Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
“As if you haven’t imagined a thousand ways to strangle me.”
He bucked his hips and my weight shifted forward, my chest falling flat over his, my forearm pressing into his throat.
“Good.” Rory’s breath caught. “Just like that.”
Rain sluiced from my hair, falling down my nose, over the curve of my mouth, then dropping onto his. I looked down at his lips, and he up at mine, the distance between us eclipsing like a celestial movement, staggering and inevitable. I could feel the plane of his body-and the moment it hardened. Rory flushed. Slowly, his left hand rose to my face. He hooked my chin with his thumb and pressed, parting my lips directly over his. Then he was pushing up, his mouth ghosting over mine-
“You two still sparring?” someone called over the rain. “Or have we shifted tactics?”
I jerked back. Benji and Maude stood paces away. The gargoyle was there, too, poking raindrops out of the air. “I say, Bartholomew,” he said distractedly. “Are you quite well?”
I peeled myself off Rory faster than I’d run my warm-ups. “I’m fine.”
“I meant that Bartholomew.” The gargoyle flicked a stone finger at Rory. “The knave looks undone.”
Rory was still lying on the ground, breathing hard, eyes unfocused. I watched his chest rise and fall, and then he was scraping a hand over his face, rising to his feet, and coming to stand next to Maude and the king.
I noticed then how rigid Maude stood. How low her brows were over her green eyes. “Three days isn’t much time.”
Benji was red around the nose and wearing an extra cloak, like he hadn’t yet warmed from being in the water during the ceremony. “We’ll get her ready.” From his pocket, he withdrew the Harried Scribe’s inkwell. Smiled at me. “By any means.”
Maude’s features twisted in a knot. “That’s her weapon? Scalding ink against an oar?”
I could hear the doubt in her voice. It felt like a sign-a portent. A terrible omen.
“I’ve a better idea.” Rory held out his hand under her nose, the Artful Brigand’s coin waiting in his palm.
He turned his gaze to me. There was still a hint of red in his cheeks. “Do you know how to skip a stone, Diviner? Throw it flat?”
“Yes.”
He beckoned me forward. When I reached into his palm and took the coin, I was surprised by how heavy it was.
Rory rounded my body. “There are two rules to that coin. Rule one: Throw it with the smooth side up, and the coin will transport you to any place you toss it. You won’t touch anything-walls, doors, even your opponent. You’ll be like a ghost.”
“And the other side?”
“More aggressive than a ghost,” Maude deadpanned.
Satisfaction stole over Rory’s face. “Rule two: Throw the coin the rough side up, it will break through anything it encounters until it loses momentum. But you’ll have to chase after it-so make the throw count.”
I turned the coin over in my palm. “So if I were to throw it rough side up, let’s say, at your head-“
“You’d be picking the pieces of my brain off Benji’s cloak.”
“Not much of a mess, then.”
Maude went to stand opposite me across the yard. “Toss it toward me, Six. Not through me, mind. Smooth side up-toss it so you’re standing on my left.”
I looked down at the coin.
“Don’t worry, Bartholomew,” the gargoyle called. “If you accidentally kill her, I will not be upset.”
“I will!” Benji’s blue eyes widened. “Just… be careful.”
“Everyone shut up.” Rory’s eyes were on me, a challenge toying within them. “Let it fly.”
I hauled in a breath. Swung my arm, my wrist. Let loose the coin-
And disappeared.
It was just like at Aisling when Rory and I had slipped through the cottage door. Speed and nothingness. I disappeared, my body eclipsed by rain and wind in an exhilaration akin to dancing-and then my hand was out, catching the coin.
I rematerialized at Maude’s side.
I’d hoped to impress her. But there was still doubt in Maude’s voice. “Again.”
I was already away, the coin soaring once more. This time when I caught it, it was directly in front of Rory’s nose.
“Your turn, Myndacious,” I said, breathless. “Hit me as hard as you can.” I flickered away. “If you can.”
The chase began. Maude, Rory, Benji, even the gargoyle-though he hid his eyes behind his hand half the time-tried to tag me before I could flicker away with the coin. Sometimes I did not catch the coin and they caught me. Benji managed a few swipes at my back, my hair, but he was slow-easy to dodge. Not like Maude.
And certainly not like Rory.
The yard was a game board, and he was always a move ahead. Even when I threw the coin in a direction I supposed out of reach, he was already running, already reaching out, already catching me. Long and limber and bereft of armor, Rory kept his knees bent, his eyes tight in concentration.
And his feet fast.
By the tenth, maybe the twentieth time he’d caught me, I was seething, and Rory looking dangerously close to having a good time. “Good. You’re mad.” He turned the coin over in my palm. “Time to break things.”
Maude and the gargoyle and Rory hauled stones, discarded wood-anything that wouldn’t be missed-onto the upland.
This time, I threw the coin rough side up.
And shattered them.
The gargoyle clapped.
They made a square of sticks, mimicking the pool in the Ardent Oarsman’s hall. I practiced around it, never getting too close.
“Draw him away from his pool,” Rory instructed. “Deny his oar its magic, its advantage. Stay away from water, and he will be but a man with a stone oar.”
But for every hour we trained, for every time the coin grazed stone or wood but did not shatter it, the lines in Maude’s face deepened.
By night, I was a shell of a human. I wobbled to the inn, ate with the other knights, but was so close to using my dinner plate as a pillow that the gargoyle took me from the commons, brought me to our room-tossed me into bed. I was asleep in seconds.
When I woke, the moon was still a visitor in my window. The gargoyle was snoring next to my bed, a blanket thrown over himself.
Maude’s bed was empty.