The Wondrous and the Wicked

 

CHAPTER THIRTY

 

 

 

 

The fire breathed low in the grate, casting weak light around the front room of Lennier’s apartment. Luc’s apartment. He had to get used to calling it that. A change in furniture might help. He’d hung up drapes, at least, to block the guttering light of the fire from the many tourists who had taken to wandering inside common grounds. Luc had also given the order for the Dispossessed to come on foot rather than by air, and to stay in their human skins as often as possible. To the ignorant humans, now awakened to the existence of otherworldly monsters, demons and gargoyles were one and the same. Vincent’s campaign against the Dusters in plain sight hadn’t helped things.

 

Lengthwise on the sofa—he might keep it, he thought; the thing was comfortable—Luc paged through one of the books that Chelle, the Alliance tomboy, had delivered to his door the week before. He had felt the presence of a human and had gone to meet whoever it was, to drive them off his private property. When he’d seen Chelle in the ramshackle ballroom carrying a crate of books as heavy as she was, Luc hadn’t known what to say. The girl had stopped in her tracks, conveying only a glimmer of anxiety, before demanding to know why Luc had not yet offered to carry the bloody crate for her.

 

They were Alliance texts: personal journals, scholarly volumes, and histories, and there were many more back in the Alliance library at H?tel Bastian. In his rooms, Luc had dropped the crate on the sofa and turned to Chelle, who he knew despised gargoyles. Without being asked, she had launched into an explanation.

 

“Grayson believed there were good gargoyles. He believed in you,” she’d said. And then she’d asked for his help. Since Luc was eternal and was not responsible for any humans at the moment, perhaps he would be willing to change things between the Dispossessed and the Alliance.

 

“If we’re going to work together, we should know more about one another, correct?” she’d asked.

 

Luc had taken the books. He still didn’t know what to make of Chelle, or whether her reception would extend to Euro-Alliance headquarters in Rome, but he liked the idea of having a purpose beyond protecting.

 

He angled the book’s pages toward the fire, though his night vision helped him make out the ancient typeface. It seemed that at one point, the Alliance had even used a secret language as a means of communication. Luc enjoyed the idea of learning it—and then teaching it to the Alliance once more. How satisfying would that be?

 

He felt the chime of another gargoyle’s presence at the base of his skull and closed the text. He sighed and sat up, setting the volume atop one of the several towers of books scattered throughout the front room.

 

He approached the door and opened it to find his visitor on the other side of the threshold, her hand poised to knock. Ingrid dropped her hand and her lips bowed into a bashful grin.

 

“Marco brought me,” she explained, and at that moment, Luc sensed the Wolf’s departure as well.

 

“He’ll be back later,” she said, still standing in the corridor. Luc came to his senses and moved aside. She stepped into the front room and stared around at the towers of books.

 

“Do I want to know?” she asked.

 

Luc closed the door. “I’ll explain later. Is something wrong?”

 

He hadn’t expected Ingrid tonight. She’d only come to common grounds once—the day of her brother’s funeral. Luc hadn’t wanted to leave her at the rectory, and so he’d chanced bringing her here. He’d been ready to challenge any gargoyle that dared speak out against him. None had. The few Dispossessed lounging around the courtyard fountain when Luc and Ingrid had arrived had merely glanced from human to gargoyle and bowed their heads, as if in acceptance.

 

Luc still wasn’t completely convinced, though. It would be a long while before he would be easy with Ingrid at common grounds.

 

“Nothing is wrong. I just needed to see you,” she said, her hand running along the tops of a few stacks of books as she walked toward the sofa.

 

“Isn’t your mother’s gallery opening happening right now?” he asked.

 

Ingrid paused at one stack and lifted the top book. She then crouched and tilted her head to read the spines. “These are Alliance books.”

 

She stood and faced him before pulling off her lace gloves and opening the book she’d snatched up.

 

“Are you working with the Alliance? How did you get these?”

 

Luc said nothing, only watched the sparkle of excitement in her aubergine eyes. He had a vision then, of the two of them on the sofa, each of them reading through the stacks of books, working with the Alliance in their own way. Together. He liked it, and when Ingrid looked up from the book she’d been scanning, she saw his grin.

 

“What?” she asked. Then, “You haven’t answered me.”

 

“I’ll tell you later.”

 

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