Page 39 of Reflections of Silence

Light began to brighten the sky in the false dawn, though the sun wouldn't rise for more than an hour.

“He doesn’t know what he wants.” The gargoyle seated himself beside me, stone lightening his darker natural hues. I wondered if his change came with the impending dawn, like Sebastian’s imposed sleep, or if it was his choice. His was a cool, gray stone, which contrasted with the golden hues of the sandstone fountain.

“You were—” I halted, unsure of what sort of term to use, “um, made? By someone other than the fountain.” I frowned, knowing I’d messed it up. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to ask...”

Dolion laughed, a deep bellow that bounced around the courtyard. “It’s fine,petite lynx.You are new to the world.” Depths reflected in his eyes.

I canted my head, looking deeper. It wasn’t America he was talking about. “How old are you?” I whispered.

“I was born when the Khan became Emperor of the East.” He smiled, showing a line of stone teeth. “Gargoyles use events to mark the passage of time rather than humans do with their calendar. We measure life...in different ways than humans. Your existence is so brief. Fragile.”

“Gargoyles are born.” I shook my head, the concept so foreign. “I’m not even going to ask how.”

“We are birthed of stone. With love, comes life. If a gargoyle ceases to love—himself, others—to stone will he return.”

“So you’re in love with yourself,” I quipped, straightening damp skirts as the feeling began to return to my limbs.

“I love,” he replied simply.

I regretted my joke, outclassed beside this ancient being. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. The sky brightened a little more, the world I knew beginning to wake. Dolion stirred beside me, climbing with tortured movements to his pedestal. “Do you die—” I caught myself again and wished I hadn’t spoken at all.

“I am not as Sebastian,” Dolion replied slowly. “I can move through the day, but I am tired, and in rest, I become as I was until I wake. Sit by me any time, Gisella.”

I nodded, rising as he settled on his pedestal, resuming his pose of before. A flicker of his eyes reminded me a being lived within the stone. I stood with him a minute more, then turned to face the darkened house, walking to the path that would lead back to the drive. The servants might populate the place, but without Sebastian, I would be alone again, and that tore at my heart.

It’s real,I screamed within the confines of my mind, but I couldn't sense Sebastian’s presence there at all, as though he had blocked me away, locking me out. Amy’s memory left me contaminated and more alone than ever. A bone-deep tiredness overtook me, and I longed for my own bed. Two steps along the path, a thought occurred to me, and I turned back, unsure if he would be able to answer me.

“You know my name?”

A minute nod from the stone man as the sun crested the horizon in a burst of gold that filled the garden with light. “Sebastian speaks of you every night.”

I frowned. “But I’ve just arrived.”

“Not in his mind.”

The gargoyle closed stone lids and was still.

I trudged back to the house and pressed against the door. It opened under my touch, though I was too tired to be surprised. No one was about as I slipped into the murky hall, though the place looked spotless. I was glad, knowing I must look a sight, and made it back to my room without being accosted with questions and concerns.

There I undressed silently, slipping beneath the covers to find a hot brick at the end of the bed. Had Minette watched me return to the gardens? God alone knew what she and the others thought.

I pressed numb toes to the stone’s wrappings but fell asleep before feeling returned to them, my dreams haunted by stone men and men of flesh with stone in their hearts.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SEBASTIAN

Her feelings for me weren’t real and mine…were.

The dichotomy of the betrayal, of never being rid of the sorceress who implanted herself inside my head centuries ago and refused to leave brought me to the bitter edge of my sanity.

And so I stood at the furthest reach of the property I had purchased for myself beside a man birthed of stone who fished in a swamp and liked to make meals from the prehistoric lizards the overpopulated the waters.

A final salute of one predator to another.

Why not? Because otherwise I would scream myself senseless into the void until nothing remained. And yet, I couldn’t let go of the tang of defeat, and hated myself all the more for it.

What was one more dose in a daily regime four hundred years in the making?

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