Page 11 of When the Weaver Met the Gargoyle

Hooded and cloaked once more, Rom joins me outside the tailor’s shop. I grab Spark from his sunny spot on the doorstep.

“Let’s get something to eat,” I suggest to Rom, hoping it sounds friendly and fancy gargoyles like him can’t read the naughty thoughts going through my mind. Imagine having this nearly seven-foot-tall monster in bed…

“I should get back to the tower.”

“Just a scone. It will only take a minute.”

He needs to be seen outside the tower so people will be kinder to him. He needs to mingle just a little bit. I hate it as much as he does, but he has to be lonely up in that watchtower all day, every day. At least I have my dragonfox. He has nothing and no one.

“Fine,” he says. “But you must allow me to pay to thank you for agreeing to go to the party with me.”

“That’s not how dates work.”

“It’s not a date, though.”

I flush. Ouch. He’s right, and I don’t want it to be a date. I can’t think straight around him sometimes.

“I know. I just meant… Never mind,” I say. “Okay, you can pay.” I don’t have the money to throw around anyway. I do know that Kaya would give me a free scone, though.

“Just friends,” I say, and he nods as we walk toward the bakery.

The streets are busy with merchants heading this way and that, and one of the shepherds and his dog herding a flock toward the town gates. The sheep’sbaaingis loud enough that I can’t talk to Rom yet, can’t ask him all the questions brewing in my mind.

“Off for tupping!” the shepherd calls out, giving us a wink.

We laugh as the shepherd wiggles his arse suggestively.

Once the noise of the sheep fades, and we round the corner to enter the center of town, I broach the subject of what exactly Rom is.

“Will you tell me more about having wings and being an Allysium gargoyle?” I keep my voice down.

He turns as a bevy of old faeries ingowns that drag the ground fly past on green wings. It’s wild how different wings can be. Theirs are dainty and gossamer. His are the opposite—dangerous looking, dark, and sexy.

“I know I said I would answer your questions, but maybe it would be better if you kept your distance.”

My stomach tightens. “But if I’m going to the party with you, I should know more than just your first name.”

Shrugging, he exhaled. “That’s sensible, I suppose. Well, as you already heard, we are rare. I have never met another of my kind. My brother and I were abandoned. I still don’t know why or who my parents were. I like to think they had no choice but to leave us with the abbess.”

“This was in the last town where you lived?”

“No, this was long ago. In a place far deeper into the Veiled Kingdoms.”

“Ah.” As a human who grew up outside the Veil, I don’t know nearly what the fantastical creatures do.

“The abbess split us up, sending my brother away so our magic wouldn’t combine and become even harder to control.”

“I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”

“I was too young to understand. I don’t remember much of him.”

His shining eyes lift to watch some battling maplecats carry on with a big leaf that’s fallen from the oak above the chandler’s workshop. I wonder what Rom does recall of his brother and what he doesn’t want to share. I won’t pry, but I wish I could find out. He’s already being so open with me; I won’t push too much. I just need to know the basics of who I’m spending time with.

“What about your power was the abbess so worried about?”

I walk on with him, giving him time to respond. The town fountain gurgles and the autumn wind lifts the hem of my dress so that I have to push it down. He walks closer, effectively blocking the stronger gust.

“Thank you.”