Hands of Flame

“Because I’m in the wrong, Margrit.” Alban lifted his eyes to her, pale gaze steady. “Because two of the Old Races have died at my hands—”

Margrit made a strangled sound, hands curving to a throttling shape. “Because of me, both times!”

“You should know by now that motive doesn’t matter. We act on results, not intentions. Margrit, I know this is difficult for you, but I don’t see accepting our ancient laws as correct as being passive.” Alban exhaled quietly. “And an exile placed on me by my people might ease my…”

“Guilt?” Margrit demanded. “Mea culpa, thank God, somebody else is blaming me, so now I don’t have to lay it all on myself? Alban, you’re going to carry this with you forever. I’m going to carry it forever. I can’t sleep from the nightmares. I’ve been a criminal defense lawyer long enough to know that other people might determine your sentence, but you’re the one who determines your guilt.” Her anger lessened and she sat down on the cold floor, clutching the sides of her head.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled back,” she said more softly. “I thought I needed the time to deal with it myself. Maybe I was doing my share of ru

Alban sighed. “Margrit, if you had knowingly taken a life, would you stand against your laws to try to free yourself?”

“If it was an accident or self-defense, yes!”

“But Ausra’s death was not an act of self-defense,” Alban murmured. “I was defending you, not myself.”

“So what am I, a second-class citizen? Not worth saving because I’m human?” Bitterness filled Margrit’s tone and Alban’s broad shoulders slumped.

“I clearly felt your life was worth preserving over Ausra’s. But my people are not human, Margrit, and would not see my choice as the correct one. What if we lived in a world where the Old Races were known, and the positions were reversed? Would humans regard my life as more or less important than the human life I’d taken?”

Margrit folded her head down to drawn-up knees. “You know the answer to that,” she replied dully. “You don’t even have to be not human to be less important. You just have to be different in some way.”

“So allow me this acceptance. It changes nothing for us. My position amongst my people will be as it always has been since you’ve known me.” Rue colored Alban’s voice. “And yours, I imagine, will also be as it has been since you’ve known me. Instigator, negotiator, troublemaker.”

Margrit looked up with a quiet snort, then rolled forward to crawl toward Alban, tucking herself against his chest. Despite frustration, she felt her shoulders relax, his nearness almost as much salve to her frayed emotions as his arms would be. “I’m not a troublemaker. It just comes my way naturally when I hang out with you. I don’t like this, Alban.”

“I haven’t asked you to like it, only to abide by my wishes.”

Grace chuckled, startling Margrit into remembering a second time that the vigilante was there. “Good luck with that, Korund. Will you be staying, then?” She arched an eyebrow at Margrit, then chuckled again as Margrit shot a hopeful look toward Alban. “That’s what Grace thought. I’ll come back for you at sunbreak, lawyer. Sleep well.” She slipped away, leaving the sound of tumblers falling into place behind her.

Margrit turned her face against Alban’s chest another long moment before dragging a rough breath. “I feel like I should make a joke. Locked in a room together, the whole night before us…there must be something clever to say.”

“Margrit…” Alban shifted and iron scraped, as if to remind her of his handicaps.

“No, I know. It sounds silly, but I just want to be here, Alban. I want to be the one who watches over you tonight. To be the protector. You must be exhausted.”

Alban’s silence said as much as his eventual admission of, “I am. The iron is far more wearying than I imagined, and I can’t transform and escape it.”

Margrit pressed her cheek against his chest. “Then rest. I’ll be here.” She heard her own silence draw out a long time, too, and only broke it with a whisper when the gargoyle’s breathing suggested he might have found respite in slumber. “I’ll always be here.”

CHAPTER 7

She had dozed, if not slept, too aware of Alban’s frailty and her own fears for the coming days. Half-waking thoughts had skittered all night, replaying Alban’s capture, replaying his impossible remove to Grace’s chambers below the streets. The vigilante woman had never shown any resources of the nature Margrit imagined necessary to steal two gargoyles from a rooftop in broad daylight, but when Grace came to fetch her in the morning, she shrugged off Margrit’s questions again, ending the conversation with a sharp, “Does it matter, lawyer? He’s safe enough now, isn’t he, and you don’t owe anyone for his safety. Count your blessings and let it go.”

Chastened, Margrit did so, and emerged into the city morning to the realization that dawn came much too late in April, at least if she wanted to shower, change clothes and get to work on time. Barely beyond the tu

The recorded mailbox voice told her the sole message had been left at 4:45 a.m. on Thursday, just a few hours earlier. Margrit resisted the urge to shake the phone; it wasn’t its fault she’d been hidden beneath the city, well out of reception range. At least the mailbox had picked up the crisp-voiced woman who said, “Ms. Knight, this is Dr. Jones at Harlem Hospital. A client of yours, Cara Delaney, has been injured and she asked that we contact you. We’d appreciate it if you came over.” The doctor left a number that flew through Margrit’s mind and disappeared under a range of concerns.

Foremost was the horrifying idea that a hospital would probably do blood work on the young selkie woman. Margrit had never considered how the Old Races dealt with injuries in the modern world, especially severe ones. Even with selkies numbering in the tens of thousands, it was unlikely they could litter enough hospitals around the world to keep their own secrets safe. For all that they’d interbred with humans, there had to be anomalies in a selkie’s blood, very likely curious enough to pique a physician’s interest.

It was only as she ran to the subway that worry for Cara’s injuries surfaced, both their severity and how they’d happened. The latter was too easy to guess: Cara was likely to have been down on the docks, part of the struggle between selkie and dji

Her thoughts spun down the same lines no matter how many times she pulled them back. She was relieved to leave the subway and hail a cab, though staring out the window at passing traffic did no more to distract her than looking at her reflection in black stretches of subway tu

A matronly woman at the hospital gave the visiting-hours sign a significant glance when Margrit asked about Cara. Margrit said, “I’m her lawyer,” as though the words were a magic pass, and with another sour look at the sign, the woman directed her toward the emergency department. Margrit nodded her thanks and hurried there to catch the first unharried-looking nurse she saw and asked, “Dr. Jones?”

The nurse gave her a pitying look, and spoke clearly, as though Margrit wasn’t expected to understand. “I’m a nurse. Dr. Jones went home at seven. Dr. Davis took over her patients.”