He had tried to figure out Lord Brickton a bit more by surfacing his scent a few times. The oil and leather filling his nostrils and falling into the back of his throat hadn’t told him much. So far all he’d learned was that Ingrid’s father was angry. Bitterly angry and unhappy.
It was Ingrid whom Luc eavesdropped on now. It was so easy, her scent always just there whenever he thought of her. And he thought about her a lot. Too much.
Ingrid was content. For the first time, he didn’t feel anxiety closing like fists inside his chest. He thought about checking in on Grayson, who had been in a constant state of discomfort for weeks now. He decided to stay with Ingrid a little longer. He could taste her sunshine. A watery morning light on his tongue. It was a pleasant contrast to the hard, cold bench, the drizzle, and the slushy streets around him.
The chime at the base of his neck broke her scent’s spell. He focused ahead of the landau and saw a person walking toward him on the sidewalk. He wore a black wool coat and hat and held a black silk umbrella against the snow.
“Gaston?” Luc called when the gargoyle’s face came into the yellowy light of a lamppost.
Monsieur Constantine’s personal valet and heavenly appointed bodyguard raised the scalloped trim of the umbrella an inch and looked up at the driver’s bench.
“Luc,” he returned with a dip of his head. Oddly enough, Gaston reminded Luc of a piece of wood: Solid, quiet, boring. Lacking in any personality whatsoever. He was a perfect servant. Most likely a perfect gargoyle, too.
“Is your human here?” Luc asked, glancing toward the restaurant windows, fringed with russet silk drapes and filled with a low amber light.
“No. I’ve come to warn you,” Gaston answered. Luc sat forward, curiosity piqued. “Monsieur Constantine had a visitor this afternoon, a man by the name of Robert Dupuis. I felt my human’s pulse spike when the man was shown into the orangery, and so I stayed close. Hidden, but close.”
There were plenty of places to hide within Constantine’s miniature jungle. Luc and Ingrid had hidden under a domed canopy of furry pink moss once. He had nearly kissed her there.
“Dupuis spoke of your human girl, the one who makes lightning,” Gaston said. Luc was listening fully now. “He told Monsieur Constantine that his interests in the girl will not cease, and that she should be turned over to them sooner rather than later.”
“Who is ‘them’?” Luc asked.
“I do not know,” Gaston answered. “I just know I do not like this man Dupuis. Neither does my human. Whatever his interests are in your human girl, they are not good.”
Luc let the warning settle. Gaston had just done him a favor, which of course only made him suspicious. “Why seek me out to tell me this?”
Gaston kept his expression as wooden as ever. “We are both Dogs, are we not?” They were. In fact, Luc and Gaston, with their dark coloring and green eyes, looked nearly identical when in true form. Ingrid had even mistaken Gaston once for Luc. But Luc hadn’t thought Gaston had such deep loyalty to other members of his caste.
“We are,” Luc replied. He gave a nod, a silent thank-you, and Gaston turned to walk back down the sidewalk the way he had come.
He didn’t have more than a second to contemplate who Robert Dupuis might be before another chime throbbed at the base of his skull.
“More people sniffing around your humans, brother?”
Marco approached from behind the carriage and stood street-side, next to Luc. Yann came up beside the bench seat on the sidewalk, closing Luc in properly. Marco and Yann had brought together the Wolves and the Chimeras into a steady Alliance. Theirs were the strongest castes, with the largest numbers and influence among the Paris Dispossessed. The Dogs ranked with the Snakes just below that, while the Monkeys and Goats and a few other castes languished in the background, generally unnoticed and unheard.
“What do you want, Marco?” Luc asked, already wary.
Marco was the butler for a family that stayed but three or four months of the year at his territory, a fine old place in Montparnasse known as H?tel Dugray. His humans were not yet in the city for the season, so he was free to roam around, unencumbered by duty.
How nice for him.
“An update,” Marco replied. “Is yours still the only cursed soul at the abbey? I’m beginning to think our dear Irindi has forgotten all about you.”
Marco and Yann had been checking in regularly to see if Irindi would follow through with her promise. They tended to visit the carriage house at night, when Ingrid and the others were asleep. Probably for the best, considering Marco and Yann had tried to kill Grayson. Ingrid hadn’t forgiven them just yet.
“She didn’t forget,” Luc answered. Yann and Marco took a moment to adjust to his response. Usually Luc just told them to go to hell.
“Anyone we know?” Marco asked, clearly excited.
“No.”
“How does he seem?” Marco pressed.
“He seems very Dispossessed,” Luc said with a sigh. “He’s a gargoyle. He’s on my territory. What more do you need to know?”