She exhaled again. He inhaled.
She shifted her gaze to his eyes, wondered if he was playing with her. For a second he stared back, wonder and something close to fear reflecting back at her. Then he stepped backwards, breaking their connection and his gaze shuttered closed.
“Someone wants to kill you and I think I know why.” The statement was low and earnest. The look on his face was startling, ferocious.
For the first time, she was unsure around him, scared. She glanced at the door, but he seemed to have forgotten it.
“When did these attempts on your life start?” he asked.
She stared at a bucket filled with clay, wondered what had possessed her to bring him here - to be here alone with him. “I ... I don’t know. Not until tonight on the ledge, I guess.” Even after recognizing that she’d felt a hand press into her back, she still couldn’t believe someone was trying to kill her, couldn’t fathom the possibility. She was no one. It had to be a mistake, an accident.
“On the ledge. When you were next to me?”
His voice was so level . . . safe. She looked up and frowned. “Yes.” She could see the truth in his eyes. He truly believed someone wanted to kill her. Yes, she’d felt a hand, but . . .
She thought back. Memories flooded her brain - little sounds as she was perched on the ledge, sounds she’d disregarded. Did someone lean through the window and reach towards her? If it had been an accident they would have screamed, right? Called someone? Done something? Reality hit.
Someone had pushed her, and on purpose. Someone wanted her dead.
His lips thinned. “I don’t think this is about you. Not really.”
“How can it not be about me?” she asked, her mind reeling. Someone tried to kill her. The thought shook her, more than anything that had happened that night. Meeting Mord, learning that gargoyles (whether he would admit it or not) weren’t just the inanimate hunks of stone people thought - that hadn’t surprised her at all. It had actually been reassuring.
Deep inside, she’d always known there was life inside stone. She’d felt it but been afraid to let the thoughts creep into her consciousness. Still, deep down, she’d known. Mord coming to life had been the evidence she’d always been lacking, the proof she needed. For the first time, everything made sense.
But a killer targeting her? That made no sense.
Mord held out his hand - large, square and reassuring. She slipped her fingers into his, let out a breath as his hand enclosed hers.
“I think I need to tell you a few things.”
Kami’s fingers were so small, so fragile, but they made Mord tingle with life.
How could he have missed it at first? Then doubted it? It was obvious she was no simple human. She held the secret to life in her touch. She was the reason he was awake, and he was the reason someone wanted her dead.
“Have you carved around anyone? Has anyone shown an interest in your work?”
She shook her head. “No, I ...” Her words trailed off, her gaze shifted to the block of alabaster. “There was ...” Her head tilted, her brows drew together. “No, that’s silly. It wouldn’t make sense.”
“What?” The word came out more order than question.
She licked her lips, blew air out of her rounded mouth. He breathed in, couldn’t stop himself. Pulling air into his body that had just left hers seemed to strengthen him, make him more alive than he’d ever been before.
She continued, “The man who sold me the alabaster. He called himself the Mason. He talked to me about what I was going to do. He had pictures of gargoyles, lots of them.”
“He wanted you to carve a gargoyle?” Mord asked.
“Yes, but . . . not like you. All his pictures were of mixed animal grotesques - lions with wings, cat heads on eagle bodies. That kind of thing.”
Chimeras. He had wanted her to create chimeras. Mord hid his shock, concentrated on getting Kami to talk. It wasn’t hard. She almost bubbled over with information.
Within minutes she’d shared enough that Mord knew he had to find the man who’d sold her the stone, question him at least.
But the sun would rise soon and Mord would turn to stone. Hopefully, when night fell again, he would awake. Mord clenched his jaw - hopefully. There was no guarantee. He wasn’t supposed to be awake now. Was supposed to still be under the sorcerer’s spell. Once night fell, whatever magic had awakened him might disappear. He might go back into his rocky sleep never to wake again.
Kami’s fingers flexed in his hand. She smiled up at him — trusting. And unexplainably, he wanted her to trust him. Wanted to wake the next night to be with her again.
But why? She offered only complications to his situation, kept him from travelling out and checking on the other gargoyles, the chimeras. He should want to be free from her.