CHAPTER SEVEN #2
“Oh, thank Gideon,” I muttered. Still a stonetalon, but infinitely better than these brutes. “Get me out of here, please.”
The guards swiveled their stern gazes to her.
She rolled her eyes at them. “I have the Archon’s blessing to show her around, so long as you all tag along.”
They glanced at each other, smug smiles plastered on their faces.
The one on the left snorted. “That isn’t happening.”
Laney crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “Need I remind you—both of you, actually”—her gaze swung to the right—“why you owe me a favor? I’m sure Lydia would love to hear the stories.” She glanced at me and I nodded hard enough to rattle my brain.
The two males whipped toward each other, a hint of alarm leaping to each of their expressions. Lefty, the one who had cracked his insufferable dog joke, relented and motioned to the two guards at the opposite end of the hall.
“Come on, then.” Laney grabbed my arm and dragged me between them.
I let her, because anything was better than waiting for the moment Griffon and his foul magic barged into my room.
“What do you want to see first?”
“Um, I need you to tell me what dirt you have on my guards first.”
Laney chuckled, the sound as bubbly and bright as the rest of her. “Let’s just say they each managed to get themselves eye deep in a pile of shit, and yours truly helped them out of it.”
I cocked a brow. “This seems like a stupid thing to waste two favors on.”
She glanced at our grumpy shadows before flashing me a conspirator’s grin that made my heart ache. “Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t actually care about the favors.”
I had to look away. No one had looked at me like that since…since Lynnix.
“I just like helping. Though they are useful to have lying around for such occasions.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “How about a library, then?” I kept my voice as “sweet and innocent” as my face.
But Laney outright laughed. “Let me guess. Your perusal would just happen to start in the records section. Roughly fifteen years ago?”
“No,” I muttered. “I would at least skim over the more recent stuff.”
She rolled her eyes. “How about the ballroom? I think you’ll like it.”
Nothing could sound less appealing, but I swept my free arm toward the desolate hall ahead. “I’m at your mercy.”
She hung a left and dragged me with her.
“So, what’s with the human niece?”
My gaze snagged on this hall’s lone tapestry.
It depicted a naked gargoyle huddled on gray stone, the walls of a cell all but lost in shadow behind him.
His fingers tore at his hair, mouth open in an eternal scream.
A pair of leathery, midnight wings jutted from his back, his veins bulged with black sludge and fanned out over his body like ivy.
A web of them marred his face and converged in a ring around wide, terrified eyes.
My nose scrunched and I averted my gaze—
To find Laney staring at me, her usually open face set in a hard mask. She halted. “If you’re seeking leverage, I’d advise you set your sights in a different direction.” Her blue eyes turned to ice. “And if it’s a threat, I don’t care what magic you channel. I’ll still kill you.”
“What?” I stumbled a half-step away from her. “No. I would never kill a little kid.”
Laney’s hard gaze never left mine, but an eyebrow slowly crept up her forehead.
“I’ve never…” I swallowed a thick glob of shame. “I’ve never killed a kid that young. Would never. She and a friend were gawking at the infamous ‘fire bitch’ through a crack in my door this morning. I just wondered how she came into your care.”
Laney exhaled a heavy breath and rubbed her eyes. “You won’t get a chance to kill her, because I’m going to,” she muttered.
She started walking again and I followed a step behind, a deep ache tearing through my chest at her accusation. This female’s—this stonetalon’s—words shouldn’t matter. But somehow, they did.
She glanced back at me, then sighed and reached for my arm. She pulled me into step beside her, but I kept my eyes on my boots. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Brie is my ward. And I love her. And I’d do anything to protect her.” Despite her apology, she shot me another sharp glare.
My jaw clenched. “Your threats have been duly noted.”
She sighed again. “Her parents were very dear friends of mine, both before and after Solstice. About ten years ago, a couple months after Brie was born, they died.” Her gaze drifted to the ceiling, and she took a deep breath.
The pain of their loss instantly etched itself into every line of her face and the curve of her drooping shoulders.
Something turned sour in my stomach, as I watched this stonetalon mourn her long-dead human friends.
“One of their friends had taken Brie for the night so they could have time to themselves. She was so colicky, and they were always exhausted. I think they fell asleep on the couch together and accidentally left candles burning. There were puddles of wax, along the shell of an open window, and one on the floor below it. I’d guess the wind knocked one over and smoke killed them before they woke up.
All that was left of them was a pile of bones.
Her skull was still in his lap.” The soft words were laced with the kind of pain only immeasurable loss could weave. “The house was just a husk.”