The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(30)

Only I didn’t speak to a single person within Castle Luricht.

The gargoyle and I weren’t even permitted through the castle gate.

“You must let me in,” I said to the guard a second time.

Torchlight jumped over a looming edifice of ivy-laden stone, catching over the guard’s armor. He stood in front of the gatehouse’s iron entry, blocking my way. “I’m very sorry, milady. It’s like I said. I’m forbidden to let anyone in past midnight.” His armor creaked. “Perhaps you could come back at dawn?”

“That’s far too late,” I snapped.

“And also too early.” The gargoyle was sniffing vines of greenery, unaware that he was roasting his own wing in an open torch. “I say, what sort of ivy is this? It’s wonderfully robust. Putalian? Wurspurt? Surely it’s Gowanth?”

“Get a hold of yourself,” I hissed, swatting his wing out of the flame. I turned to the guard. Removed my hood. “Do you know who I am?”

The guard, who was bleary-eyed after we’d roused him from sleeping at his post, stared at the gargoyle, then me. “You’re from Aisling, of course.” He began to stammer. “Forgive me. It’s an honor, you being here.”

“Quite. So please. Go inside and alert a member of the knighthood that there is a Diviner in need of assistance.”

The guard looked even more uncomfortable. “Neither the king nor the knighthood are here, Diviner.”

“All of them are gone?”

“Far as I know.”

“Where, exactly?”

“The Seacht.”

“When will they be back?”

He squirmed. “I don’t know.”

“Have there been Diviners besides me here these last few days?”

His armor rattled. “I don’t know that either, I’m afraid.”

“Is that common in the king’s service?” the gargoyle pondered. “An abysmal lack of knowledge?”

I blew air into my cheeks. “There must be someone I can speak to.”

“I’ll go see.” The guard was off in an instant, making his way toward the castle, leaving the gargoyle and me with our fists locked around the gate’s iron bars.

“He didn’t even invite me in.” The gargoyle stuck out his stone tongue. “A prodigious idiot.”

We waited. The night was a purple blanket, soft and silent. Then—

Laughter echoed behind me, and with it, the rolling noise of a cart.

“Told you,” came a loud, slurring voice. “Gargoyle. Right fuckin’ there.” There were shouts. Gasps. “And a Diviner!”

It was the same cart as before, only now it was coming toward me, rolling onto the drawbridge. Bathed in Castle Luricht’s torchlight, I noted several men inside. Their clothes were wrinkled, their eyes glassy, their mouths drawn in lazy smiles. Even at a distance I could smell the ale.

“How much?” a gray-haired man shouted. He pulled a coin purse from his belt. “How much for my future, Div—oh shit.” He dropped the purse, silver coins spilling onto the bridge.

I pulled up my hood. “We should go,” I whispered to the gargoyle.

Two men dropped from the cart. The gray-haired one made a horse’s ass of himself collecting his coins, falling over and hooting with laughter, while the other approached me with bold steps. “The things you must know, speaking to the Omens,” he slurred. He reached for my shoulder—

And screamed. When he doubled over, grasping his arm, I could see that the bone was broken, bent at a grotesque angle, skin already mottling.

The gargoyle stood over him, eyeing his arm with the same rapt attention with which he had tended the ivy on the wall. “The human body is such a fascinating machine, though I forget the fragility of the design.” He turned to me, smiling. “Well, Bartholomew? Shall we be on our way back home?”

We ran, though the men were too drunk to do anything but roar after us. Down the holloway road, into trees teeming with sprites, we hurried. Even through the dense canopy of treetops, I could see the moon was terribly low. The night was fading.

A night utterly wasted.

“You’ve been no help,” I said, throwing my fury at the gargoyle. “You shouldn’t have been so brutal.”

He plucked a flower from the side of the road and examined its petals as he walked. “Why not?”

“Because.” The snap of bone still echoed in my ears. “Violence is ignoble.”

“That is a very childish thing to say, Bartholomew.”

I whirled on him. “Of the two of us, I am not the one who behaves like a child.”

He rid the flower of its petals one by one, ignoring me.

When we returned to Aisling, the gargoyle unlocked the gate—ushered me to my cottage and unlocked the door. I pushed past him. Scrambled up the stairs. Called out for the Diviners. “One! Five!”

One sat, slouched over herself, asleep at the vanity table.

Five was gone.





The bear gargoyle hammered three iron bars across each of the cottage windows, the day punctuated by a menacing clang, clang, clang.

The cottage door was locked, and not just for the evening. This time, One and I found it locked at dawn. A flagon of water and a plate of honey bread that had gone stale were delivered by the falcon gargoyle, who locked the door behind it, and we watched the day pass through the washroom’s barred window on the first floor.