Author: admin

“Thought about that. Figured out a solution.” Maude hauled me off the bed. Surprised me with a fearsome hug. “Live.” The gargoyle’s stone fingers were blunt and clumsy, mostly because he was trilling with excitement. “Me, a squire.” He held up chainmail, fastened armor to my legs, my arms, snapped Maude’s breastplate over my chest….

“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…

“You’re slow,” Rory called. He stood at the top of a crooked stairwell that cut up the mountainside to a lookout. The steps were uneven and treacherously steep. If I lost my balance, the fall would be excruciating. “And you’re an ass,” I shot back. “It’s not as if the Oarsman challenged me to a…

That’s when I heard the voices. Just outside the door. “What, Maude?” It was Rory, snapping. “Just spit it out.” I tiptoed to the door. On the other side, someone let out a low sigh. “I already told you. Three days is not enough time to prepare.” Maude’s voice was hard. Steadfast. “It should be…

I hauled in air. When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the rose window high in Aisling’s cloister. But all I saw was the moon, hovering in its dark heaven. The moon-and Rory. “I didn’t think.” He pushed my hair out of my face, careful of my shroud, and kept his hand at…

All Rory did, in his usual half-hearted way, was shrug. “That’s no trouble.” I expected the hot springs to smell of rotting flowers. They didn’t. They smelled of earth. Hidden in the shadow of the mountains, steam rising off them like tired old ghosts, sat a cluster of pools. Rory led me to the largest….

Rory was looking at me. Raw and desperate and intent, like he was trying to tell me something. His gaze flickered to my belt. The Oarsman loomed over me. “I can smell it on you,” he rasped. Hard fingers prodded my hips, my ribs and stomach. “Aisling’s spring water.” His stone eyes were devoid of…

The woman’s eyes moved past her son, slamming directly onto me. Then the gargoyle. Then me again. “There’s a Diviner in your midst.” “Yes.” Hamelin stepped aside. Looked me over the way his mother had. “This is Six. She’s a friend.” Three horses over, Rory snorted. Hamelin bit the inside of his cheek. “The king’s…

My hands fell to the hammer and chisel upon my belt. “Should we get the others?” “Benji will still be in the water. Wouldn’t want to give the Oarsman time to vanish,” Rory whispered, stepping forward. “No sudden movements, all right?” “I say, Bartholomew-“ “No talking, either.” He nodded at the stairs. “We go very,…

The night was cold, the air thin, and I was thoughtless and breathless. I turned my head away from his silhouette, my pulse clamoring- And saw a shadow move. They looked like rocks at first. Gray, textured skin that might easily be mistaken for long pieces of shale, like they’d fallen from the mountains and…