Filed To Story: The Knight and the Moth Book PDF Free by Rachel Gillig
When Rory faced me once more, he held a needle and a spool of gray thread.
“I’m going to tailor that dress to your body,” he said. “Trim the excess fabric. Spread wax on it. When it hardens, it should form a delicate exoskeleton with measurements accurate enough for Maude’s blacksmith to make you a custom suit of armor.” His smile did not touch his eyes. “Your Diviner dress will be ruined. Is that acceptable?”
“Try not to enjoy it too much.”
He rounded my body and gripped gossamer like it was the scruff of an animal, wadding excess fabric in his fist until it pulled closely against my throat, breasts, diaphragm.
I drew in a stiff breath.
“You all right?”
“Fine.”
Rory sewed me into my old, ratty dress. When he was done along my back, he moved to my left side. “Hold out your arm.”
I did, and he gripped my forearm. Large as his hand was, it didn’t fit around my bicep. He made the smallest hum of appreciation, then set to sewing my sleeve until it wore me like a second skin, then did the same for my right sleeve.
“You sew well.”
“Do I?” In and out went the needle, the thread whispering after it. Rory’s brow knit in concentration, and I took the moment to study him. His dark lashes. His cheekbones. The ruined charcoal around his eyes.
“I’ve seen knights from the Chiming Wood wear charcoal like that. Maude does it, too.” I nodded at the three gold bands in his right ear. “Those make you look like you’re from Coulson Faire.”
He kept sewing, running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip in concentration. “I’m not from any one place.”
“Where did you live the longest? Castle Luricht?”
His eyes shot to my face. “Benji’s loose-lipped.”
“His grandfather’s story required credence. You were it.”
“What joy is mine.” He sighed. “It’s true. I lived for a time at Castle Luricht under the Artful Brigand. I also lived in Petula Hall with Maude. But the longest I was ever at one place was likely here in the Seacht. Pupil House II, to be exact.”
“Because you’re a foundling.” I peered down at him. “You might have said earlier.”
“Not my fault you were delusional enough to mistake me for nobility.”
“How then were you knighted? I thought-“
“That one needs to be born within one of the hamlet’s noble families to be knighted? You’d be correct.” Rory stepped back to the cabinets and retrieved a large pair of shears. “There are, however, exceptions.”
My sleeves-which had been tented-were now pulled tightly against my arms. Rory ran his hand down my left arm-down the new seam he’d sewn-and brought the shears to the excess fabric. “Keep still.”
I dreaded it would feel like a mutilation, him destroying my Diviner’s dress. But the sound-shears, cutting though gossamer-was strangely satisfying. I shut my eyes and listened to it, imagining myself an insect, the first piece of its cocoon coming away.
The room smelled aromatic now, the beeswax fully melted upon the hearth. When he was done trimming my dress, Rory snagged a loose cloth, and maneuvered the pot of melted wax from the hearth onto the countertop. “I’ll need to work fast before it hardens,” he said, pouring the wax into a pitcher. He dipped his finger in to test it. “It’ll be warm at first.”
“That’s fine.”
“If it’s too much-“
“It’s fine.”
Rory’s eyes, dark and derisive and guarded, had never been easy to read. They still weren’t. But when he looked up, pinning me with a glare, I was suddenly certain those eyes were deeply unhappy with me. “Have it your way.”
He came forward. Lifted the pitcher. Poured a line of wax from my shoulder to my wrist. It didn’t burn, but it was warm enough to hurt.
I didn’t say a thing.
Rory knuckles went white on the cusp of the pitcher. “This isn’t Aisling.” He took a full step back. “Don’t be such a fucking martyr.”
I bit down.
Martyr. “Pith, Myndacious. I said it’s fine.”
He didn’t move.
“The wax will harden,” I snapped.
It didn’t. After a few minutes of staring daggers, he approached once more. The next pass of wax down my arm wasn’t so unbearably hot. Rory molded the wax over my sleeves until it was indeed a kind of exoskeleton, immobilizing my joints in place.
He said the names of the pieces of armor as he worked, as if tethering himself to the task. “Pauldron,” he murmured, his hands manipulating the wax over my shoulder. “Rerebrace.” He pressed over my bicep, then my forearm. “Vambrace.”
He was entirely efficient. By the time the wax had hardened there was not a piece of my arms he had not run his hands over. He did the same to the line of my shoulders, then my back, stopping at the distinct line of my waist. When he was finished he rounded my body, gave me a pointed look-
And dropped to his knees.
I tightened everywhere.
“May I?” Rory poked my thigh. “The fronts of your legs?”
I nodded.
He painted my legs through my dress with broad strokes. When I dared look down, he was pushing fabric aside to get to my shins, and the fabric looked so sheer, and he in contrast so corporeal, like he was tangling with a ghost.
“Hold still.”
“I am.”
“You’re tapping your foot.” Rory gripped my calf muscle. “Now you’re still.” He finished my left leg and turned to the right. “Greaves,” he said, running the wax up my shin. He cupped my knee. “Poleyn.” I heard a tremor in his inhale. Fresh wax poured over my thigh, followed directly by the stroke of Rory’s open palm. “Cuisses.”
“Will I be afforded a helmet?”
“If you like. Though it may be difficult to see through both visor and shroud, and only one will protect you from injury.”
His meaning was plain.
Take off the shroud. But he didn’t say it-he seemed determined not to. Rory simply raised himself to his feet and eyed his work. The last bit of my body not encased in wax was my abdomen. My sternum. Breasts. Ribs. Stomach. Every vital thing that resided behind a breastplate.
The red returned to his cheeks.