I realized I hadn’t heard the last couple of minutes of his explanation, and I excused myself to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face until I felt present again.
When I came out, Jay was standing near the window, gazing out at the grounds. He jerked, startled by the door opening. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”
I waved him off. “What will I be expected to do there?”
“It’s not like a formal house dinner,” Jay said. “Usually, only the consorts of important members attend.”
“So, Jesaiah, Tyson, and me?” I guessed.
Jay nodded. “Tyson probably thought that you were purposefully nudging him out of the honor by sending him out first.”
I tried not to wince. The antagonism between me and Tyson was on both sides, but I couldn’t afford to feed the fire, not if we were going to be fighting battles together.
“I’ll let you get ready,” Jay said. He rushed out of the room, closing the door behind him. He’d left a note on the desk in the corner, a list of all the different werewolf pairings I had put together. Each consort pair was marked with their shift start time, and I felt grateful that at least he had been paying attention.
Shaking my head, I looked around the room, then glanced down at my own clothes. They would have to do. I didn’t feel comfortable taking anything from Cade’s closet without his permission. I needed to find him and update him.
Pocketing the list of werewolves, I left the room, using my nose and ears to track Cade down. If he was in whatever secret room council sessions were held in, it was a lost cause, but I should at least be able to track him to the library entrance.
I found him sitting in the library, bare feet digging into the thick carpeting under one of the sitting chairs. In a different world, I could sit next to him, let him rest his bare feet on my lap as I massaged his calves, paid homage to the perfection of each toe.
When he saw me, he blinked slowly, as though he was coming back to himself. Then he straightened, looking behind me before relaxing into the chair.
“Just me,” I said unnecessarily.
He nodded tightly but bent to put his shoes back on.
I updated him about the patrols and found out from him that Jesaiah had cleared the grounds, the areas directly around the house and farm.
He gestured at the book he had been reading. “From what I can tell, gargoyles shouldn’t be able to survive too far away from their buildings or nesting grounds. Whoever sent the gargoyles here intended for them to die.”
I frowned. “Nesting grounds? Could they have moved the gargoyles nearby? Given them a tree or something to guard?”
“I thought about that.” Cade flipped open the book and held it out to me. I skimmed as he summarized. “It has to be buildings, something about the magic involved. People have tried different things—outbuildings, trees, plants, even other statues. None of it lasts for very long.”
“So unless they figured out an entirely new way to make gargoyles…”
“They expected the gargoyles to die before we could get any information out of them,” Cade said.
I cursed, shutting the book and handing it back to him. “We need to question the gargoyles before the magic that’s animating them disintegrates.Canyou question gargoyles? Or is it literally like talking to someone with a head full of rocks? What do they even talk about with each other?”
“I’m sure they have all the gossip on pigeons and whoever else lives a hundred feet off the ground.” Cade shrugged. “We can try questioning them now and see if they can tell us more than which pigeons are sitting on eggs and which window washer isn’t doing a good job.”
He pulled on a short dark coat, the interior lined in fluorescent purple. It turned the outfit from casual to formal instantly. I followed him as he walked out of the library, but before we could even leave the house, Leon stepped in front of him.
“Prince Bartlett, thank goodness I found you. Dinner is about to begin, and the dryads are getting antsy without your presence.”
Cade waved his hand. “I need to question the gargoyles before any dinner. I’m sure the dryads will understand—”
“They might understand, but the rest of the house will not,” Leon said. “Ask Isaac to question them, or I can go myself. But the house needs to see you, see that you are safe and that you have emerged successful from your battle.”
Cade stared at him, his shoulders stiffening, his spine going straighter.
Leon leaned forward, bowing his head slightly. “Please, my prince. This is your opportunity to win over some of those who see you as an echo of former kings.”
The words seemed to hit something inside Cade, and he nodded, swallowing. When he opened his mouth to speak, he had to clear his throat several times before he could say, “All right, Leon.”
He turned, striding down the hall, and I had to jog to catch up with him.
