Page 74 of Flame and Sparrow

He locked eyes with the griffin and simply said, “No, you may not,” before releasing him.

Moth flopped dramatically down to the ground, splaying out on his back as if the denial had killed him. Every few seconds he would twitch, and then lift his head just enough to fix one of his ruby-tinted eyes on me.

“He wants what’s in your hand,” Dravyn said. “He likes to collect shiny things. Precious stones, glittery rocks, bits of glass. Helpful when gathering materials to add to my oven,” he said with a nod at that oven in the adjacent room, “but he can’t seem to tell the difference between scraps and my works of art.” Nudging the limp creature with his foot, he added, “Which I guess I should probably be offended by.”

I found myself smiling at the wry tone of his voice, warmth bubbling up in me before I could guard against it.

“I’ve trained him to leave the gardens alone, at least.”

I followed his gaze to a small sliver of those glass gardens that remained visible beyond the oven room. Their mesmerizing colors pulled me toward them just as before.

“What are all of these, exactly?” I asked as I wandered back into the room, studying the various tables full of figures. “Some of them seem organized with purpose.”

He didn’t reply, and I glanced over my shoulder to see he had followed me only as far as the doorway.

Moth had given up his dying act and now perched on Dravyn’s shoulder, nuzzling against his cheek. The god was absently scratching the griffin’s chest, a distant look in his eyes.

“A truth for a truth?” I pressed, borrowing his tactic from earlier. “I told you why I couldn’t sleep. So you owe me some sort of honesty in exchange, right? So tell me what these are.”

Another few beats passed before he seemed to shake off whatever thoughts had brought him to a stop.

“Memorials,” he said, moving past me and heading back toward the atrium.

My breath caught at the word. I don’t know what I’d expected to hear, but that wasn’t it. Just as I’d never imagined a god with a heart…well, I guess I’d never pictured them as beings who would bother with memorializing anything, either.

He slowed to a stop just before the exit, glancing back at me and adding, “The magic I mentioned earlier today—the kind that erases memories—it doesn’t work nearly as effectively on divine beings. I learned that the hard way, I’m afraid.”

My gaze swept over the room; the number of figures seemed hauntingly vast, all of a sudden.

“So I tried to find different ways, different places, to keep things,” he said. “The glass holds some memories of them so I don’t have to hold them all in my mind.”

“Who do you mean bythem?”

He shook his head. “Our truths are unbalanced again, I’m afraid.”

My brow furrowed, questions and concerns filling my head. Who was he trying to forget?

And more importantly, why did I care?

He looked toward the atrium. “Unless there’s another truth of yours you’d like to give in exchange, you should probably just go back to your room and try to sleep.”

“Another truth…”

“Those are the rules we’ve established, aren’t they?”

“I guess they are.”

“So? Do you have one?”

I shook my head. I’d already shared enough with him tonight. Too much, really. Far too much.

“As expected,” he said, a faintly victorious smile crossing his lips.

I started to fire back a reply, determined not to give in so easily. Then I looked around at all the glass memorials surrounding us, and I decided—maybe just this once—to let him win.

He offered his arm.

I reached for it, but at that same moment my eyes caught on a third table of matching glass on the far side of the room. I hadn’t noticed it before. Every figure upon this table was a shade of red, and—unlike any other table in the room—all the figures on this one were the same. Dozens upon dozens of rectangular-shaped sculptures. Like gravestones, I thought.

---