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She raised her brows. “She opens the healery at night for those from Song who have no other alternative. She has that human virtue of charity which is so rarely bestowed on the truly needy.”
“She’s not the greatest healer.”
The vampire smiled. “Those she treats would have a different opinion. She is the only one who would help. And doesn’t that make her the best?”
I wasn’t going to argue that my mom wasn’t the best. What kind of daughter would I be? “Right. Do you know what the Sphinx’s Curse is?”
“Yes, but I have nothing else I want from you in exchange for information, unless you’d like to offer me your blood.” Her smile was too hungry, and the gleam of red in her eyes had me backing up two steps.
“No, that’s fine. Libby probably knows what it is. I’ve got to go to class. Thank you for the book.”
I took off, not waiting to see if she had more not-so-subtle threats for me.
I barely slipped into class before the lecture started, sitting in the back and not focusing on economics when I could remember last night. Yeah, right. I tried, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the gargoyle.
I doodled in the margins of my paper for two hours before I headed to my next class. I fell asleep while the teacher was lecturing and dreamed of dancing with the gargoyle. It felt so real, the scent, the feel, everything absolutely so intense, that when he pulled me close in his strong arms, wrapped his wings around me, and kissed me, I tasted wind and rain and almost painful sweetness before I woke up with a start, shocked by the bleak gray industrial classroom and the few students heading towards the exit.
Talk about a reality check. How could I reconcile the two worlds? Maybe the whole thing had been a dream. I was so obsessed with Gargoyles, and I didn’t sleep a lot, and maybe Percival the Terrible had slipped me something in that spell he used to release the books to mess with my mind. That was possible and far more likely than me actually dancing with gargoyles.
I shook my head and went to work. The sushi bar was a short ride from my school, kitty-corner from the Library of Antiquities in center city. The lunch rush was already going strong when I went in the back, pulled off my hat and hoodie, stuck my hair in a mop bun, pulled on an apron, and went to work.
It took me fifteen minutes to get a chance to talk to Rynne.
“Hey,” I said as we were in the kitchen together, stacking dishes and putting in orders.
She bumped my hip. “You have a weird aura.” She waved her hands around mystically, purple nails matching the streak in her hair.
“Yeah, I had a weird night.” I bit my bottom lip. Could I tell her about the gargoyle? I was dying to say it out loud to someone so that it wouldn’t feel like a dream, but gargoyles were secretive, and if it slipped out that I said that I’d seen him then he might be scared off.
“Yeah?” She raised a brow. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally found a guy who can compete with your devotion to your mother. It’s weird, Gab, not gonna lie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You still work for your mom and live with her.”
“Yeah, but she pays me, and besides that, she’d bully my dad too much if I moved out. So, what happened last night?”
“Table ten needs more water,” Rynne’s mom said, coming in the swinging kitchen door. “Also, Rynnie, don’t forget to smile when you take out the sushi. I realize that you’re trying to cultivate your tough guy persona, but save it for law school.”
We grabbed our trays and headed out past Rynne’s mother’s watchful eye. Once we were out, I nudged her. “She thinks that you’re going to law school?”
“Forensics and law are practically the same thing.”
“Yeah, one’s putting yourself at risk every day and the other is walking around in a business suit. You have to tell her.”
She sighed heavily. “I might change my mind. No sense in giving her an aneurism before it’s necessary. What happened last night?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, and headed towards table ten to fill the lunch group’s waters. Libby was next to them with her dog, the old bulldog sleeping under her chair while she frowned over a piece of paper filled with foreign languages.
“Can I take your order?” I asked, cocking my hip.
She looked up, surprised. “Really? You’re going to let me order?”
I smiled at her. Rynne’s mother was notoriously pushy about giving people the sushi they needed instead of wanted, but she wasn’t ever wrong. “I want to know how much you’re going to eat today, and if anyone else will be in your party. Also, do you know what the Sphinx’s Curse is in Song?”
She frowned at me. “How do you have time to get into trouble between work and school?”
I leaned against the table. “So, you do know what it is? A bar? A pawnshop?”
“I know that everything in Song is trouble. I’ll have to ask. Why do you want to know?”
