Page 28 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

“ Where is she ?” His roar scattered the moths. Claws extended, tail lashing, he rose, turning on her. Whatever softening effect the last dose of medicine had on him was gone. He gripped her neck, and she didn’t fight back. “Why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she in my nest where she belongs?”

“Because you’re dangerous!” Ghantal spat in his face, entirely unafraid. “Look at yourself! Ready to tear apart anyone who comes near. Would you do this to her? Would you risk hurting your mate because you can’t control yourself?”

The words stopped him cold. He wouldn’t hurt any female, let alone his own mate.

The thought was abhorrent, impossible, but…

he looked down at his extended claws, his hand wrapped around his mother’s throat.

He remembered the mason he’d injured, clutching her wrist as she trembled with fear on the floor.

Violence came too easily now. It was his first language, the word always on the tip of his tongue.

“I wouldn’t—” He dropped his arm, and Ghantal stepped back, massaging where he’d gripped her.

“You don’t know what you’d do. The war changed you, Brandt. It made you a weapon.” She gestured helplessly. “You could kill her without meaning to. One moment of battle bliss, one forgotten face, and she’d be dead.”

He sank down onto the furs, breathing in that faint scent again. His mate. He had a mate, and he couldn’t even remember her face. Her name. He only had the traces of her scent in his nest and the absolute certainty that she should be here.

“Tell me about her.”

“When you’re better.”

“Something. Anything.” Pressure built in his temples. “Her name, at least.”

“Absolutely not.” Ghantal’s voice was gentle but firm. “If I tell you her name, you’ll tear the Tower apart looking for her, and you’d end up right back under the masons’ control.”

She was right. He could feel the impulse to find his mate still coiled in his chest like snake, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. But knowing his mother was right didn’t ease the ache of the bond he couldn’t feel in the broken ruins of his mind.

“I’ll ask your moths, then,” he snapped at her. “I’ll pluck their wings until they tell me.”

She blocked his way. “They don’t remember her. You know they don’t last more than a week or two.”

Gritting his teeth at her irrefutable logic, he resorted to begging. “Is she well? Safe? Can you tell me that, at least?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know I’ve returned?”

Ghantal hesitated. “She knows.”

“And she’s not here.” The rejection stung worse than any battle wound. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

“She wants you healthy. She wants the gargoyle she mated. That’s what you must strive for.” Ghantal settled into the nest beside him, wing tenderly brushing his. “If you want to see her, you need to concentrate your efforts on healing. Take down the mind walls. Learn to control yourself again.”

He nodded slowly. For her—the female whose scent haunted his nest—he would do whatever it took.

The next few weeks blurred together. Dawn medicine, dusk medicine, nightly sessions with the mind masons.

He let them chip away at his walls with their special tools and caustic substances.

Progress came in pieces, a name remembered here, a face there.

The Tower’s layout solidified. His watchmates’ names returned, though remembering they were likely dead nearly broke him again.

He wrote it all down, penning yards of scrolls with every detail he could recall, terrified that it would slip away as easily as it had returned.

He’d review it each night, spending longer and longer reading through the rapidly growing document to cement the memories.

That’s how he realized something was wrong.

“I remember meeting Rikard,” he told Ghantal as they sat together after returning from the masons’ hall.

“Every detail. His pride. His terrible attitude. But yesterday I wrote down that he attacked a human. A female. Now that memory is gone.” He pushed the scroll into her hands.

“Look. It’s right there. But it’s not in my head anymore. ”

His mother’s wings rustled. “Memory is strange. The mind-masons warned us your recovery might not be linear. Memories might fade in and out as your mind walls shift.”

“No.” He stood and paced around the table, agitation building. “It’s not fading. It’s being walled up. Every time I make progress on my own and start remembering something important, it disappears after a session with the masons.”

She sighed heavily. “They’re trying to help you.”

“Are they?” He stopped pacing to fix her with a stare. “The memories I keep are all benign. Military exercises. Public appearances. Childhood. But anything about the war. About my mate.” He gestured toward his nest. “Those walls aren’t staying down. They’re being rebuilt and reinforced.”

Ghantal’s expression was careful. “I’m sure the masons know what they’re doing. The moths say—”

“Spare me your moths! I have no doubt that whatever the masons are doing is with intent. I just don’t trust that they truly wish me to recover all my memories.” A horrible thought occurred. “Does she not want me to remember? My mate…did she request to be hidden from me?”

“No! She wants you whole, Brandt. More than anything. Did I tell you that she is the one who makes the tonic for you?”

His mind spun. “She’s a mason?”

“No. Not exactly. The medicine helps, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. It made everything softer somehow, like viewing the world through honey-colored glass.

It might not make his mind walls crumble, but it muted his frustration and helped him keep his temper.

It made his wings hurt less. And it tasted good.

The little shot of sweetness twice a day was welcome when he had to recall so many bitter truths.

Now that he knew his mate was responsible for the one treatment that seemed to work, he held even more suspicion that the masons were conspiring against him. “It’s the only thing that does.”

“Keep taking it, then. Make some excuse to skip the other treatments and see if it makes a difference.”

He could tell she thought it wouldn’t, but her plan was sensible.

If he was right and the masons were making things worse, he’d have his answer.

And if he was wrong and his progress stalled even more, he’d resume chipping at walls that wouldn’t budge.

Anything to have a hope of finding the elusive golden thread and the mate at the other end of it.

The one whose name he didn’t know. The one who could work miracles.

Whoever she was, he would do it for her.