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I finally swallowed and shook my head, not quite meeting those malicious eyes. “No, they’re fine. The thing is…” I squeezed my eyes tight and then said in a rush, “The books from the library, they ended up in the Sphinx’s Curse, and the guy, the lion shifter with the pretty curls and the plaid fetish is trying to get me to get you to go claim them, because he can tell it’s your magic or something.” I put my forehead on the table, barely missing the pizza. Why had I bothered coming here? I was just drawing out the misery and for what? He’d never say yes.
“What will you give me for it?”
I shook my head against the table. “I don’t have anything you want.”
“You assume that you know what I want.”
“You value all the things I don’t have. No magic, no money, no family, no incredibly delicious pizza, and I can’t even play an instrument.”
“You sing. I remember from the time I woke up with the exploding shaving cream bomb.”
“You remember me singing? Weird. I don’t remember singing.”
“There was glitter in the shaving cream. It was probably more memorable for me than for you. I’d say that I missed our interactions in the past two years, but we both know that I’d be lying.”
I sat up, glaring at him. “Why did you give me the books?”
He smiled, showing perfect teeth in a stunningly sultry smile. “Maybe I thought that this disaster would happen.”
I scowled at him, took a vicious bite out of my pizza, and then put my head back on the table. “Whatever. Just say no, so I can leave.”
“No.”
I got up, but he put a hand on my wrist, his skin cold and clammy, and his eyes bright, almost feverish.
“Gabriela, if I go into Song to claim those books for you, our names will be irrevocably linked. Do you know what my family is like, the family that you don’t have? You’re a janitor without magic, and it is completely possible that my mother would destroy your mother and you to the fullest extent of her capability if she suspected that I had the slightest interest in you. She’s even more capable than I am.” He flashed a hard smile and then shoved an entire piece of pizza in his mouth while I stared at him, his hand still wrapped around my wrist while I slowly sank back down on the bench opposite him.
“Are you threatening me?” I genuinely wasn’t sure.
He swallowed his pizza and shook his head, moving to stand, finally releasing me. “I’ll do it, if you sing publicly, humiliating yourself, and if you’d like everyone who’s anyone to think that I’m your boyfriend. I mean, it’s nothing to me if your inconsequential life is ruined, but I thought you should know the stakes before you made your choice, since it’s more fun this way. Well?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I was doing a lot of that lately. If he was exaggerating about his mother, but no, he probably wasn’t. I mean, she’d named him Percival Marigold. The woman was clearly pure evil. The idea of being Percival’s girlfriend was obviously ludicrous, because, as he’d clarified so succinctly, I wasn’t remotely in his league, his same universe. “I’ll figure something out,” I said lamely. “I’d rather go to prison than have people think that we’re together.”
“I’m so glad we’re on the same page. Pity that you didn’t sing with me, though. The humiliation would be delicious. Your shoulders, how are they?” he asked, glancing back, hesitating before he continued on his way to the stage.
“They’re perfect. No pain at all.”
He frowned slightly. “Full range of motion?”
I swung my arms and then felt weird. I guess demons brought us to common ground. Who knew that existed? “Never been better.”
He grunted and continued towards the stage, greeting the cheers with a charming smile that was awfully pretty. Vile monster.
“What did he want with you?” another student asked, a guy closer to my age than Percival, probably.
“Mrs. Hanley,” I said lamely. I would have mentioned the demon in the library, but I was bound.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Of course, he wouldn’t waste magic to keep everyone else from hearing what you have to say, in spite of being so close to exhausted already.”
“Of course not,” I said and wished I could put my head down on the table. I was going to get fired at the very least, but that would be better than people thinking that I was together with Percival Marigold, particularly if my gargoyle heard about it. Not that he was my gargoyle specifically, but I was his… probably whatever he wanted me to be. When would I see him again? Would he visit me in jail? At least I’d have happy memories while I languished away.
I smiled and headed outside, feeling a twinge of happiness and possibility in spite of the book nonsense. Whatever happened would happen, and I’d kissed a gargoyle.
Chapter
Five
Iwent back to work at Gray College that night, and it was fine right up to the point when I was wheeling the mop bucket out of a class and I hit my arm on a doorknob. I flinched automatically because it should have hurt, but it didn’t. I barely felt anything, and when I examined it more closely, there were little white bits over that part of my arm, but when I scratched it off, they came off as stone flakes. Stone flakes. Had I gotten stone dust on my arm from something? I poked my arm a few more times, jabbing it until I could feel it, but the whole thing kind of freaked me out.
