“Will you dine with me at sundown tomorrow?” The question came out low and measured, as if each word had been practiced.
He held my gaze then, and what I found there stopped the breath in my throat. He appeared—tentative. That hint of vulnerability in this formidable gargoyle wedged its way under my ribcage.
“Of course.” I turned back to the door, and then stopped again, because there was a question I’d been carrying since I first noticed he only appeared at night, and it had finally worked its way to my lips.
“Hadrien.” I kept my voice gentle. “What happens to you at sunrise?”
The firelight caught the shift in his expression. His jaw tightened. His shoulders drew in.
“You go to the rooftop,” I pressed.
A beat of silence. “Yes.”
“Do you have to?”
Another pause—longer this time. “Yes.”
I considered that, turning it over with everything else I’d been cataloging about this castle, its stone statues, and its strange silences. “Do all gargoyles…”
“No.” The word came out slowly. He grimaced, just barely. “Part of her doing.”
Something cold moved through me. I already knew, but I needed to hear it confirmed. “The queen?”
He didn’t answer. He gave a single nod, stiff and restrained, as if even that much admission was a surrender.
“Oh.” The word came out on a sigh.
I didn’t say what I was thinking—that I was afraid I already knew what that meant. The word forming in the back of my mind was curse, and the heavy weight that word carried. He stood in the firelight, immovable and ancient and somehow more fragile than stone should ever be.
My heart panged for him. “Goodnight, Hadrien.” I stepped outside the library, knowing he’d shared much with me tonight—more than I might ever understand.
CHAPTER 13
HADRIEN
I’d thought about it all day.
How I’d let Lilia into my library, into my personal space. I tried to rationalize that it was merely a strategic move for a better chance of survival, but I knew better.
Because I’d asked her to dinner that evening. No matter how many times I’d tried to tell myself it was nothing and simply a meal, my explanation grew more flimsy as sundown approached and both my nerves and excitement took flight.
Once I was freed by the light of the moon, I soared down and entered my room, then tried on two different shirts. To cover my scars and not look so intimidating, I told myself. A lie. Because deep down, I wanted to look my best for her.
And that irked me all the more. Why was I wasting my time on something that could never be?
When she appeared in the doorway of the dining hall that evening, that question rushed out as fast as the air from my lungs.
She’d done something with her hair—pinned some of it back, let the rest fall in loose curls. The candlelight caught it and added a warm hue to the dark reddish-brown. She wore a simple green dress that Genevieve must have procured from one of the storage chests of those who had lived here long before.
I lumbered to my feet and bowed forward awkwardly. “Lilia.”
She smiled and it jolted me in a strange way, lodging deep in my chest.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” she said, glancing at the table covered with our fine china and silverware. When I’d asked Genevieve to help late last night, she was all too eager to do so.
“It’s been so long since you’d dined in there,” she’d said, clasping her hands together in glee.
Back when the castle had been filled with life. People. Hearts. Not cold as the stone that held it together.
