The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(29)

The gargoyle put his hands over his eyes and stumbled away with remarkable speed. “For pity’s sake, Bartholomew. You needn’t be so disgusting.”

He was gone in seconds, muttering indignantly to himself.

I straightened. When he disappeared into the consuming shadow of Aisling, I dropped my hammer and chisel in the grass. Pulled my cloak from beneath the stone I’d hidden it.

Ran.

I was out of breath when I reached it—the part of the wall we’d climbed over with the knights. I hauled myself up onto the wall and looked back. The Diviner cottage was a humble square in the distance. From it, a light burned, two silhouettes cloistered near the second-story window.

One and Five.

I waved. A moment later, the light snuffed out. They’d close the window, keep each other awake, until I returned from Castle Luricht.

I looked down. There were no knights to catch me this time. But if I held on to the wall and maneuvered just so, I could easily—

My foot slipped on lichen. The wall denied my grasping hands purchase, and a grating squeal I’d only ever heard pigs make fled from my mouth. “Motherfuck—”

I dropped like a stone.

The road was pitiless. I hit it with a brusque thud and I coughed so hard my eyes hurt. When I managed to right myself, I checked that nothing was broken or bleeding and, more essential, that my shroud was still in place. Then I hauled my aching body up. Coughed again.

And scrambled down the road.

The night was quiet. The trees that cloistered the holloway held no noise, no laughing knights, no echoing notes of music upon the wind. And the holloway, with its earthen sides and a lid of heaving branches, was dark. The kind of quiet, the kind of dark, that made me worry my thoughts were too loud.

A twig snapped from above. My gaze shot up.

Sprites. Dozens of them, watching me from the gnarled ceiling of branches. Moonlight bathed them in deep blue halos that winked when their wings fluttered.

They followed me down the road, never near enough to touch me, tearing through leaves and errant spiderwebs to remain close.

I shivered and hurried on.

The holloway was dropping leaves, and afternoon showers had made them damp. My bare feet were cold and wet by the time I reached a crest in the road. Below me was Coulson Faire—its tents darkened, its fervor dimmed. I heard no music, saw no bonfire, the grassy walkways empty but for a few lingering merchants.

And I wondered. Should I comb the Faire for the lost Diviners? Ask after them?

Then I remembered that merchant who’d taken hold of me the last time I’d wandered the tents alone—how horribly vulnerable I’d felt when he’d reached for my shroud.

No Coulson Faire, then.

I kept east, following purple banners.

There was no one about. The night’s silence wore holes in my senses, and my mind hurried to fill the chasms. How are the lost Diviners managing, alone in a strange land? What if some terrible violence has already befallen them? Are One and Five still awake at the cottage?

Has something already happened to them?

I shook myself. “Don’t let your mind run wild.”

“What pace should I let it run, then?”

I screamed, and so did the batlike gargoyle behind me.

“You idiot!” I put a hand to my breast. “You scared me.”

“Don’t shout at me, Bartholomew.”

He was crying. And not the sniffling, peer-through-his-fingers-to-see-if-I-was-watching cry. This was an all-out sob. “I w-worry, Bartholomew. It is undoubtably m-my w-worst quality. I worried you might be s-sad to be s-sick, all alone at the wall. I came back and—and—” He threw his head back and wailed. “You were gone.”

He kept on yowling, shaking a few sprites from the trees.

I sighed and put a tentative arm around his shoulders. His limestone skin was cold and entirely without softness. “There’s no need for that. I was going to come back.”

He sniffled. “The abbess promised you’d be the one to stay with me.”

I doubted she’d said anything of the sort, but saying so would only make it worse. I offered him my hand instead. He didn’t take it, petty thing. But he did trail behind me after that, not so petulant as to leave me alone on the road, though he stuck his nose up whenever I cast a backward glance. Eventually, he began to hum. I might have told him how the night did not seem so dark or frightening with him at my back, but he was being a petulant little ass, so I said nothing.

I could see Castle Luricht’s turrets pierce the night sky before I was clear of Coulson Faire’s final tents. The gargoyle and I ambled along, the night quiet until—

Voices. Ahead, on the road.

I heard a low rumble, and a wagon pulled by two draft horses rolled past, splashing muddy water onto the hem of my cloak.

“Oi,” someone called. “Look! A gargoyle!”

The gargoyle and I were already scampering down the road. We rounded a corner, then another, then another, past painted houses and reaching hedgerows until the road snapped straight, and suddenly we were among hundreds of purple banners in the shadow of a castle.

The road gave way to a looming drawbridge over a moat. I did not look at the dark water, my gaze forward. I was imagining what I would say to the king or an answering knight when I spoke of the missing Diviners. By the time we reached the gate, I’d half a speech composed, my spine straight and my blood up.