nowhere, Grit, and you shouldn’t be making decisions with low blood sugar.' He left the fridge door open as he pulled leftovers out, taking a newly washed plate from the dish rack to pile scalloped potatoes and ham onto it. Margrit watched silently, trying to push down an overwhelming rise of emotion that made her nose sting and her chest feel full.
'I could do that myself, you know,' she said thickly. 'I’m a hundred-percent capable of using a microwave.'
'You’re fine where you are. Have you talked to Tony about this job change idea, Grit? Your parents? Russell?'
'Nobody. Just you.' Margrit got up to close the fridge and leaned on its broad orange surface.
Cole glanced over his shoulder at her. 'So you’re trying the idea on for size.'
'I guess.' She folded an arm around her ribs and bent the other up, pressing her knuckles against her mouth. 'Did you always want to be a pastry chef?'
Cole chuckled. 'We’re not making this about me, Grit. But yeah, I guess. I used to get under Mom’s feet in the kitchen. By the time I was fourteen I did most of the baking at home.'
Margrit dropped her knuckles enough to grin. 'That must’ve gone over well with the guys.'
'Remember I grew up in San Francisco. Everybody just assumed I was gay.' Cole grinned back. 'Actually, nobody cared if I was queer as long as I fed them, so it went over fine with the guys.' His smile broadened. 'It went over even better with the girls. Anyway, people were always telling me I should be a chef, but I wanted to bake, not cook, and it took forever to get the idea there were jobs specifically for bakers.'
'Hence the dust-gathering business degree?'
'Pretty much. I thought it’d be good to finish that up in case baking didn’t pay the bills. But yeah, it’s what I’ve always liked doing. No mid-career crisis.' The microwave dinged and Cole took a plate of steaming food out and slid it toward Margrit. 'Your dinner,
'It’s a little early for me to have a mid-career crisis. Thank you.' She took a fork from the clean dishes and broke up the scalloped potatoes, leaning in to inhale the steam. Her stomach rumbled and she pressed a hand against it, laughing weakly. 'Guess I’m hungry.'
'You’re always hungry. I’ve seen you eat a five course meal and look for a snack twenty minutes later. I don’t know why you don’t weigh three hundred pounds.'
'Because I run in the park every night,' Margrit said reasonably. Cole made a face, then looked pleased as she took a bite of potato and sighed contentedly. 'S’ferry good,' she promised around the mouthful.
'Of course it is. Okay, Grit. Tell me something.' Cole elevated an eyebrow in challenge and Margrit nodded agreement around another mouthful. 'How much of this job change idea is about Tony?'
The bite or two she’d taken turned heavy in her stomach. Margrit straightened up, feeling heat come to her cheeks and doubting she could blame the warm meal. 'Tony?'
'Yeah, Tony. The guy who called here four times this evening trying to invite you to dinner.'
'He-crap. I thought he was working. I thought-why didn’t he call my cell?'
'He did. You didn’t answer.'
'Crap.' Margrit closed her eyes and pushed the food away. 'I turned the ringer off while I was in court. I didn’t see any messages from him when I checked earlier.'
'It was hours ago now. So come on, ’fess up. How much of this has to do with him? I know you two’ve been trying to stabilize things.'
'And my job’s a sore point.' Margrit looked back at the potatoes, unable to find an answer. The easiest one was to let Cole believe he was right. It rankled, though, in a way that pretending the morality of defending criminals bothered her didn’t. If she’d been pretending. For a disconcerting moment, Margrit was unsure whether she had been or not. 'I really hate the idea of giving up my job for a guy,' she finally said.
'You would.' Wryness colored Cole’s response. 'It’s archaic. Nobody’s going to give you a hard time, Grit, you know that, right?'
'Yeah.' Margrit wet her lips and tried for a smile as she looked at her dark-haired housemate. Guilt stabbed her, though, and she dropped her eyes again. She hadn’t lied, but she’d given Cole a neutral statement that could easily-obviously-be interpreted as an agreement to his hypothesis. It was a wonderful trick to pull off in a court. Using it against a friend made her feel tired.
And yet it was better than the truth. 'Cole, don’t say anything to Tony, okay? I need to talk to him myself.'
'You mistake me for a busybody. That’s Cameron.' Cole jerked his chin toward the meal she’d abandoned. 'Eat your dinner. Talk to your parents and Russell and Tony and get things figured out. And if you decide to go work for the richest man on the East Coast, when you get the Upper East Side penthouse apartment Cam and I are totally moving in with you.'
Margrit laughed, surprise washing away some of her gloom. 'But no pressure, right?'
'Absolutely none at all.' Cole winked and turned back to the dishes, leaving Margrit to finish her dinner with thoughts of surviving the Old Races swirling in her mind.
'What do the gargoyles know of the selkies, Stoneheart?'
Janx asked the question without preamble, dancing a cigarette through long fingers and watching the casino below through the windows. Malik had appeared in the shadows, a smear against burnished walls. His glower and the throttlehold he had on his cane were more damning than words could be, making it clear that he resented Alban’s presence. Alban, no happier about it, doubted the djinn would appreciate their solidarity.
He shifted his shoulders, making the hem of his coat swing. 'I know as little as you do. They bred themselves out, disappeared into humanity. If there are full-blooded selkies left they’re well-hidden and deeply secretive. Cara Delaney is the only one I’ve seen or heard of in decades.' Though Margrit had mentioned a selkie, Alban recalled with a jolt. He hadn’t thought to ask if it had been Cara, though using the phrase 'accosted by' in reference to the slight girl seemed overblown.
'I didn’t ask what you knew.' Janx came to his feet and stalked to the windows, his impatience drawing Alban away from his thoughts. 'I asked what the gargoyles know. Lore keepers, living memory, history- makers.'
'Recorders,' Alban objected. 'Not makers. Even when I last joined the memory, the selkies were a dying race. You know that, Janx.'
'I know that’s what we believe. But that selkie girl came into my territory-'
'Yours?'
Janx shifted his attention from the casino to Alban, weight of his gaze enough to give even a gargoyle pause as the air went still and hot around him. 'Mine,' Janx said in a low, even voice. 'Do you contest my ownership, Stoneheart?'
'I only thought Eliseo might object,' Alban said mildly, not intending it for an apology. Jade glittered bright in Janx’s eyes before his lashes tangled, shuttering emotion. When he looked up again it was with the long-toothed smile that so often graced his face, and the heavy pressure in the room lightened.
'That’s a topic for Eliseo and myself, and none of your concern, kind as you are to show it. Now, if I may continue without further interruption?' His eyebrows, half-hidden by falling locks of hair, arched, and he smiled another serpent’s smile when Alban inclined his head. 'I’m grateful. That selkie girl came here and now I sense a change in the currents. I would know how many of them are left. Ask the histories.'
'Janx.' Alban’s gaze flickered to Malik, then back to the dragonlord. Janx fluttered a hand in a swirl of smoke, and Malik curled his lip before dissipating. Neither gargoyle nor dragon moved for several seconds, waiting for the djinn’s scent to fade, proof that he was truly gone, before Alban said, 'It is not my secret I protect by remaining outside of the gestalt.'
'Gestalt.' Janx laughed, bringing his cigarette to his lips. 'What a very human word, Alban. After so little time, she’s corrupted you so thoroughly. First in your loyalties, now in your language. Where will it end?'
Alban rumbled, deep sound bordering on a growl even from the lesser breadth of his human chest. Janx’s eyes narrowed and he gestured with the cigarette again, following the swirl of smoke with obvious pleasure. 'I’ve learned what I can about the gargoyles’ memory-mind. You can enter and extract memories without leaving any of your own. Our old secrets will be safe.'
'You’ve been misinformed.' Alban turned away, watching the frantic casino below. 'Entering the histories is never a process of only taking. The mental bonds that link gargoyles are fluid. Surface memories, the most recent
