“Hah!” Margrit turned back to the gargoyles, heat rushing through her veins in buoyant triumph and passion. She could ride it through the pain, especially if she tried not to breathe too deeply. “So if we’re reducing those journeys to platitudes and clichés, then Biali’s got love conquers all and I’ve got the truth will out. I’m right, and right now I’ve got the serpent at the heart of the world watching over me. You really want to go up against me with that kind of linebacker on my side? Because if you do, I’m ready and willing.”
Silent gargoyles exchanged glances before Eldred surprised Margrit by turning to Chelsea. The tiny woman cocked an eyebrow again, as if disavowing responsibility. Eldred looked toward Biali, then lifted his voice. “Alban, what say you?”
Biali’s scarred face contorted and Margrit remembered abruptly that he had more than once expressed disdain for the mercy Alban had shown him in battle. Alban’s answer was a long time in coming, and left its mark on Biali’s face, as well. “I have no need or desire to see another of our kind exiled. I hold no grudge, nor any lasting damage. Let him belong.” Far more softly, he added, “It is what Hajnal would have wanted.”
Eldred’s nod of acceptance was stiff. Margrit flung herself into one of the chess-table chairs, skidding across the floor in triumph. The action jarred her skull and a pained blush heated her face, but for the moment, she didn’t care.
“Margrit.” Though she hadn’t noticed his retreat, Janx spoke from the door, where Daisani stood at his side. “I think Stoneheart would not answer this, but you’ve proved wonderfully indiscreet. What of Sarah, Margrit? What of Sarah Hopkins?”
Margrit turned her head, hearing stiff muscles in her neck creak. “It’s been three hundred and fifty years, dragonlord. I’m sorry.”
Janx hesitated a long moment, then nodded. It was, for once, Daisani who sketched a brief and acknowledging bow, and then the two rivals exited together, bound by one more ancient grief.
One by one the tribunal shifted forms, becoming human, and Grace guided them out. The door banged shut behind them, leaving a hunch-shouldered Biali in Margrit’s line of sight. “What’d you do that for?”
Exasperation bubbled up so strongly Margrit hissed through her teeth. The impulse to stamp her feet and fling her hands around in a tantrum of frustration, was barely alleviated by the steam-engine eruption of sound. “Because it’s a stupid law. Because you did a stupid thing, maybe even a lot of stupid things, but insofar as there’s a right reason to do stupid things, you did them for the right reasons. You did them because people you loved died, and that hurt got twisted around with justice and turned into vengeance, but you’re not evil and you don’t deserve to be shut away from your people. And there are only a few hundred of your people left, and if you all want to survive, they need you, as much as you need them.” All the passion drained out of her, leaving her slumped in the chair and a bit wry. “Besides, why go for a partial victory when you can take the full sweep?”
Biali grunted, Margrit recognizing the sound as something as close to a thanks as she would probably ever get. Then he looked beyond her. “Korund.”
“Biali.” Alban’s voice sounded unusually soft in the empty chamber. After a long moment Biali nodded and stumped out of the room, leaving Margrit alone with Alban.
CHAPTER 20
Margrit put her elbows on the chess table and slid her fingers into her hair, massaging her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off about Sarah, but they weren’t going to let it go with no answers, Alban. I thought it’d be easier if I broke your promise for you. God, my head hurts.”
“Are you so certain I wouldn’t have spoken?” Mild amusement filled the gargoyle’s voice.
Margrit lifted her gaze, still rubbing her temples. “I could tell you wanted to, but you take your promises seriously.” She stood, taking a deep breath, and wiped her hands against her jeans. “How angry at me are you?”
“Angry?” Alban spread his hands helplessly. “You’re the most principled, bravest, foolish woman I’ve ever met. You just challenged an entire host of gargoyles to combat.” Laughter shook his shoulders and he extended his hands toward her. “Thank you, Margrit. Thank you for my place among my people, for breaking promises I no longer wished to hold, for risking your life for mine. For ours.”
“Oh, stop it.” Margrit lurched from the chair and took the few steps to him in a clumsy run, crashing against his wide chest. He was warm, like well-sunned stone, the sour scent of iron fading from his skin. “I’m not the principled one,” she mumbled. “You stick to your guns even when you’re wrong. I make compromises and wheel and deal. We’re hardly birds of a feather.”
Alban flared his wings, chamber lights glowing through the translucent membrane. “I have no feathers at all. Margrit, you’ve paid a high price for what’s transpired tonight.”
“What I’ve paid isn’t anything like what’s coming.” She tilted her head up, twinging again at the movement, and saw concern come into the gargoyle’s pale eyes. “I’m okay,” she promised. “My head’s been throbbing since Eldred took my hands.”
“It was the bruises that concerned me.” Alban traced taloned fingertips just above her skin, outlining bruises that she hadn’t noticed until he followed their shape. Even then they were merely uncomfortable, nothing compared to the still-shouting static in her head.
“They’ll be gone soon. I meant it when I said Grace couldn’t beat me. I was healing during the fight. I could feel it. Alban—” Margrit broke off, wanting to say so many things they tangled her tongue. “Your chains are gone,” she finally said, awkward with not knowing where else to begin. “I didn’t think Biali’d let you go before the trial.”
“He didn’t.” Alban shook his head as Margrit’s eyebrows drew down with confusion. “Grace freed me.”
Fresh static burst in Margrit’s skull, whitening her vision. “Grace? How?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated, a gentle touch against her cheek felt before Margrit could see clearly again. “She touched me—touched the chains—and there was a terrible coldness and a great deal of pain, and then I was free. My people will want to know how, once they’re made aware. We haven’t often been enslaved, it’s happened, and someone who can free us…”
“You didn’t ask?” Margrit’s voice shot high. “I thought she was human. I thought—”
“I did ask,” Alban said. “But she didn’t want to tell me, and given that I was in her debt, I chose not to press her.”
“And you can just live with that? You can just live with—with not knowing how she did something impossible and took iron that had bonded with your flesh out of your body? You can just live with the vampires saying they’re not from this world at all, and you can just live with whatever the hell it is that makes you all jump when Chelsea Huo says to? Alban, do you have any answers?” Margrit pulled her voice down from a shout, half aware she was trying to drown out the white noise within her own mind. “How can you live with not knowing?”
Bemusement crossed Alban’s stony features as Margrit put her hands against her head. She closed her eyes against the gentleness of his expression, trying to gather herself, and only spoke when she thought she had control. “Sorry. My head hurts a lot.” It was another moment before she dared open her eyes to find sympathy in Alban’s gaze. “I have so many questions, and nobody wants to answer any of them. Janx said I can walk away from the Old Races much later than I could ever imagine, and I can see where it might be tempting, if I’m always going to be standing here on the outside, looking in. Why does everybody kowtow to Chelsea, Alban? Why can you simply accept that Grace pulled iron out of you without wanting to know how?”