I snorted, earning a dry look, and then I asked, “How come Bis has to teach me? He’s a good kid and all, but wouldn’t it be easier if Treble did it?” He was stalling, trying to keep me ignorant, and I wasn’t going to let him.

“Treble?” Al carefully cut perfectly equal slices off the loaf, one by one. “She can’t get through your aura like Bis can.”

“Bis can get through yours. What’s the difference?” I almost accused him.

“Bis is young.” Al turned with six slices of bread in his hand. “He’ll be able to cross any circle until he bonds himself to an aura. He seems to like you, but even so, you’d better be careful or you’ll lose him to Pierce. And there you’ll be, forced to steal another baby from the basilica and having to wait another fifty years to learn how to jump the lines.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this ‘bond’ thing?” I asked, worried. Gargoyles to witches, as pixies are to elves? “Bis is not my gargoyle,” I protested, and Al chuckled as he pierced each slice of bread on a set of long forks.

“I wasn’t too keen on Treble either,” he said. “Still am not. But once a gargoyle takes to you, it’s not as if you have much say. It’s in their makeup, you see. Engineered in.”

They had made them. Demons had made gargoyles, creating the ability to hear the lines and the need for them to bond so they wouldn’t run off and teach us poor witches and elves. No wonder free gargoyles hung out on churches. Oh, this wasn’t good. Bis and I needed to talk.

“Done and done,” Al said with a tone of finality as he propped the six slices of bread on their toasting forks against the heat. “I believe you didn’t help Pierce, Rachel Mariana Morgan. Tell me your plan to get the coven off your ass and Nicholas Sparagmos into my kitchen.”

Apparently we were done talking about gargoyles, but at least I knew he believed me. My sigh of relief was loud, but then I tensed. “I never said Nick in your kitchen was part of the deal—,” I started, but my words cut off when he turned, a big-ass knife in his hand.

“Rachel, we’ve been over this. This is what I do,” he said, crumbs of white cheese falling from the knife. “Find a way for your lofty, unrealistic ideals to deal with it.”

“But I’m the one who gets blamed!” I exclaimed, frustrated. I knew Vivian was going to ask me to rescue Brooke or get caught trying to do it herself. Then I’d get blamed for that, too.