Her point was well-aimed. The Nadir’s office needed some appearance of respectability if the humans were to trust it. Gérald, the Zenith, was a pragmatist. If Rikard disgraced the Nadir’s seat, Gérald would make the swap without sentiment.
“Even if I take a mate tomorrow, I can’t produce an heir.” He said it quietly in case any moths were nearby. This bit of gossip, he did not want in circulation.
His mother’s expression shuttered as they reached the hollow center of the Tower. The open space, bridged by crossbeams, allowed gargoyles to fly between tiers without exiting the Tower. At this time of night, it was relatively quiet, with only a few members of the watch still training and a few gargoyle fledglings stretching their wings. “It’s only been five years. You never know what might happen.”
How does a male tell his mother that his cock is a lost cause? He closed his eyes in resignation. “I’ll attend the next skyball,” he said.
“You will?”
“I’ll roost on a ledge and watch other gargoyles court the females you’ve chosen for me, and I’ll make polite conversation in between dances while they catch their breath. Is that sufficient?”
He opened his eyes in time to see her face brighten so much it made his chest ache. “There are females who value conversation, you know. Not everyone needs acrobatics.”
He wasn’t so optimistic. The skydance was the centerpiece of gargoyle courtship for a reason. It demonstrated strength, dexterity, and compatibility. A male who couldn’t skydance was advertising his deficiencies to every potential mate in attendance. He might as well hang a banner from his horns that said “broken.”
But his mother was already making mental lists of females who would attend and families that overlook his flightlessness in exchange for a seventh-tier connection.
“If you say so.”
“I know so.” She cupped his ruined face in both hands and pressed her forehead to his chin because she wasn’t tall enough to reach his forehead. Her purr was thin and anxious, nothing like the full-throated contentment of a happy gargoyle, but it meant she loved him.
He suffered the embrace for as long as he could stand it, then gently extricated himself. “Go home, Mother. I’ll see you in a bit.”
She frowned at him, her forehead creasing. “I hate to see you climbing the ladders like a keeper. Let me send your father to carry you.”
“I’m used to it,” he grunted and waved her off to begin the seven-story climb.
Chapter 5
Hannalinde
When Hannalinde had entertained the prospect of visiting a brothel, she’d imagined something dark and furtive, a cellar den with curtained alcoves and women in various stages of undress draped across paying laps. The reality was more ordinary: a timber-fronted inn with a painted sign of a woolly lamb wearing a crown, flanked by cheerful window boxes of geraniums. The ground floor was a public house like any other, full of laborers and off-duty soldiers nursing their ale while theywaited for an onion pie to bake. Someone was playing a fiddle badly in the corner.
Carlijn marched through the door as though she visited brothels weekly. “Don’t stare at anyone,” she instructed, threading her arm through Hannalinde’s and steering her past the bar. “And don’t look shocked. It will draw attention.”
Hannalinde was not shocked. She was terrified. She’d spent three days since the apothecary’s visit lying awake in the dark, one hand on her belly and the other pressed over her mouth to keep the scream inside. She was tired of being scared, and her only hope of rescue was apparently a harlot named Pudding.
When Carlijn asked for her at the bar, the barkeep, a red-nosed man with a balding pate, jerked his thumb toward the stairs. “First door on the left.”
They climbed the narrow staircase to a landing where the tavern noise dulled and the air smelled of rosewater mixed with the ale. A row of closed doors lined the hallway, and behind one of them, someone was laughing.
Carlijn knocked on the first door. It opened to reveal a woman whose appearance matched her name. Round, warm, and inviting, she was perhaps thirty, with golden curls pinned loosely atop her head and a bosom that her ribbon-laced bodice presented like a gift.
“Looking for a job, are you?” Pudding asked, eyeing Hannalinde’s plain dress as she leaned against the doorframe. Then she gave Carlijn the same scrutiny, her gaze lingering on the heavy purse attached to her belt. “Or perhaps a bit of fun?”
“Neither,” Carlijn said, keeping her voice low. “We were told you help women in trouble.”
Pudding’s demeanor instantly transformed. She straightened and stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in, come in. And shut the door behind you.”
The room was small and scrupulously clean. The bed was made with fresh linen, the washstand gleamed, and the floor had been swept recently. A vase of daisies sat on the windowsill beside a stack of folded towels. It was cozy and comfortable rather than the carnal den Hannalinde had anticipated.
“Sit anywhere you like except the bed, unless you want to pay.” Pudding grinned at her own joke, and Hannalinde found herself almost smiling. She took the stool by the washstand. Carlijn perched on a trunk at the foot of the bed, her ringlets bouncing as she crossed her legs.
Pudding settled into the room’s only chair, a sturdy thing with a plump cushion on it, and folded her hands in her lap. “How far along are we?”
Carlijn answered for her. “She’s a few months. Perhaps a little more.”
Pudding’s brows lifted, and she directed her reply to Hannalinde. “That’s late, love. Who told you about me?”
