Gabriel looked at him for a moment. The cased window was open and moonlight fell on the old man’s outthrust arm, and the night was chilly, and Gabriel got his red cloak off the clothes piled on his chair and spread it over the old man. It smelled of wood smoke. That sparked a few memories.

He smiled again. Then he went out past his solar, where Nell was sleeping with a young man spooned against her. Gabriel nodded thoughtfully and took his page’s canteen and pulled the stopper. There was water in it. He drank it.

It wasn’t what he wanted, and he went into the hall, his cup still in his hand.

The Queen’s door opened, and Blanche backed through it with a taper in her hand.

A variety of thoughts crossed Gabriel’s mind all at once, and when she turned, they both flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, although he had no idea for what he was apologizing.

She paused. “May I help you?” she asked. “The babe’s asleep and so is her grace.”

Gabriel waved his cup. I’m the captain, damn it. I can be in the hall at midnight. There was something in her air that damned him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I was only looking for a cup of wine.”

A loud snore ripped out of Harmodius’s throat and echoed down the stone steps.

“He sounds as if he’s choking,” she said, and almost giggled.

They were looking into each other’s eyes. It went on too long.

“I’ll…” he began, cursing himself for ten types of a fool.

“I have wine,” she said. Her voice was husky. “In my room.” Her eyes never left his.

He reached out his hand.

She took it. “I want to see your—griffon,” she whispered.

He laughed. She had no idea why. But he took her to the door and produced a key made of wrought steel.

“Will he scream?” she asked. Suddenly she was appalled—that she’d offered him wine, that she’d been so bold about the monster.

He shook his head. “Perhaps when we leave. Let me go first.”

He opened the door and she was shocked—immediately—to find that the room revealed, which had once been a fine solar, was now roofless to the open night, and a canopy of stars rose above her. There were two chairs, and a heavy iron chain, and a—a—

A monster.

Gabriel went forward, crooning, and it—It was huge. It seemed to fill the very large tower room, as big as the whole home she’d grown up in with her mother. It put its head on the ground.

And rolled on its back like an enormous cat.

“Come on,” Ser Gabriel said.