Rory’s gaze shot up. Crashed into my shroud. The effect was like ale, like idleweed. A low, hazy hum through my body.

Bang, bang, bang, went the cups. Four stepped back, and King Castor’s finger was aimed once more, a pointed beckoning that landed straight over me. “My Diviner,” he slurred. “You’re up.”

The Diviners pushed me forward. When I stepped into the field, the knights whooped in delight.

Rory watched me, his bottom lip still wet from Four’s mouth. “You look nervous, Number Six.”

I said nothing, squaring off with him. His shoulders looked even wider with his hands tied behind his back. But just like last night, he did not wield his width, his height. Indeed, he stood a little hunched over, lazy and indifferent but for his eyes—narrowed and menacing and trained acutely on me.

“Good of you, by the way, telling her where to kick me.” He sucked his teeth. “My adoration for Diviners grows by the moment.”

“Thrash him!” King Castor called from the sideline, smacked over the head a moment later by Maude’s retributing palm.

Rory leaned forward. “Go ahead,” he murmured. “Hit my side. Hit me where I’m weak. Hit me as hard as you can.”

“If I let you win,” I said, a little breathless, “you won’t come to Aisling for a Divination. I’ll never have to see you again. That’s a victory in itself.”

“Let… me… win.” His lips curled at the corners. “You are nervous. Why’s that, Diviner? Thinking of kissing me, too?”

“I’d rather put you on your back.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good ti—”

I sprang forward.

He was indeed a wall. A wall that had humiliated me. Mocked and belittled me. But even without hammer, without chisel—

I knew how to mind a stone wall.

Bending at the knees, I wrapped my arms around Rory’s waist. My thighs trembled and I shut my eyes. The asshole was heavy.

Teeth gritted, muscles shuddering, I pressed up. Lifted Rodrick Myndacious off his feet. Took a full step forward.

And slammed the two of us down onto grass.

The outburst from the Diviners, the knighthood, split the sky, cheers and claps and the bang of cups upon the tables a clamorous thunder. I was on top of Rory, hands braced in the grass on either side of his hips. Arms still trapped behind his back, he was helpless but to lie under me.

“See?” We were both panting. “I know how to have fun.”

The splinter in his derision was there again, thicker than before. Eyes wide and black as ink, like he could not fully believe what had happened—that he had been so thoroughly and publicly destroyed—he looked up. Searched my shroud.

But he couldn’t find me.

“You’re a fucking scourge.” He groaned, dropping his gaze to my mouth. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to kiss me?”

“And deny myself any pleasure?”

He smiled, startling us both.

One and Four lifted me off him. Knights swept up around me—there was music, applause. When I looked back at Rory one last time, I felt like Aisling Cathedral itself. Cold, beautiful, and disapproving. “I’ll see you in the spring.”

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVEN THE MOTH

Dawn was blushing across the sky when I marched through gravel in my Divining robe. The other Diviners were abed. We’d returned two hours ago from Coulson Faire, feet sore and dirty from dancing, but I hadn’t slept.

I was due in the cathedral.

Last night’s levity was gone. The only song that moved in me now was the sound of my own footsteps.

“I’ve yet to comprehend why you’ve roused me so early, Bartholomew,” said the batlike gargoyle at my side. “You know I treasure my sleep. If I am rude the day through for exhaustion, I will not answer for it.”

I’d snuck into his dwelling, put a hand on his shoulder, and shaken him awake. He’d screamed so loudly the shutters had trembled, the other gargoyles grunting and thrashing as I pulled him out the door.

“I need your help,” I said. “With a Divination.”

Aisling Cathedral’s doors were closed—the dark, gaping mouth shut. When I opened them, their scream was longer, and louder, than the gargoyle’s had been.

We passed over the woolen rugs in the darkened narthex. There, we waited for Rory.

“I wonder,” the gargoyle said, “where is the abbess? Isn’t she always looming during a Divination?”

I wrung my hands in my robe. “The means by which this Divination came to be were not entirely orthodox. I don’t wish the abbess to know.”

I expected him to lecture me. Maybe even turn up his nose and saunter away. But the gargoyle merely made a hmpf sound and threw himself down into one of the hearty hickory chairs. “Just as well. Sometimes, Bartholomew, I think her quite the bitch.”

“Gargoyle!”

“I am simply saying what is on my heart. Who would fault me for that?”

“She, for one.” But I nearly smiled, and that seemed to gladden his mood.

He watched me pace the narthex. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

I stalled. “What?”

“When Diviners are ill or anxious before a Divination, you tell one another stories of the things you will do when you leave Aisling Cathedral.”

“I didn’t know gargoyles paid attention to that.”

“I pay attention to many things, Bartholomew. I am the most observant creature I know.”

“A bit of a moot point—you, telling me a story of life outside of Aisling.”

“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.”