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And what a useless thing pity is, for a guest is always a kind of trespasser.
And I thought maybe that’s where all the warmth of him lived. In the fervid, coal-stoked depths of his voice.
Were he to bite me, I imagined the indent would be as unique as his fingerprint. What a horrible thought.
I seethed all night and got no rest.
Be ready by nightfall. —R (The idleweed is to spare my fucking boots. Don’t smoke it all.)
We smoked all the idleweed.
but not before Rory dropped his mouth to my ear. “Hope he was deferential in his hastiness.”
“The pretty one.” Rory’s eyes flitted to me.
“Just as well. Sometimes, Bartholomew, I think her quite the bitch.”
“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.”
“To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?
“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.”
My visage fragmented in the broken mirror. For a moment it looked like there were still five other women in the room with me. But it was merely a trick of the glass.
“Threw you on that bed easy enough, too,” he murmured.
“Which one marked up your face?” My teeth pressed into my bottom lip. “Tell me.” “The serpentine one.”
I don’t want to start over again and again and watch children dream and never see beyond this place. I don’t want to be in the middle of the story anymore.
“You’re remarkably difficult to like.” “You’d like me better if you called me Rory.” “I’d like you better if you were on your back again.” He smiled.
“But, really—I tried to be good. To be a perfect Diviner and do everything the abbess told me to. I never complained, never said no. My worth was written by the rules I followed. But then the abbess called me resentful—a martyr. And maybe I am. But didn’t I become that way because her love cost as much?”
I couldn’t look away.
“I think you like that I’m a bad knight. It’s why you feel so righteous, flaying me with your tongue—why you enjoy throwing me down and grinding your heel into my pride. It does something to you.” He wet his bottom lip. “I’d bet my oath your whole body is awake right now, aching and eager at the thought of putting me in my place.”
“What fun! What a wonderful display of valor on my part.”
“There aren’t ghosts in my words, Six. No rot hiding behind the scent of flowers. When I insult you, you’ll know it.” She nodded at the box. “You have a strong body to match a valiant spirit. That was all I meant.”
“Never what?” “Nothing.” He didn’t let it go. “Never…?” “I could never get comfortable. Never feel what you’re meant to feel. You know—losing oneself with someone else. The unraveling.” My face was so warm it hurt. “The little death.”
“I don’t.” Rory’s voice was gravel. “I was wondering what it would be like. Watching you unravel.”
Rory was looking at me. Raw and desperate and intent, like he was trying to tell me something. His gaze flickered to my belt.
His voice hardened. “I don’t want him touching you like he did last night. I don’t want him within a fucking mile of you. Keep your steps light.”
Reached for his cheek—dragged the corner of his mouth up with my thumb until he wore an absurd half smile. “That’s better. Still foul and unknightly, though.” “Just the way you like me.” Rory nipped the pad of my thumb. “Now run it again.”
“Are you embarrassed to be bad at something?” Rory asked. “Or just embarrassed to be bad at it in front of me?” “Fuck you.”
Errant knight Rodrick Myndacious, prideful, disdainful, godless, believed in me.
“Rory.”
And just like that, another crack fissured in my heart.
“And you were imagining what pattern my teeth might leave on your skin?”
“Where would you bite me, knight?” “Wherever you told me to, Diviner.”
“If you have imagined portents, let me dispel them.
“The thing is—I think I’d do anything you asked of me.”
“I will carry them for you, Bartholomew. I will shoulder any weight you give me.”
“What?” “It’s stupid.” “Then it should come easily to me.”
I bit down on a smile.
“It ends a handful of minutes from now. After you’ve won, and there is one less Omen in the world.” He grinned. “It ends when you kiss me.” “You mean it ends after I’ve won, and there is one less Omen in the world—and I hit you as hard as I can.” “With your mouth.”
“Wake up, sweetheart. Wake. Up.”
“It sounds horrible when you put it like that.” “True things often do.”
“I’m sorry for the Diviners. I’m sorry the people who best understood what you’ve endured were taken from you, and that so much of living without them feels like dying. But if you hadn’t left that tor—”
“I’d have come for you. I’d have killed or stolen or done any ignoble thing to see you free of that place. You are more special than you realize. I don’t even know your name”—he drew in a breath—“and I would do anything for you.”
“My name is Sybil Delling.”
“Sybil.”
“Anger is a fine weapon, Diviner,” she said, quiet enough so the others wouldn’t hear. “So long as you don’t point it at yourself.
The gargoyle tutted. “You two have been posturing long enough.” He shouted at Rory. “I say, Bartholomew! Won’t you come over here a moment?”
“Was it nothing, that knock in the Fervent Peaks, Bartholomew?” He nodded at Rory. “He came to our door, and you disappeared for many hours. When you returned you were wet and took off your tunic and threw blankets over yourself.
I tried to sleep, but you were terribly annoying, breathing loudly, sighing and making little sounds and stirring in your bed—” I slapped a hand over his mouth.
“Little sounds?” came his slow, mirthful reply.
