Read Online The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) by E.G. Foley - Free Book Online Page A

things out, which was why her eyes widened.
    She realized he was referring to his tele-ka-whatever.
    “I’ll be out before you know it,” he assured her.
    Then the officers brought him outside and tossed him in the big, black police wagon.
    Derek Stone wasn’t far behind. “Foolhardy, thick-headed—don’t you ever do as you’re told?” Derek demanded as soon as they slammed the heavy carriage door and locked it tightly.
    “Nah, not my style!” Jake shot back, parroting the warrior’s own insolent words to the constables from this morning.
    Derek harrumphed.
    “Why did you let them catch you?” Jake demanded. “You could’ve at least fought back!”
    “I’m a Guardian. I don’t kill policemen,” Derek growled. “The Order would’ve had me out in a few days.”
    “What Order?”
    “Never mind. Did you really see Lord Griffon?”
    “Aye! That’s what I said. Is he really my uncle and if he is, then why does he want me dead?”
    Derek cursed under his breath, shaking his head. “You should’ve gone to Beacon House like I told you.”
    “How was I supposed to know if I could trust you?”
    Derek looked at him in amazement. “I saved your bloody life, you ungrateful whelp! Why wouldn’t you trust me?”
    “Mister, I don’t know nothin’ about you! I don’t even know why you bothered to help me in the first place.”
    “’Hoy! No talking! Shut it, now!” The bailiff banged his truncheon on the bars. Then two policemen climbed up onto the driver’s box of the police wagon, and in the next moment, they were underway, soon to be delivered into the dark oblivion of Newgate.
    Jake looked back and, through the bars, saw Dani standing alone in the road, looking terrified and bewildered. She was hugging Teddy close and trying not to cry. Seeing her standing there, looking so small and defenseless, Jake was furious at himself. He hung his head.
    “Your little girlfriend?” Derek drawled.
    “Shut up! She’s not my girlfriend.”
    “Then why do you look so distraught?”
    “Because it’s dark out, right! And now she’s going to have to walk home by herself in these bad streets.” Jake cursed himself. “Not that you give a twig.”
    Derek studied him. “I’ll say one thing for you, kid. You may be a thief, but you’ve got your father’s courage. I think you actually do know the meaning of honor.”
    Jake looked over at him uncertainly.
    Derek gave him a rugged nod.
    “You really knew my father?” Jake whispered as one of the policemen glanced back to check on them.
    Derek looked away with a faint smile on his face in the darkness. “He was like a brother to me. His name was Jacob, too,” he added.
    “No talking, now! Don’t make me tell you again!” the bobby ordered, reaching back to hit the window bars with his nightstick one more time.
    Derek fell silent, but he gave Jake a look that helped bolster his shaken courage.
    And it was a good thing, for when the police wagon rolled up to the looming fortress of Newgate a short while later, Jake saw he was going to need it.
     

 
     
     

     
    PART II
     

CHAPTER SIX
    The Fairy Prisoner
     
    Gladwin had been a prisoner for approximately twenty-four hours, but at least now she had confirmed that her captor was indeed the boy’s uncle—Waldrick Everton, the current Earl of Griffon. Grim news, indeed.
    The earl had taken the jar with Gladwin in it out of his pocket and set it on a shelf when they had arrived, and there she had remained. Peering through the glass, the room before her was some sort of underground lair.
    The cave-like space was dark and dank. The light of a dingy lantern played over a dusty brass microscope, a mortar and pestle, and a clockwork astrolabe.
    Great old books with cryptic writing were piled on a large table beside an inkpot and quill. A human skull held a burning candle. By its dim glow, she could see the other caged creatures in the earl’s ‘collection’: a pitiful cobbler’s elf called Mo, a grumpy cherub