Ida stepped closer. “We are trying, Gabriel. Mistakes were made. If you and Olivia would just put aside this nonsense—”

“It isn’t nonsense to us. Olivia wishes to speak to Patrick. Please allow her to do so. I’m sure he’ll share the story with you afterward.”

“I might,” Patrick said.

Gabriel gave him a look. Patrick might play the rebel, but he didn’t antagonize the others unnecessarily.

“Can we move this conversation to your place?” I asked Patrick.

“You kids go on ahead. I’ll finish my coffee and catch up.”

Ida didn’t try to follow us out of the diner, and while I hate to give Patrick credit, I think he sent us on ahead so he could deal with them while we escaped.

Patrick’s house wasn’t hard to find. The town is arranged in a grid pattern. All commercial and public buildings are in the downtown core. Beyond that, it’s houses, houses, and more houses. Besides Grace’s walk-up, there are no townhouses or apartments. And there are very few buildings—residential or commercial—less than a hundred years old.

That is strange, when you think about it, but unless you do think about it, Cainsville settles comfortably in the mind, as if this is how towns should look. No rundown corner stores with barred windows and cigarette ads. No tawdry McMansions on streets of stately Tudors. There aren’t even many stop signs—you’re expected to follow the common courtesy of slowing down and checking before turning or crossing an intersection.

Cainsville is a town of unspoken rules and unconscious compliance. For someone like me, who chafes under restrictions and expectations—or Gabriel, who refuses to acknowledge them at all—that should be hell on earth. But it isn’t.

It’s not fae compulsion that draws us here. We don’t balk at natural rules, like slowing down to watch for children. It’s the larger, more institutional ones we struggle with, and there’s no sense here that we’re unwelcome if we don’t conform to the laws enforced beyond the town borders. Only what happens within the confines of Cainsville counts in Cainsville.

We were walking past the school when I thought I spotted a gargoyle. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering how many there are in the town. But they appear and disappear, and there’s even a May Day contest to find them all. The local children submit their lists to the elders and win prizes for the most found. If they locate them all, they get a special award: a gargoyle made in their likeness. The last child to win that was the guy walking beside me.

The gargoyle I’d just spotted wouldn’t have done much good as a waterspout. It was tucked under a bush beside the school’s front gates. I hadn’t noticed it before, so I stopped … and saw nothing. The gargoyle had vanished. I took a step back. Still nothing.

I glanced at Gabriel. He just stood there, waiting. I crouched beside the bush and pushed the leaves aside. Behind them I saw a rock. Just a regular gray rock. Despite the rough and jagged surface, no matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t find a face.

“I did see one, right?” I said.

“Possibly.”

“Can I get a hint?” I asked.

“You’re the detective.”

“Spoilsport.”

“No, I’d be spoiling your sport if I told you. The clues are there. Follow them.”

I touched the rock.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Gabriel said. “It bites.”

I shook my head. Holding the branch aside, I tried looking again from every angle. No shape took form.

The clues are there.

I let go of the branch and eased back. That’s when I saw another branch, higher up, the bark almost worn away in one spot. I tugged it, and there was the gargoyle. Or, more accurately, a baby gargoyle. That’s what it looked like—an infant in swaddling clothes, with twisted and exaggerated features, its face contorted in a wail. I reached out to touch it … and let out a yelp, drawing back to see a drop of blood welling on my fingertip.

“Didn’t I warn you?” Gabriel said.

“Ha-ha. There must be a thorn …” I leaned in further, seeing no thorns … and a smear of red on the gargoyle’s tiny jagged teeth.

“You weren’t joking,” I said.

“Do I ever?”

I sat back on my haunches and looked up at him and thought, Where’s yours? Where was his gargoyle?

“Ah,” said a voice behind Gabriel. “I see you’ve found one of our most popular gargoyles. The cranky baby.”

I looked over at Patrick. “It bites.”

“Of course it does. The children wouldn’t love it nearly as much if it didn’t. That’s why it’s at the school.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Then you, my dear, don’t know children.”

“What’s their purpose?” I asked as I stood.

“Children? No idea. It appears to be simply an inconvenient stage between birth and usefulness.”

“I mean the gargoyles,” I said.

“They divert water from buildings, reducing wear on the stonework.”

I shook my head. “I know they can scare away the Cŵn Annwn’s ravens, but this one couldn’t do that—or divert water. The gargoyles must serve a greater purpose.”

“They do.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Would you like to know what it is?”

“Yes.”

He straightened. “Then you have to ask the other elders, because solving the mysteries of Cainsville for you is a line I will not cross.”