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Unfortunate event. Calling Dyphena’s choice to throw herself into an eternal torture of existing in a river of lost souls an unfortunate event? Yeah, that’s the understatement of the millennium. I should’ve seen the misery beneath her smiles and sweet words to Jace. In failing to do so, I damned all of us. I won’t do it again.
“No,” I argue. “Rosemarie’s ability to embrace what makes everyone special and unique is what makes her a perfect candidate. She’s pure vivaciousness.” From the crystals adorning her wrists to the myriad of colors in the bag looped between her gorgeous breasts, she radiates joy, no matter her grief for losing her great-grandmother.
“The elders won’t like it. They prefer conformity.”
“They will bow to the Bridge’s selection, and it will choose Rosemarie. She will be our next queen, and she has the courage to rule.” Unlike Dyphena. “I won’t force her to conform. Not for them. Not for anyone.”
I don’t add that I’d rather be shattered into a million stone pieces than steal the essence of what makes her so uniquely her. Even Truman doesn’t warrant knowing my innermost secret. I’ve fallen in love with Rosemarie through watching her. If I can’t serve her as queen, I don’t want to keep living this bleak existence century after century until my stone rest.
“Cutter’s candidate has already cowed the tower servants into addressing her as queen,” Truman warns. “Between his trickery and her ambition, she’ll be a formidable foe.”
Unease prickles between my wings. A pretty face with cunning could be a problem when it comes to the elders. I have to hold fast to my hope that the Bridge won’t fall to such deception. But what if she has plans to make sure Rosemarie doesn’t make it to the trials? “You think she’s a threat to Rosemarie’s safety?”
Truman stops, and I glance down at the wing-clipped gargoyle. It hurts to look upon the ragged stumps of where his wings should be. “I think desperate people will stoop to anything.” His words carry the gravity of a foreboding premonition.
I haven’t asked what he has seen or endured to cause him to sound so ominous, and I won’t. For a gargoyle to lose his ability to fly, he had to have angered the wrong elders—elders like my father who sat in judgment of us all, whose shame at our failure was so great he chose to take to his eternal stone sleep rather than have to look upon his disappointing sons.
“I’ll remember your warning,” I say. “If you hear anything else about the other candidates?—”
“I’ll bring the information to you immediately.”
“You’re a good friend.” He’s the only friend we’ve had, the only gargoyle who stooped so low as to visit our stone forms as we stood sentry at the Bridge to watch its decay firsthand after it chose Dyphena as queen. She would’ve been revered, treasured. Jace and I wouldn’t have pushed her to love us.
I mourn her loss. Yet her flirtation with Jace and her false affection toward my brother during the trials? That I can’t forgive.
“Only you and your brother can save the Bridge of Souls and our way of life,” Truman says as though it’s a benediction.
The trust he places in us, the heavy onus of feeling that he might be right? It’s staggering. Some days I wish I could throw off the weight of being a candidate Diviner. But I can’t do that to Jace. What would we be if not our chosen calling, if we didn’t fulfill the prophecy that came with our creation?
“We’ll do our best,” I promise. “I should see to our preparations.”
Truman bids me farewell, and I make my way out of the keep toward the Spidress’s Web of Wares. I’ll need to convince her to work with us once more—to lower herself to collaborate with outcasts because only the best will do for our Rosemarie.
12
ROSEMARIE
ACE OF CUPS: NEW BEGINNINGS CAN BE BETTER THAN NICE
If You Let Them Be
Ibarely had time to appreciate the tower Jace brought me to before I fell asleep. He’d insisted on carrying me even though I felt better after downing the berry-flavored drink that Atticus badgered me into finishing. Its sedative didn’t leave me dazed or groggy.
What if I could bring some of the potion back to our world? How many aches would it fix at the hospital? I can’t wait to tell Meg how I’ve had a real life healing potion like those in her games, how it made my fingers and toes tingle, how it instantly cured my headache and churning stomach.
Except thinking of Meg has me worrying.
What if she didn’t luck into finding sunshine and grump monster twins of her own? Or what if she was my friend who’d been stolen according to Theo the lying I’m a tour guide demon?
My spiraling thoughts and the accompanying ache in my chest have me moving. Less dwelling, more doing. The giant bed where Jace tucked me in for my nap smells of him. I turn my head toward the pillow for another inhale. Who knew gargoyle scent has secret anxiety-quashing pheromones?
The bed’s massive enough to fit five of me. Or maybe one enormous gargoyle if he likes to sleep with his wings out. He shivered when I touched those beautiful wings. Soft as velvet in the middle, hard as steel in the strong bone-like structures that support them—I could get used to being wrapped in them. But that couldn’t be right after only just meeting the gargoyles and finding out they exist, could it?
I glance around the room. No Jace. But this room must be his. The arched windows might be tall enough for him to fit through if he opened the stained glass and turned sideways. A chair sits in the corner with an unusual back made up of two short parallel slats with no middle. An oak armoire and matching chest of drawers take up the little space not dominated by the bed. Both look to be antique pieces.
I climb off the tall bed to snoop. While the door stands open, sneaking around this space feels safer than wandering the entire tower. Clothes fill the hooks and pegs along the wall. The pants have a fly in the front and the back. I turn the fabric around in my hands, trying to figure out what I’m seeing until I realize the rear opening accommodates a tail. A giggle bubbles up, and I have to swallow it to keep anyone from hearing.
I crack open the armoire and tense. No magical alarms go off, and no one comes to stop me. Taking a steadying breath, I yank the door all the way open. More clothes hang on the armoire doors, but on the shelves? Figurines of popular cartoon characters, building toy sets inspired by sci fi movies, and miniatures from the latest tabletop games cover every inch of space. There’s even a tiny action figure of a purple gargoyle.
