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"I'm Gideon, by the way." The deep, rich voice pulled her back to the present, a welcome life line, even offered by a stranger. He held out his hand, but she couldn't muster the courage to take it.
"Savannah," she replied quietly, clasping her bare hands behind her back to resist the temptation to reach out to him, even though her gift didn't work on living things. The idea of touching him was both compelling and unsettling. She felt as if she should know him somehow, perhaps saw him at the library or around the city somewhere, yet she was certain she'd never seen him there before. "People don't generally spend a lot of time in this area of the library. The Bates Reading Room and Sargent Hall are more popular with patrons."
She was rambling, but he didn't seem to notice or care. Those arresting blue eyes watched her, studied her. She could almost sense the machinery of his mind analyzing everything she said and did. Searching for something.
"And what about you, Savannah?"
"Me?"
"Which room is your favorite?"
"Oh." She exhaled a nervous laugh, feeling stupid around him, a feeling she wasn't accustomed to. As if none of her studies or schooling could have ever prepared her for encountering someone like him. It was crazy to think it. Made no logical sense. And yet she felt it. This man--Gideon, she thought, testing the name with her mind--seemed ageless and somehow ancient at the same time. He held himself with a confidence that seemed to say little to nothing could surprise him. "This room is my favorite," she murmured dully. "I've always liked hero stories."
His mouth quirked. "Men who slay dragons? Rescue the princess in the tower?"
Savannah slanted him an arch look. "No, the quest for truth by someone who isn't afraid to pursue it, no matter the cost."
He acknowledged her parry with a slight lift of his chin. "Even if it means risking the Seat Perilous?"
Together, they glanced up at the panel depicting that part of Arthurian legend, the chair at the Round Table that would spell death to anyone taking his place there who proved unworthy of seeking the Holy Grail.
Savannah could feel Gideon studying her, despite that his gaze was fixed on the painting overhead. The heat from his big body, nearer to her than she'd noticed, seemed to burn through her clothing, imprinting itself on her skin. Her pulse ticked a bit faster as the seconds stretched out between them.
"Freshman," he said after a while, an odd pensiveness in his tone. "I didn't realize you were so young."
"I'll be nineteen in a few months," she replied, inexplicably defensive. "Why? How old did you think I was? How old are you?"
He gave a slow shake of his head. Then he brought his gaze around to look at her beside him. "I should go. As you said, the library's closing. I don't want to keep you from your work."
"It's all right if you want to stay awhile. I won't need to kick you out for another fifteen minutes, so until then, feel free to enjoy the art." She took one last look at Sir Galahad being led to the chair that would either confirm his honor or spell his doom, and couldn't help reciting another of Plutarch's quotes: "Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks."
Gideon's answering smile threatened to steal her knees out from under her. "Indeed, Savannah. Indeed it is."
She couldn't hold back her smile either. And for the first time all day, she felt relaxed. She felt happy. She felt hopeful, as odd as that seemed. Not weighted down with grief and numb with shock and confusion.
All it took was a chance meeting with a stranger, some unexpected conversation. A few moments of kindness from someone who had no inkling of what she'd been through. Someone who wandered into her workplace on a whim and ended up making the worst day of her life seem less awful simply by being in it.
"Nice to meet you, Gideon."
"Likewise, Savannah."
This time, she was the one who held out her hand. He didn't hesitate to take it. As she expected, his grip was warm and strong, his long fingers engulfing hers easily. As they broke contact, she wondered if he felt the same jolt of awareness that she did. God, their brief connection went through her like a mild electrical current, heat and energy zinging into her veins.
And she couldn't escape the fact that something about him seemed so vaguely familiar...
"I should go," he said for the second time tonight. She didn't want him to leave so soon, but she couldn't very well ask him to stay either. Could she?
"Maybe I'll see you around again sometime," she blurted, before she had the bad sense to let impulse take over her brain.
He stared at her for a long moment, but didn't respond one way or the other.
Then, like the mystery he'd been the moment she first saw him, he simply turned and strode away, out the door and into the waiting night.
Gideon waited, crouched low like a gargoyle on the rooftop corner of the library, until Savannah exited the building a few minutes later.
He meant to leave, as he'd said he would. He'd decided after talking with her for just a few minutes--after learning that she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman, for crissake--that his quest to find out more about whoever had that damned sword would need to unfold without involving a bright, innocent young woman.
He couldn't use Savannah for information.
