The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(24)

“Why?”

“Because you have never lived beyond this place. And you never will.”

His face twisted, as if he had not considered that. “Neither will you.”

“But I am leaving, gargoyle. We all are. Our tenure will end, and the abbess will bring new foundlings to Divine in our stead. You know that.”

“I see.” Oh—he was upset. His bottom lip was trembling, and so were the tips of his wings. He balled his hands to fists and pressed them to his eyes. I wondered if he was like this every ten years when the old Diviners left and the new arrived, poor soul. A torrential fit of tears at the changing of the guard.

“There, there.” I lowered myself into the chair next to him. “Tell me a story, then.”

He didn’t, stubborn thing. “To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it? And I know only one story besides.” His voice quieted. “The one with the tragic beginning, and the desolate, interminable middle.”

He stopped sobbing, and we sat in plaintive silence. Outside, the sky brightened, birds announcing the day. “I told Myndacious to meet me here at dawn.” I seethed, picking dirt from beneath my thumbnail. “I imagined he’d want to get his penance out of the way and be free of this place.”

“What kind of penance?”

“I tossed him on the ground, and now he must endure a Divination.”

“Sounds like a beggar’s barge-in.”

I wrinkled my nose. “It’s ‘beggar’s bargain,’ gargoyle.”

He ignored the correction. “Was he heavy?”

“As a horse, the knave.”

“You’ve never lifted a horse, Bartholomew.”

“No. But I’ve lifted plenty of stones. I lifted you out of that gopher mound by the west wall, didn’t I?” He’d been complaining about vermin, got his foot caught in a hole in the earth, and started crying. I’d grunted and groaned and strained to lift him out, and when I finally did he was all the more offended for it.

“I have no recollection of that.” The gargoyle dropped from the chair to his feet. “Well, if he is to be tardy, I am going into the cathedral to begin my chores. Not that overseeing you hasn’t proven one.”

He turned, walked down the nave, but stalled at the end of the carpet. His craggy voice became small—like a child’s. “I will tell you the story I know someday, Bartholomew. Would that we were living one of your tales instead. Would that things were different for you and me.”

He slipped away, leaving me like he so often did—wondering what he meant.

Daylight crept through the open cathedral door. I stared at my bare feet and folded my fingers in my lap until the fine silk wrinkled. When I couldn’t sit still, I stood, shaking my feet, then my hands, trying to wring anticipation out of myself like sudsy water from a rag.

“You seem nervous, Diviner,” said a voice behind me. “Should I worry for my boots?”

Hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I kept my gaze forward. “Surprised you honored your word and came at all.”

“Happy to disappoint.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Myndacious, I’d rather we didn’t talk. I’m tired.”

I felt the heat of his stare on my back. “I’d be tired, too,” he said. “If I had to shoulder this place.”

I turned. Armor clad, Rory stood behind me, legs set broadly and hands clasped behind his back, like a good soldier. The charcoal around his eyes was smeared, like he’d been rubbing at it, but his gaze was unwavering. By the furrow of his brow—the deep, unhappy lines—I could tell he was as miserable to be here as I was.

“Why are you a knight, bound to honor the Omens,” I asked, “if you don’t even believe in them?”

“I believe in the Omens as much as you do.” The muscles in his jaw bunched. “But I have no faith in them.”

The gargoyle called from the chancel. “If you wish to Divine before the bitch—excuse me—before the abbess arrives, best get cracking.”

I marched down the aisle. The gargoyle stood in the abbess’s usual place upon the chancel, chest puffing, looking rather self-important. He gripped my hand, handing me into the spring.

The water was cold, its putrid sweetness oppressive. Rory stood opposite the gargoyle, no longer posturing like a soldier, but slouching, eyes tipping dangerously close to an eye roll.

“What is it you wish to learn from this Diviner’s dream?” I asked him, doing my best to imitate the abbess’s firm tone.

He snorted. “Nothing to learn here.”

Prat. “Have it your way. Just—” My stomach dropped. “Pith. I forgot a knife.”

The gargoyle tutted. “A bad portent unto itself.”

Rory’s gaze darted between us. “Problem?”

“I need your blood, you dunce.”

“Surely that’s just performative.”

“If it means something to me, then it’s not a performance.”

Rory paused. Slowly, he brought his hand to his mouth—and bit the pad of his thumb.

Red bloomed over his skin. Rory glanced down at his bloodied thumb, then at my mouth. “This good enough?”

“Adequate.” The gargoyle flicked his wrist. “Carry on.”