“Not tonight, Margrit. If you’re certain you’re all right, I’ll let you go. Don’t work too hard, sweetheart.”

Margrit pulled the phone from her ear to look at it in disbelief before bringing it back, a grin staining her face. “Okay, Mom. I love you and I’ll try to come see you next weekend. Tell Daddy I love him, too, and that I’m fine, really.” They hung up, and Margrit shed blankets to return to the kitchen, still grinning.

Cole looked up from his dinner preparations in surprise. “No rescue necessary tonight?”

“I’ve found the magic phrase to get her off the phone. It turns out to be ‘Eliseo Daisani said hi.’”

“Seriously?” Cam’s attention focused like a bloodhound on the scent. “Your mom knows Eliseo Daisani? The Eliseo Daisani? Do you think they had a thing?”

“Oh, my God. I don’t even want to think that.” Margrit laughed and shucked her coat. “It’d take all the wind out of her sails about Tony, that’s for sure. The way she talks you’d think she never thought a white guy was cute in her life.”

“Wait. How’d we get from Daisani to Tony?”

“We got-” The phone in Margrit’s hand shrilled, making her start. “We got a phone call, apparently,” she muttered, and thumbed it on. “Hello?” Cole turned to watch her, eyebrows elevated as he waited to see who it was for.

“Margrit?”

Her stomach felt suddenly empty, and an unexpected wave of cold washed over her forearms and calves. Trusting her poker face to have not betrayed her, she waved the phone at Cole. “It’s for me.” She pulled her coat back on and stepped onto the balcony again, closing the door behind her and crouching against it, her gaze fixed on the ground five stories below. “Alban?”

He exhaled. “Do you know how many M. Knights there are in the phone book?”

“No.” She could feel her shoulders pulling back with tension, as if a dagger had been stuffed between them.

“Thirty-four. And none of them with your address listed. This was not an easy number to find,” he said with a plaintive note.

“You know my address? ” Margrit’s voice shot up.

Alban was silent a few moments. “I apologize. I’ve been watching you.”

“Jesus motherfucking Christ.” Margrit hung up the phone and stared at the receiver in her hand. Disappointment at not seeing Alban in the park didn’t, it seemed, equate to being delighted at him calling or knowing her address. Consistency was the hobgoblin of small minds.

The phone rang again. Margrit let it ring, staring at it, until Cole called, “Grit? You gonna get that?” from the kitchen.

“No.” She thumbed the receiver on anyway, willing her heartbeat to slow down. It stuck in her throat instead, making the emptiness in her stomach bubble.

“I’m sorry,” Alban said.

“ Sorry? You’re creepy! How long have you been watching me?”

He was silent again, long enough to make Margrit shiver with discomfort and fear. “Perhaps three years,” he finally said. “I’ve watched you running in the park. I…am concerned for your safety.”

“Oh good.” Margrit’s voice rose to a high register. “So to protect me from stalkers you thought you’d stalk me a little? For years? Jesus Christ!”

“Not stalk.” Alban spoke in a low, apologetic rumble. “Protect, Margrit. It’s in my nature.”

“Yeah, well, calling the freaking cops on you is in mine!”

There was another silence, even longer, before he murmured, “You haven’t hung up.”

Margrit closed her eyes. She couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Her stomach churned with nerves, but a buzz of excitement made her hands cold and her breathing short. Even if the gargoyle knew where she lived, she felt safe here. Continuing the conversation felt like walking a tightrope, the safety net far below, but still in place.

“Margrit?” he asked after a few moments. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Stupid, she whispered to herself, but she didn’t hang up. “I didn’t think you knew how to use a phone.”

There was a perplexed silence. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Margrit glanced back toward the kitchen, where Cole and Cameron bantered, then dropped her chin to her chest, closing her eyes. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like your style.”

“You know so much about my style?” Alban sounded amused.

“No! Look, what do you want? Why’d you come up to me in the park? If you didn’t kill that girl-those girls, more than one is dead now-then just go talk to the cops. You’re wanted for questioning, not murder.” Not yet, anyway, she amended silently. “Who did kill them?” Anger and determination prodded her even more than the pulse-racing stimulation of fear.

“I cannot go to the police.” Alban’s voice dropped, quiet determination filling it. “My…condition,” he said carefully, “forbids it. If I should be kept in custody past dawn-no.”

“Your condition, ” Margrit mimicked. “Why are you even worried about-about what people like us think, anyway?”

“My life is already lived in shadows,” he said. “To spend every night hiding my face until these murders are solved or until those who would pursue it die is too much. Margrit, listen to me. Talking to you in the park the same night that girl died was an unspeakably bad coincidence. It was the first time I had the nerve to do it. I never intended to speak to you again. I only wanted to hear your voice.”

Margrit shuddered. “That’s incredibly freaky.”

“I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I…wouldn’t. But I’d intended to leave you alone after that.” He fell silent a moment or two. “You might be glad circumstances forced me to act otherwise. That car would have killed you.”

“So, what, you just follow me around town every night making sure I’m safe? Oh, Christ.” She lifted her gaze, focusing across the street without seeing. “The gargoyle on the building across my street at work. The one Mark and I couldn’t remember seeing before. That was you. Oh, my God.”

“It was, yes. I’ve been seeking another opportunity to speak to you. Could we continue this conversation in person? I don’t like talking about myself over the phone.”

“Gee, I wonder why. My roommates are home,” Margrit said. “They’re not going to take kindly to you knocking on the door.”

“I believe I can avoid that,” Alban said into the phone and in her other ear. Margrit jerked her head up at the echo, and scrambled to her feet as Alban, wings spread, glided down to her balcony, landing with a gentle clatter on the grated floor.

He seemed larger outside the confines of a room. Broad shoulders shifted easily in the city lights, wings folding behind him into near invisibility. The alien lines of his face were still handsome, and his body language spoke of confidence. He still wore the jeans, disconcerting on a creature who looked like he was best suited to guarding cathedrals. By comparison, her memory of him seemed like a dream, half remembered and hazy. His presence was as palpable as a mountainside, so solid Margrit wanted to step forward and put her hands against his chest and push, to see if she could move him. To see if the broad expanse of bare skin would be warm and soft under her touch, or if it would be as still and cool as the stone it resembled.

To see if his breath would catch at her small hands on him, as hers wanted to, simply at the sight of him. To revel in astonished pleasure at the difference in their coloring, her mocha fingers a splash across his alabaster skin.

“Jesus Christ,” Margrit said into the phone. Alban quirked heavy white eyebrows and clipped his cell phone shut, turning his palm up to show her the instrument, dwarfed by his hand. Margrit swallowed and lowered her own phone, thumbing it off. “My roommates are inside,” she repeated thickly. “If I scream-”

“I’ll be gone before they can get here,” Alban promised. “Margrit, I don’t want to hurt you. I need your help.” Space inverted around him, and he shrank, changing from the gargoyle to the man. His voice changed register, still recognizably Alban, without the granite. “Is this less distressing?” he asked. Margrit thought she detected a note of wistfulness in the smooth tone. She closed her eyes.