked awkward and ungainly, as if she was about to crash at any moment.
But she flew.
As they watched, she flew higher and higher, free of the earth and one with the sky.