CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The beast was tied to an old flogging post beside Council Hall, his face set in a stony mask that revealed nothing.
His wings were spread on either side of the pole.
All I could hear as I stared at them were the heavy beats of Griffon’s wings the night he left my life in ruins.
My fingers danced with fire, and the stonetalon’s eyes dipped to my fingers.
It was the only sign of his fear. I stopped a few feet in front of him.
My palms flared and he ignited. I didn’t balk from these screams; they were the sound of justice, and I bathed in them.
Laney was strolling down the hall, veritable platter of cake in hand, when I turned the corner toward my room. She smiled when she saw me. And beamed like the four fucking moons when she noticed what I was wearing.
“Yes!” She pumped her free arm and almost lost the cake when she jumped into the air.
I snorted but couldn’t hide my satisfaction at her reaction. “You’re not angry?” I asked. “Tolerating me is one thing. Even flirting. But this?” I gestured at the shirt.
“Lydia,” she said softly, “do you have any idea how long it has been since I’ve seen my annoying little brother happy? Even before Cyprian he always just seemed…lonely. I’m thrilled.” She wrapped me in a hug. “Welcome to our weird little family.”
Family. I shattered.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Laney said, her arms tightening around me as she followed me to the ground. “What did I say? Did I misinterpret the shirt? Oh gods, did he fuck you and then kick you out or something?”
I didn’t answer—couldn’t.
“Just tell me whose ass to go beat,” she said, her voice utterly bewildered.
It’s so much worse than you know. He doesn’t have long, I wanted to say. But that secret was his, even though it pissed me off that he kept it. Instead, I just choked out, “He’s dying. It just hit me that—that this doesn’t have a happy ending.”
“Oh, honey,” Laney said quietly. Her palm ran soothing circles on my back.
“Gods,” I gasped. “He’s going to die.”
“I know.” Her own voice was thick, and a tiny drop of moisture struck my shoulder. “But he’s doing okay. Even better since you’ve been here. Maybe we have longer than we think with him.”
I cried harder.
She tugged me to my feet and guided me into the privacy of my room. “Sit,” she said, pointing to my little breakfast table. I collapsed into a chair, and she dumped the absurdly large piece of cake in front of me. “Eat. Cake makes everything better.”
Laney and the cake were indeed desiccants for my tears, and by the time I’d shoved the tenth forkful into my mouth, they had mostly dried up.
“I hope that dress is in Griff’s room and not—”
I cringed and she crossed her arms.
“You fucking burned it, didn’t you?”
“To ash,” I confirmed.
She sighed. “Well, go on then, tell me about last night.” The size of the piece of cake she stuffed into her mouth was just indecent.
I raised a brow. “Do you want to know every position, or…?”
She smacked me and laughed around the cake, her voice muffled. “Gross, no.” She swallowed the glob. “The time in between exiting the party and entering his bed will do.” Her smile was wicked. “I want the juicy details, not the juicy de—”
“Okay,” I interrupted. “That was one too many times with the word ‘juicy.’”
Her cackle wrung a smile out of me. She was warm, and open, and my friend. So I told her—about the greenhouse, the phoenix and her horrible-yet-effective tactics, and finding Griffon lost in Stone.
“I wish I hadn’t left him to begin with,” I finished. “But he didn’t seem too concerned about it once the jui—”
Laney held up a hand. “Party to bed. That’s it.”
“Well, the first time wasn’t in a bed, so…” I winked at her.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to have to beat his ass for taking you on the damned floor.”
“And the piano, and the wall…”
“Oath save me. Remind me to send the cleaning staff through there.” She snorted and her shoulders shook with the effort not to laugh.
My lips twitched. She sprayed me with cake.
“Laney!” I squeaked, and absolutely lost it.
I tipped back in my chair and laughed and laughed, the sound music and freedom and light. I laughed until I was crying. Until a different kind of tear that I hadn’t tasted in a very, very long time slipped between my lips.
The cake tried to make a reappearance, and I clenched my burning stomach muscles at the same time gravity decided to take possession of my chair.
“Oh, sh—” I toppled backward and went ass over head when the chair struck the ground.
Griffon’s shirt hiked up to my boobs and flashed Laney a whole lot more than she’d bargained for.
I wriggled on the ground and yanked it back down.
Laney’s laugher grew manic. “Whose idea was the stupid cake?” she howled from somewhere on the other side of the delinquent chair. “I’m going to puke!”
“Me too!” I squealed between now-silent laughs, my gasps for air the only sounds making it out.
She crawled over and collapsed beside me, her face as tear-soaked as mine. “Ask me something that isn’t funny. My stomach hurts.”
I dragged the backs of my hands over my face. “Uhhh, would I have survived the fall off the mountain if I hadn’t managed to get my wings back out?”
“Snapped necks,” she said, wiping her own tears. “Definity not funny.”
“So that’s the limit to our healing?”
“We can survive a lot, but not that.”
I tucked that piece of information away. “How’s Tavin?” I’d been knee-deep in Lakuro for her first trip to the fields and forgotten to ask.
She snorted. “Accommodating. There was literally a bag of it waiting at the gate for me.” She gave me a sly smile. “I dumped it on the ground and used the bag to pick my own. I think Tavin is too attached to his cock to poison it, but I’m not willing to risk it.”
My brow scrunched. “You know every rich bastard in Privalt has a basket full of fable on their living room table, right? I’m sure you could’ve just bought it all these years.”
“You know, I did think about that, in the beginning.” She tapped her chin. “It was going great until a certain fire channeler started killing anyone associating with gargoyles.” She rotated her head toward me, and I cringed under her withering glare. “My contacts dried up pretty quick after that.”
“Damn. I’m sorry, Laney. Truly.”
She waved her hand. “It’s in the past. Besides, robbing Tavin blind for the past seven or eight years has given me something to do while we wait for Bellan’s move.”
I had a feeling she would have rather not, but I didn’t press her. “Thank you for this.” I tossed a finger between her and the cake on the table. “I was definitely going to start spiraling.”
“You’re my sister,” she said matter-of-factly. “Cake and girl talk is the least I can do.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the most beautiful or painful thing I’d ever heard.
We sat at a table in the records hall hours later, my eyes burning from looking at cramped writing and faded ink for so long.
I stared at the warped wood and scorched stone left over from my ill-fated escape.
“What if I burned it?” I asked softly. “What if the answer was up there, and I just…burned it?”
Laney leaned back from the book she was hunched over and sighed. “I don’t think the answer is anywhere in here, Lyd.” Her voice was resigned. “Gargoyles have been scouring these records for information about the Pact for thousands of years. If it was here, someone would have found it.”
I slammed my hand down on the open book in front of me. A plume of dust clogged the air. “I don’t accept that,” I said, waving the cloud away. “There has to be a way.”
Her sad stare was as infuriating as Griffon’s cold resignation.
“What about Alarin?” I pressed. “They were responsible for the magic in the first place. Maybe they have more information about it.”
“Good luck ever seeing it,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “They are notoriously private about that era. Almost like they’re ashamed of creating a race of monsters and binding us all to some archaic oath, or something.”
I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. How pissed would Davina be if I sailed across the Hasting and burned them to crisps until someone told me the truth about it?
“Instead of doing whatever you’re thinking of doing,” Griffon said behind me, “you could just spend the time I have left with me.”
I whirled toward him, my face heating at the flash of skin and sweat and roving tongues that skated through my head.
I glared at him. “That sounds an awful lot like giving up, Griffon. Do you remember what I said about giving up?”
“Oh, I remember.” He glanced between the two of us. “I came by your room this morning to promise you I wouldn’t, but the two of you were cackling like drunken crows.” He cocked his head in question.
Laney popped out of her chair. “Just discussing your little, teeny, tiny, minuscule,” she smiled sweetly at him, “error, from last night.”
“Oh, trust me,” I muttered, “his error is huge.”
Griffon shot me a look of pure male satisfaction and I rolled my eyes, but Laney ignored me and launched herself onto his back, digging her knuckle into his skull.
“The floor?” she barked. “You’ve been eye-fucking her for weeks and you finally get to do it and you pick the floor?”
Griffon smiled lazily. “What can I say, I feast wherever the buffet is spread.” He winked at me.
“Gods and moons,” I muttered. I ripped my gaze off him before it fell to his pants.
It fell on Beck instead, frozen mid-stride and angled toward the exit.
He stared at us, a book hanging forgotten at his side.
He buried the twist of his lips and narrowed eyes in that bland mask he loved and walked away without a word.
My heart twinged. I wanted to talk to him but… what would I even say?
I rolled my eyes again at the smug-as-shit smirk Griffon was wearing when I looked back at him. “You could be less of an ass about this whole thing, you know.”
He shrugged. “I could.”
I cocked a brow and waited.
“But I just came to retrieve you. You promised to join me in my room tonight.”
I glanced toward the window and my skewed brow shot up at the stars twinkling in the sky, enveloped by a soft, black night. My pulse kicked up.
Laney dropped back to the ground and punched him. “Put your buffet on a damned blanket this time, you beast.” She waggled her fingers at me and skipped toward the door.
The time I had left with Griffon was sprinting toward a death knell I could already hear.
And I didn’t want to spend it angry with him.
I couldn’t keep my gaze from leveling with his already erect cock as he stalked toward me.
Desperation clawed at my belly, and I clung to him as he scooped me out of the chair and carried me back to his room.