Page 20 of Petrified

“You thought he was hiding behind something,” I say.

“I did.” She flips through several pages quickly. “Because when I actually saw him stone, he looked normal. I never had a reason to think the form itself was different.”

Amand leans forward. “But what if you only saw him when he wanted you to?”

Medusa’s hand stops.

Lev looks between them. “I would like everyone to stop having increasingly irritating realizations without immediately sharing them.”

Medusa drags the book closer and scans the page. “If he was using a defensive subtype, I may have been seeing him after he shifted position or deliberately broke the effect. I wouldn’t have known there was anything to notice.”

Lev closes his own book and pushes it aside. “Okay. Defensive subtype is more useful than another chapter explaining that gargoyles are hard when they turn into rocks. What are we actually looking for?”

“Concealment. Environmental adaptation. Mineral mimicry.” Medusa begins searching through the older material again, moving faster now. “Anything that describes stone changing based on where the gargoyle shifts.”

Lev’s brows lift. “Mineral mimicry sounds suspiciously close to something I should’ve been told about three crime scenes ago.”

“I didn’t know it was relevant.”

“You dated him.”

“I didn’t conduct scientific examinations every time he took a nap.”

“Missed opportunity.”

I put a hand on the book between us before Lev can derail the conversation further. “If this exists, how rare are we talking?”

Medusa pulls a thinner volume from beneath another and opens it near the back. “Rare enough that most modern references treat it as extinct or confused with other bloodlines. Gargoyles have been mixing bloodlines for centuries. Some older traits disappear for generations and then surface again.”

Amand looks toward Lev. “That would explain why nobody flagged the designation when the case came in.”

Lev’s mouth twists. “Wonderful. Another rare magical asshole. I’m developing a specialty.”

Medusa finds something and goes quiet long enough that all three of us notice. One of her snakes lowers its head toward the page while she moves a finger beneath a block of faded text.

“This.” She turns the book toward us. “Older quarry bloodline. Defensive adaptation during stone sleep.”

Lev pulls the book closer before I can. “Read it.”

Medusa gives him a look but does. “The stone body takes character from the formation in which the creature rests. Coloration, texture, surface pattern, and reflection may change to match the surrounding mineral environment.”

Amand reaches across the table and rotates the book slightly. There’s an illustration beside the passage, a gargoyle crouched against a cliff face. The artist has outlined the body in dark ink, but even with that help, it takes me a second to separate the creature from the rock behind it.

Lev leans closer. “That’s not normal camouflage.”

“No.” Medusa reads further, her expression tightening. “There are references to travelers looking directly at resting gargoyles without recognizing them until they moved. It says the effect isn’t invisibility. The body remains physically visible, but the eye treats it as part of the surrounding stone.”

Amand picks up the quarry photo and places it beside the illustration. “Texture, light, pattern. If the magic extends to the surface well enough, the shape wouldn’t matter as much.”

Lev stares at the two images side by side. “You’re telling me this bastard can turn himself into a wall.”

“Not literally,” Medusa says.

Lev looks up. “That distinction is doing absolutely nothing for me.”

I reach for the retaining-wall photograph and pull it closer. “Every time we lost him, there was stone.”

Lev’s attention snaps to me.