“The one with angel blood is particularly troubling,” Vincent piped up. He had remained near the door.
Luc kept his back to him. “I don’t know why she should trouble you at all.”
“She is unnatural,” Vincent said.
Luc lifted his chin. He would not react. He would maintain a show of disinterest. Marco, however, knew a show when he saw one.
“Careful, Vincent,” he said. “Luc turns a bit rabid whenever someone speaks ill of his favorite human.”
Lennier, used to Marco’s snide remarks, continued to warm his bony hands by the fire. Vincent, though, snapped up the dangling bait.
“You have a favorite human?” He balked. Luc wondered what he’d been in his first life. An overworked professor or an eccentric scientist, perhaps.
“At least I have humans enough to keep me awake,” Luc said, simultaneously avoiding Vincent’s question and taunting Marco.
Funny. Not too long ago, Luc had been wishing for hibernation. Now the idea of it was unnerving. Going into hibernation would mean Ingrid had gone away. The next time he woke, who knew where she would be? She would have aged. Married, perhaps. Had children, grandchildren. She might have even died.
And Luc would still be this. He would still be the same. Never changing. Eternally damned.
“Having a favorite human is just as unnatural as the one you favor,” Vincent retorted, a sneer spreading his thin-lipped mouth. “Not to mention her unfortunate ties to the Alliance.”
Letting it stand that he had a favorite human could be dangerous, but Luc kept silent, his stare blistering. He would not grovel at this gargoyle’s feet.
“The Alliance here have given us aid in the past,” Lennier said. He sat forward and propped his hands on the armrest. He probably wanted to rise, but his human movements were often torpid. At least his transformed figure, cut of albino scales and powerful wings, was something to be feared. “We shall continue to show them the same courtesy. Peace between us is paramount.”
“And what about the abominations?” Vincent asked. “The ones with demon blood and dust? Surely you agree they should be considered our enemies.”
Though Lennier said nothing, Vincent received a response.
“But they’re still human.”
Luc turned toward Dimitrie, having nearly forgotten that he was there. The boy started to wither under the other surprised looks he received. “Isn’t it our duty to protect the human part of them?”
Luc was starting to understand why Dimitrie had so many angel’s burns. He was a diplomat. Diplomacy between nations was difficult enough; between different species it was almost impossible.
“A point well made,” Lennier intoned. “Your name?”
The boy ducked his head. “Dimitrie.”
Lennier’s wrinkled lids shuttered his eyes. “I wish to speak with Dimitrie alone.”
Marco and Luc exchanged dubious glances, but when Lennier wished something done, it was done. Without a word, Luc, Marco, and Vincent, the last sniffing at his dismissal, exited into the corridor.
“The boy worries Lennier,” Marco said as soon as the door had closed.
“Anyone with a weakness for humans worries me,” Vincent put in.
Luc had had enough. He dove into Vincent’s space, close enough to smell the musty age of his cloak. “And gargoyles who mistake duty for weakness worry me. You’re not a residential Dispossessed, that much I know, or you wouldn’t have made that mistake. Where is your territory?”
Luc’s boldness garnered a snort of amusement from Marco and a torrid glare from Vincent.
“Notre Dame,” he answered with a curl of his lip.
Of course. Those Notre Dame gargoyles were all the same. They strutted around as if guarding the most recognizable piece of architecture in Paris had made their wings turn to gold. Vincent was no doubt waiting to see the awe on Luc’s face.
He’d be waiting for quite a while.
“You’d best leave us lowly residential gargoyles to our shenanigans, then, wouldn’t you say, Vincent?” Marco asked, but the humor in his voice didn’t reach his eyes. They demanded Vincent’s departure.
The older gargoyle drew up his cloak and heeded Marco’s words.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Marco said once he’d fallen from view.
“Does anyone?” Luc returned, realizing the answer was most likely no. That was fine by him. Dimitrie the diplomat couldn’t say as much, and look where it had gotten him.
“I think I know of one person,” Marco said. “Though from what I’ve been hearing, she might like the Seer more than she does you. Or I should say, the future Reverend Seer.”
Luc had been preparing to brush off Marco’s jab until that last sentence. “Reverend?”
“The Alliance’s little pet aspires to the clergy, or didn’t you know? I have allies who tell me the Seer is studying under a reverend at the American Church.”