The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

We smoked all the idleweed.

“Let’s do this when our service is up. Lie in bed. Smoke. Drink. Eat. Do absolutely nothing.” “Absolutely nothing,” Three agreed, raising her twig of idleweed in a salute.

What one hit of the kush does to a mfr

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,

He’d been complaining about vermin, got his foot caught in a hole in the earth, and started crying.

Lol i love this gargoyle

I shook myself. “Don’t let your mind run wild.” “What pace should I let it run, then?” I screamed, and so did the batlike gargoyle behind me. “You idiot!” I put a hand to my breast. “You scared me.” “Don’t shout at me, Bartholomew.”

looooool

The gargoyle and I were already scampering down

I picture him with a waddle

The gargoyle was sniffing vines of greenery, unaware that he was roasting his own wing in an open torch.

“What?” “Is my voice too quiet?” He hauled in a breath. Shouted in my face. “Take me with you, Bartholomew!

“He mistook you for a bird.” “An even greater slander!” The gargoyle wagged a stone finger at the scribe’s stall. “I shall destroy his little house.”

I’m not one of your precious gods, Diviner.” His eyes flickered in the darkness. “I’m the one who’s killing them.”

The mutt chased us for three city blocks. All the while the gargoyle shouted, his voice ringing through the streets, “Fear not, Bartholomew! Every day has its dog.”

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, too, am unharmed.” The gargoyle patted his stone chest. “Right as raindrops.” So close.

“It is not like me to be the bearer of bad tidings,” the gargoyle said. “Bartholomew does not know how to swim. But worry not—” He looked up at me. Smiled proudly. “She has always excelled at drowning.”

He’d never be a very good knight, but every time he looked at the woman, he had the distinct faith”—his eyes roved my face—“that things could be better than they’d been.”

Nothing felt holy anymore, except maybe the dead.

dandelion seed flew up the gargoyle’s nose. He leaned back. Cried out. Sneezed in Rory’s face.

“I am Benedict Castor the Third.” His voice was quiet at first, but then I smiled at him, and he spoke louder, projecting over the library like we were in a vast hall filled with witnesses.

This feels foreboding