#lexington

But seeing a face on a screen isn't the same as being there. Especially for me. I was the one who found him, the one who sat with him when he had nightmares about "mutates" and "clones." (Though he told me never to bring that up around the others). This trip to New York wasn't just a vacation; it was a reunion.

"Is there a princess? Or a prince?" Lily asked for the fiftieth time, her three-year-old eyes wide with the promise of a real-life castle.

"Maybe," I told her, adjusting her ponytail. "One thing I’ve learned this year, Lily—with gargoyles, anything is possible."

The house was a disaster zone as we prepped to leave. Mom was in full "Irish Mother" mode, her accent getting thicker with every suitcase she snapped shut.

"Rira, what about the dogs? Did you remember about the dogs?" she called out, though she was talking to Dad.

"Miss Fillmore is coming in an hour," Dad replied, remarkably calm for a man about to take six kids on a cross-country flight.

"Keys? Passports?"

"Yes."

"What about Lily’s stuff? The rabbit? The specific snacks?"

Dad held up a bulging diaper bag with a look of triumph. "Literally holding it right now, Rira."

Mom paused, her brow furrowed. "And does Miss Fillmore remember what to do if there is a strange smell or light coming from the lab? I don't want her touching the centrifuges."

Dad sighed, that annoyed-but-loving glint in his eye. "Oh, absolutely. I told her: if a purple light starts humming, she’s to ignore it until she turns into a giant eagle. But if she mistakes the eagle-form for an act of aggression and attacks herself, and the dogs choose sides, and the house subsequently floods... well, then she should probably call us."

Mom stared at him. "You better hope that doesn’t happen, Sam."

"Let’s see," Dad muttered, checking his list. "We’ve got half the medicine cabinet and enough snacks and water to keep us alive until a search party finds our remains in Row 24."

We said our goodbyes to the dogs—Chewie, Buster, and Lucky. They looked offended that they weren't invited. I knelt down and hugged Chewie’s scruffy neck. "I promise, we’ll bring you next time. You guys would like Bronx. He’s like you, just... bigger. And made of stone."

"Or he would eat them," Mikey, my seventeen-year-old brother, piped up as he dribbled an invisible basketball toward the door.

"Mikey!" Becky hissed, elbowing her twin brother.

"I’m joking! It’s a joke! Mostly."

The five-hour plane ride was a test of human endurance. We were not what you’d call "popular passengers." Connor, who is eleven and has the volume control of a jet engine, kept forgetting the Clan’s warnings about the Quarrymen. He spent the first hour loudly announcing our friendship with a gargoyle to anyone within three rows. Meanwhile, Mikey and Lily were locked in a battle of wills; Lily set a new world record for the longest toddler tantrum in the history of aviation. The engine noise was "too loud," her juice was "too wet," and the air was "too invisible."

Becky, ever the teenager, buried herself in noise-canceling headphones and a magazine, pretending she didn't belong to the traveling circus that was the O’Connell family. I, on the other hand, was feeling protective. I found myself staring at the man in the seat next to me. He looked a little too interested in Connor’s rambling.

"I’m sorry if this seems rude," I said, my voice completely serious as I leaned toward him. "But you’re not by any chance a member of a deranged cult that wants to wipe gargoyles off the face of the earth, are you?"

The man’s jaw dropped. He looked at me like I’d just asked to eat his spleen. He scrambled to flag down a flight attendant and asked to be moved to a different seat.

"I’ll take that as a no," I muttered dryly.

Dad leaned over. "Kathy, honey... maybe don't interrogate the civilians. Or at least find a subtler way."

When we finally touched down at JFK and filtered through the terminal, we were met by a black car and a driver who looked like he had been carved out of granite. He told us he was sent by "Mr. Xanatos." This felt weird. Brooklyn had mentioned Xanatos—the billionaire who owned the castle. He was supposed to be a "reformed" villain, but in my experience, "billionaire" and "villain" were usually synonyms.

The car took us straight to the Eyrie Building. The moment it stopped, we exploded out of the doors. We were so excited we nearly knocked over a man standing in the lobby. He was tall, dressed in a sharp suit, and had the most unflappable expression I’d ever seen.

"Oof!" Owen Burnett—I assumed it was him from Brooklyn's descriptions—stumbled back an inch, which for him was probably the equivalent of a somersault. He fixed his glasses and straightened his jacket, eyes flickering over the chaos of our family.

Mom and Dad didn't even make it to the elevator. They saw a plush sofa in the lobby and practically fell onto it, asleep before their heads hit the cushions. Traveling with six kids will do that to you.

"I shall inform the staff to make up one of the spare bedrooms for your parents," Owen said, his voice like dry toast. He pointed a finger toward the left. "You will find the entry to the castle on your left. Please try not to... break the masonry."

We surged past him, nearly knocking him over a second time.

The castle was, in a word, impossible. It sat atop a skyscraper, a Gothic fortress in the clouds. The air up here smelled different—colder, cleaner. The moment we stepped onto the battlements, we were greeted by the rest of the Clan.

Broadway was there, looking exactly like he did on screen—big, friendly, and already smelling like snacks. He and Mikey hit it off instantly, heading toward the kitchen to discuss the merits of New York pizza vs. LA tacos. Lexington, the smaller, greenish gargoyle, swooped down to meet Connor. Within seconds, they were "geeking out" over the new Star wars’s videogame

Becky went off with Angela, who was as beautiful and kind as Brooklyn had described. Angela spent the whole time cooing at Lily, who was convinced she’d finally found her princess. Hudson, the old warrior, sat by the hearth with his sword across his knees, watching us with a weary but amused smile.

But someone was missing.

"Where’s Brooklyn?" I asked, looking around the Great Hall.

Suddenly, the room went quiet. Broadway stopped mid-chew. Lex looked at the floor. It was that awkward silence you get when people have a secret they don't know how to tell you.

"He’s... patrolling," Lexington said slowly.

"But he’ll be back soon!" Broadway added, a little too quickly.

My stomach did a slow roll. "Is something wrong? Did something happen to him?"

"Not necessarily," Lex replied.

Broadway tried to help. "It’s like... you know how when you leave a pot of soup on the stove, and you go away, and you come back and it’s still soup, but it’s, uh, thicker? And has more vegetables?"

I stared at him. "That is the worst metaphor I have ever heard."

Before I could demand a real answer, a young gargoyle walked out from the shadows of the corridor. He had blue skin, a shock of white hair, and was wearing a human T-shirt and modified shorts. He looked about my age, maybe a bit older.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The boy grinned. "I'm Nashville. You must be Kathy. My dad talks about you all the time."

"Your... dad?" I felt a chill. Brooklyn never mentioned having a kid. He hadn't been gone that long. Was time different for them? Was this a "mutate" thing?

Then, the heavy thud of wings landed on the stone balcony behind us. I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat.

"Brooklyn!" I shouted, but the word died in my mouth.

The gargoyle standing there wasn't the Brooklyn I knew. The Brooklyn who stayed in our guest room was lanky, a bit awkward, and looked like a rebellious teenager. This man... he was a giant. He was as tall as my dad, his frame thick with muscle and scarred from years of battle. He was wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and custom-fit battle armor protected his chest, wrists, and ankles. A massive, well-worn sword was strapped to his back.

He looked like he had stepped out of a century of war.

He stood frozen, staring at me. In his eyes, there was a look of profound, aching nostalgia—the way a grandfather looks at a childhood home.

"Kathy?" he whispered. His voice was deeper, gravelly, and carried a weight that made my chest hurt.

Becky’s mouth hung open. Connor and Lex stopped talking. The silence was deafening.

I looked at him, then at "Nashville," then back at the warrior in front of me. I remembered his FaceTime call from last weekend. He had looked normal then. He’d joked about Becky’s bad taste in music. How was this possible?

The Phoenix Gate. He’d mentioned magic once. Time travel.

I felt like the world was spinning. I reached out and slapped myself, hard, right across the cheek.

"Ouch," I muttered. "Okay. Not a dream."

Brooklyn stepped forward, his massive hand reaching out as if to touch my shoulder, then hesitating, as if he were afraid he might break me. To me, it had been a week. To him... looking at those eyes, I realized it had been a lifetime.

"You grew up," I managed to say, my voice trembling.

Brooklyn gave a small, sad smile—the same lopsided grin I remembered, even under the eyepatch. "I did a lot of things, Kathy. It's... it's a long story."

I looked at the sword, the armor, and the blue-skinned boy standing proudly beside him. Anything is possible, I had told Lily.

"Well," I said, trying to find my dry LA sarcasm to keep from crying. "You'd better start talking. But first, you're going to have to explain to my mom why you aged forty years in seven days. She's a scientist, Brooklyn. She's going to want charts."

Brooklyn laughed, and for a second, I saw the young gargoyle from my living room again. "I've missed you guys."