CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Beck’s eyes were bright. Unmarred by the darkness that saturated mine. I was jealous, in a way, that he hadn’t really cared about what had been taken from him. That he’d barely known his parents by the time they died. His misery was in the past. Mine stretched before me, a brutal void without end.
“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?”
I glanced over Glacier’s saddle to find Griffon framed in the stable’s doorway. “Probably not.” I squinted through the first rays of the morning sun that blasted over his shoulder and blinded me.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, throwing the curls in disarray. “Tell me.”
I almost smiled at the resignation in his voice and busied myself with adjusting the stirrups. “Only if you don’t ask me why I’m doing it.”
He didn’t answer, and I glanced up. His eyes were pinned on me and narrowed dangerously. I shuffled to the side so his inflated head was blocking the sun and stared back, daring him to challenge my terms.
“Fine,” he finally ground out.
I cleared my throat. “I’m going to the fable fields.”
“Why?” he demanded.
I threw my hands up. “Seriously?”
“What are you going to do when you get there?” he clarified, his tight jaw and clenched fists telling me everything I needed to know about his opinion on the matter.
“Get Laney access.”
“You’re what?” He took a step toward me. “Are you crazy?”
“Batshit.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stood my ground.
“But not for this. Tavin Hays—you know, purveyor of the fable fields, Tavin Hays—happens to be terrified of me. He pissed me off about, oh, ten years back, and I threatened some rather depraved things regarding his dick and my fire. And made damn sure he knew I could back them up.” I stood a little taller.
“A little reminder, and Laney won’t have to risk herself anymore. She can waltz through the front gate.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “Don’t leave without me.” And with that he was gone.
“I didn’t ask for a babysitter!” I yelled after his quickly retreating back. No one had followed me around or stabbed me with ironweb since I’d woken up and it had been refreshing.
“Who said anything about babysitting?” he called back.
I rolled my eyes and plucked a halter off its hook on the wall.
Half an hour later, I was still freezing my ass off atop Glacier.
The stiff leather of my new armor dug into the side of my boobs and rubbed under my arm pits.
“Should have demanded the same shape as my old armor,” I muttered, even though the coverage was undeniably better.
But damn if it wasn’t uncomfortable. I tugged it downward for the thousandth time.
My fingers itched to reach back and fiddle with the rigid leather flaps that covered two horizontal slits over my shoulder blades.
The stitching was clever and made the pieces look like nothing more than aesthetic additions.
Griffon finally reappeared, a rucksack over one shoulder and Alexei’s head visible over the other. “Great,” I muttered. “Two babysitters.”
“Accomplices,” Alexei said, a wide grin stretched across his handsome face. “Not babysitters.”
“Just don’t get in my way.” I tossed them a shit-eating grin and rode out of the stable.
“So, I haven’t really had a chance to ask anyone about the Archon’s magic,” I said as I stooped and picked up a piece of wood. “How does it work?”
Alexei glanced at me as he gathered his own stash of kindling. “Why do you want to know?”
I shrugged as casually as I could manage with an armful of sticks. “She had a vision about me. I’m trying to not be completely creeped out by that.”
“I don’t really know how it works,” he said. “Only that it doesn’t show her things often. Just the most important stuff, I guess.”
I strolled to a fat, arm-length branch a few trees away so he wouldn’t hear my pounding heart and forced my tone to remain conversational. “It’s strange, then, that it didn’t show her Solstice. I wonder what would have been different that day, if it had.”
He snorted. “Everything. We wouldn’t have—” His head pivoted toward me and he glared. “Powerful, gorgeous, and clever. I both pity and envy any male who finds his way into your bed. Moreso your heart.”
I deflated, but a tiny piece of me preened at the flattery. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
“Yeah,” he said, hurt lacing his tone. “I can. I don’t see you trying to trick anyone else.”
“It’s just because you’re the only one without a stick up your ass.”
He glanced at me and I rammed the twig in my fist upward. I was rewarded with a snort.
“Take it as a compliment.”
He shook his head as he headed back to our little camp. “Sure. Even I’m not dumb enough to believe that.”
A little twinge squeezed my chest at his dejected tone. “I’m sorry, okay?” I ran to catch up, juggling my armload of sticks. “It isn’t exactly fun to be desperate enough to resort to such tactics, if that makes you feel any better.”
He sighed heavily and stopped. I almost jabbed a particularly long branch into his back. “Look, I would love to tell you, I really would. But—”
“Your esteemed ruler dictated you can’t.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know. Hence the trickery. I really didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Alright. I’ll choose to believe that.” He led the rest of the way back to where we’d left the horses and tossed his haul to the ground. “You’re up,” he said.
I arranged the piles into something that might last the night and set it burning.
My fingers had just thawed when Griffon returned from scouting the area—so we would avoid any, “uninvited guests,” as he’d put it.
He passed around bedding and food, and we settled in for a long and undoubtedly awkward night. I suddenly wished Laney were with us.
“What is your plan for tomorrow, anyways?” Alexei asked around a bite of bread, breaking the silence.
I glanced at him over the fire. “Walk in and threaten him?”
He pointed at his eyes. “As a human, or…?”
I cringed. “Definitely as a human. I’ll just have to keep my hood up.”
“Or not.”
I barely caught the object Griffon tossed at me. I turned the unassuming box over in my hands, the wood cool beneath my fingers. “What is this?”
I glanced back up to find Alexei gaping at him. “You brought rounders? There’s no shot you had time to ask the Archon for those.”
“Rounders?”
“I’ll deal with it when we get back.” Griffon said and pivoted to me. “It’s how we protect the humans now that we’re no longer welcome. Gargoyles are stationed in every city and town in Privalt, and they aren’t any the wiser.”
A shiver tumbled down my spine. How many had I passed over the years, and had no idea? How many could have stuck a knife in my back and been done with me?
I shoved off the thought and opened the box to two concave and perfectly clear half-spheres. “I still don’t know what I’m looking at.” I poked at one of them; it was soft, if not a little bit slimy.
“They’re made from the gel of the poplar plant and imbued with a bit of magic. They make your pupils appear round,” Griffon explained.
I glanced up from the rounders.
“You look him dead in the eyes when you show him just how little power he actually has.” The hatred burning in his gaze was a bonfire.
I raised a brow. He definitely had history with Tavin.
Curiosity trickled through me until my fingers twitched in my lap, a hundred questions burning behind my lips.
I channeled the need to meddle into a rapidly bouncing foot and asked, “Imbued with magic?” instead.
“What does that even mean? Is it the same mechanism that made those blood locks work, because I’d never seen magic used like that before either. ”
Griffon chuckled. “Can’t go sharing all our secrets at once.”
“Griffon,” Alexei said. We both looked his way. His face was twisted into a mask of worry. “Archon Davina is going to exile you from the oath-cursed continent if you stole those. You know how hard they are to get.”
Griffon dismissed him with a casual toss of a shoulder. “I said I’d deal with it.”
Alexei threw his hands up. “Whatever,” he grumbled, and turned his attention to me. “Don’t lose those, given they’re going to cost Griff his ass. The magic will bind to you, in a sense. They’ll only work for you once you put them in.”
“You sure about this?” I asked Griffon. “Because I look positively menacing with my hood up.”
He snorted, but that fire still burned in his gaze. “I’m certain.”
I shrugged and tucked them into my cloak. “Stare him down while I put him down. Got it.”