"How long have these been here?" Lucy asked curiously.
"A long while," Eren said. He knelt beside the roundabout—as usual, there was no traffic on the road—to tidy up some of the colorful rocks around the edges of the flowerbed. "Most of them are older than I am. Some are at least a hundred years old or more. There's a rumor that the town was built around Fred, though I'm not sure if I believe he's actuallythatold."
"But who made them?" Lucy asked. She leaned closer to look at Fred. The gargoyle was carved of swirling gray stone, with bits of moss in some of his crevices, but on the whole was in very good shape. "Does this town have a guild of stonemasons or something?"
"It's the family who live in that house." Eren pointed up the hill, toward the rambling stone pile farther up the slope. From here, all that could be seen was the tiled peak of the roof.
"They're masons?"
"Rumor is that they're gargoyles," Eren admitted.
"No."
Eren grinned at the look on her face. "It's just a rumor."
"But you've met them, right? You'd have noticed that, right?"
"I've met them, and they seem like pretty normal people to me."
"So they're not gargoyles, then." She seemed a little disappointed.
"Well, sometimes appearances aren't all they seem. Maybe they can turn into gargoyles."
Lucy flashed him a quick look above her mostly emptied drink cup. "Do you believe that?" she asked quietly. "That people can—turn into other things?"
Does she know about shifters?Inside himself, Eren was aware of his bear perking up and taking notice.
"I think there is real, true magic in the world," was the answer he finally settled on. "And I believe some of it is here. Maybe that makes me superstitious, but I'm still going with my gut, and my gut says it's true."
"Then I'll go with my gut too," Lucy declared. "And mine says that I don't know about Westerly Cove, but I do trustyou."
Her earnest sincerity took his breath away—for about half a second before Eren caught sight of something swooping down behind her. "Look out!" he yelped, grabbing her and trying to drag her out of the way.
Lucy clearly had no idea what he was doing, got her feet tangled up with his, and so she was left wide open for a white and gray streak that sped past her, stealing her drink cup.
"What," Lucy gasped, as Eren steadied her and glared after the feathered thief. It justfiguredthat those pests would interrupt in the middle of a serious conversation.
The trash griffin landed on top of Fred's head and poked its beak into the cup.
"Oh!" Lucy gave a high-pitched cry that Eren at first took for fear, and then realized was delight. He watched in astonishment as, far from being afraid, she boldly approached the bottom of the statue. The trash griffin regarded her with a wary yellow-rimmed eye. This one had the back half of a thin gray alley cat, combined with its seagull top half.
"It's you!" Lucy said. "Hi!"
"You've seen them before?" Eren asked, astounded.
"I have! One tried to steal my donut yesterday morning. Have you seen them before? Whatarethey?"
"I don't know," Eren admitted. "I've been calling them, um, trash griffins." It was a little embarrassing to say it out loud to someone else.
"Griffins?" Her eyes were round. "I'm starting to think you're right that this place is magic."
The stray-cat trash griffin had been joined by two more and they were now fighting over the cup, shrieking and squabbling and leaving Fred's head streaked with dregs of milkshake.
"I like to think that most of our magic is more dignified than this," Eren said, as splatters flew in a wide circle around the statue.
"Are they native to the island?" Lucy asked. She gazed up at the trash griffins in fascination.
"They didn't used to be. They just showed up and now they won't leave. Shoo!" He waved a hand at the trash griffins, which ignored him.