The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(47)

He nodded, like I’d said something profound. “Then let us explore this strange mechanism named the Seacht instead. Our feet will take us where we need to go.”





The night sky announced every turn the gargoyle and I took, throwing moon shadow, our silhouettes twisted figures upon the street. I didn’t mind. The moon’s vigilant quality was not disapproving like Aisling’s—I didn’t feel the urge to watch my back.

I kept my hood low, and the gargoyle, not one to be left out, stole a tablecloth from a clothesline to drape over his head, obscuring his face in shadow. Still, it was too early, or too late, for there to be any foot traffic—hardly anyone looked at us.

That did not mean the roads were empty. People milled about, awake despite the hour, different from the folk I’d seen in the Seacht in the light of day. Children in rags, men and women digging through scraps and washing their clothes in the canal.

I was stricken by shame when I caught myself staring. I’d never seen poverty before.

We carried on, entirely without aim, though at some point I slid both hammer and chisel into my left hand so that the gargoyle could hold my right. My mind remained on the Harried Scribe, his stone eyes, the way he had eaten my hair—licked up my blood. I thought of King Castor, too. What it might mean, him taking up the mantle, challenging the Omens for their magical stone objects. I thought on the Diviners and how I was no closer to finding them.

I considered it all, a canyon worrying itself between my brows.

Meanwhile the gargoyle was practically skipping down the street, pointing and commenting on everything he saw. “You seem contented,” I said, peering over my shoulder. “Being away from Aisling.”

“Perhaps I am.” He pondered. “What does it feel like to be contented, Bartholomew?”

As if I knew. The only happiness I’d felt was with the Diviners, in the tales of what we might do when we left the tor. My stock of joy was held in the future, ever out of reach. “I think contentedness,” I said bitterly, “is just a story we tell ourselves.”

The gargoyle nodded. “It is all the same, then. Contentedness. Truth and honesty and virtue. Omens. They are all stories, and we”—he gestured to the Seacht’s climbing walls—“tread the pages within them.”





Our feet did indeed take us where we needed to go. When the sky was purple, clouds blushing from a dawn we could not yet see, the gargoyle and I came across a street with plain brick houses. The largest had an inscription upon its door.

Pupil House III

A School for Foundlings

“How quaint,” the gargoyle said. “I confess, I’ve always fancied myself a bit of a schoolmaster and you my pupil, Bartholomew, though you have never held the position with the respect it’s due—I say. What are you doing?”

“Wait here.” I rushed to the house, opening its gate and tripping over little shoes. “They’ll get a fright if a menacing stone bat knocks upon their door.”

“That’s derogatory,” he called after me.

I knocked three times. Waited. Knocked again, louder.

I heard creaking. The shuffling of footsteps. Then the door was opening, wrenched in by an aged woman in a nightdress with a lump of gray hair and deeply etched lines around her eyes and lips.

She thrust a candle in my face. “Who the hell are you?”

“Apologies for the intrusion, milady. I know it’s early.”

“Milady? What kind of twaddle is that? I’m the house mother. If you’re looking to drop off a foundling, we’re all full—”

“I’m not here for that.” I pulled my hood down. “I’d like to ask you a question.”

Her brows lifted into her hairline. “What’s a girl from Aisling doing at my door? Come to check on your investment?”

“What investment?”

“Your abbess is our patron.”

I’d almost forgotten. “Do the girls the abbess selects ever come back?”

“Here? Can’t see why they would.”

“So you haven’t seen any Diviners of late?”

“None save you, mourning dove.”

My chest fell. The woman crossed her arms, eyeing my split lip. “You look like you’ve had a time of it.” She sighed and pushed open her door. “Want a cup of something?”

“No—thank you.” I looked up at the dawning sky. “How many Pupil Houses are there?”

“Three. The other hamlets send their orphans here, but mainly the girls—especially the poor sick ones. Gives ’em a good shot to end up at Aisling as Diviners. Most of the boys run off and fend for themselves.”

“Can you tell me where I might find the next Pupil House?”

“Off the square. But you won’t find any Diviners there, either.”

“Off the square. Wonderful. Where’s that?”





Pupil House II had darkened windows. This house mother answered the door with a broom, and nearly fell over when she saw my shroud.

She hadn’t seen any Diviners, either.

A baker opening his shop, who dropped his flour at the sight of the gargoyle, pointed us to the final Pupil House. There, the house mother slept through my knocking, and her dog ventured out in her stead. The mutt chased us for three city blocks. All the while the gargoyle shouted, his voice ringing through the streets, “Fear not, Bartholomew! Every day has its dog.”