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

by Rachel Gillig

There was no warmth in his eyes. Then he spoke. Not in curt hollers like he had from

the road, but lower. And I thought maybe that’s where all the warmth of him lived. In the fervid, coal-stoked depths of his voice.

He smiled back, equally hostile. His teeth were white, straight—except the front bottom three, which were crowded. A pallid row of disorganized soldiers. Were he to bite me, I imagined the indent would be as unique as his fingerprint. What a horrible thought.

“Which is more intricate?” he mused. “The designs of men, trying to reach gods, or that of gods, trying to reach men?” My hammer collided with a chunk of granite. “What is either to the intricacies of women, who reach both?”

“Just as well. Discussing things with that equine proved quite a bore.” The gargoyle sighed, suddenly forlorn. “I confess horses are not the intelligent beasts I imagined them to be. Though I don’t think that merits the abuse they suffer postmortem.” That one took me a moment. “No one actually beats dead horses, gargoyle. It’s an expression.” “Really? How morbid.”

Diviners are but the tools of the craft of Divination. Holy, not human.” “The cathedral, its Omens, its Diviners sit on high,” the gargoyle said plainly. “If you only ever look up at something, can you ever see it clearly?”

I hurried to the table. Pulled my chair close to the gargoyle’s and hissed in his ear. “I need you to comport yourself.” “I have no idea what that means.” He sniffed the quilted blanket around his shoulders. “Sounds like something one does in a chamber pot.” “That. Right there. That is not a normal thing to say. Absurdity will throw the conversation off course, and I need clarity from this boy-king. For the next quarter hour, every time you feel the compulsion to say something peculiar, smother it.” He sank into his chair and sulked. “You ask a great deal of me.”

My vision blurred. Sorrow, I realized. That was the agony behind my eyes. Sorrow, who came like a shepherdess, leading a flock of tears.

“Bartholomew is in the throes of despair.” The gargoyle kept on humming. “A rather undervalued state of being, if you ask me.”