Every child in Tael-Nost knew that. When the gods fell, their blood had seeped into the earth, and from the union of divine blood and ancient stone, tael was born. It was the foundational equation, as fundamental a pairing as needle and thread.
But that was divine blood, and this was just…herblood. But there was no denying thatherblood had been carried by the silk into the living stone of Rikard’s wing, and the stone had responded.
“Rikard.” Her voice came out strangely thin. The sound of someone standing at the edge of a revelation and not yet sure theground would hold. “The first night. I pricked my finger during the first stitch. I bled on the thread.”
He went still. Then he turned around slowly. “Blood and stone,” he said wonderingly. She nodded, feeling her pulse in her throat.
The silence lasted four heartbeats.
“No,” he said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I won’t have you bleeding for me.”
“It’s just a needle prick. A few drops. I bleed more than that trimming a stubborn bodice.” She held up her calloused fingers, the map of tiny scars that a decade of needlework had drawn across their pads. “These hands have bled onto every piece of fabric I’ve ever loved. Blood is part of the work. It always has been.”
“This is different.”
“How? Because the fabric is alive? Because the fabric is yours?” She pushed up to standing with awkward effort, holding her belly. “All the more reason to let me. I owe you my life. Let me bleed a few drops for you!”
His jaw worked. The muscles beneath the scarred hide shifted, and his wings drew tighter against his back, showing his resistance to the idea.
“The thought of anyone else’s blood on your wings is intolerable to me,” she added quietly, “If a mason could do this in my stead, I would still want it to be mine. My blood. My thread. My work.”
He stared at her, shaking his head.
“We will try again. A needle prick,” he finally said, crossing to sit on the backless sofa. “One drop and no more. Just to see if it works. And we tell no one until we understand this better. Not Carlijn. Not my mother.”
She hadn’t expected that, but she trusted Rikard’s instinct for secrecy. If his wings healed, questions would be asked about how. And when it came out that a human woman’s blood could heal gargoyle stone, what would that mean for the fragile alliance between their species?
“No one,” she agreed. “And we’ll make sure the moths don’t find out.” She drew the draperies over the windows and balcony doors so they could not be spied upon by eyes of any species. Then she lit another candle to illuminate her work, threaded her needle with the same silver silk, and pricked her finger on purpose.
The blood welled up in a bright bead on the pad of her index finger. She touched it to the needle’s eye, let the silk draw it through, and set the first stitch.
It felt like they were both holding their breath as she worked. When the candle had burned low, the embroidery was complete. She’d stitched the same trailing vines and flowers she had the first time.
“We’ll know by morning,” she said lightly as she secured the last knot. Her fingertip throbbed with a pleasant soreness, the ache of useful work. Rikard said nothing, merely bundled her off to bed with his arms tight around her.
She woke at dawn. The light through the shutters was gray and uncertain, the color of a held breath, and she climbed out of bed and crossed to where Rikard stood frozen on his roost, wing extended like he knew she’d want to see.
The embroidery was gone. In its place, whole membrane, taut and new, the ghostly tracery of silver vines like a watermark.
Her knees gave out. She sat on the floor beside his stone feet. “Fallen gods,” she whispered to the statue of her husband. “It worked.”
She had so much work to do. She would need more silk. She would need more time. Blood was the least of it.
Chapter 27
Rikard
The endless complaints he heard at the Nadir’s desk were hardly audible, because all he could think of was flying. Even with repaired membranes, would it even be possible again after years of keeping them bound on his back?
Yes, his heart cried, drowning out all the other voices around him. Anything seemed possible now.
But it was not the cries of his heart that met him when he returned to Rose House a few hours before dawn. Another crywas audible from the front gate, the sound spilling into the street.
Rikard’s heart quickened. Was it Hanna? No, there were two voices. One he recognized as Hannalinde’s steady, sweet tone. The cries were Carlijn’s, ragged and wet and exhausted.
