"I wouldn’t know," Alban said so solemnly it made Margrit smile. "I don’t miss what I’ve never had. And…yes," he added carefully. "My reaction to sunlight is fairly extraordinary. Clouds, unfortunately, don’t block the reaction."

"Probably caused by UV rays." Cole waved a hand as if trying to encompass information with it. "I thought there were medical treatments for that kind of problem these days. Take a pill, solve all your problems."

Margrit met Alban’s gaze, both of them bemused at the idea. "Imagine if it were that simple," he said.

Margrit huffed. "I can’t. That would be too weird. Like vampires surviving on iron supplements." She eyed Alban, who shook his head, then set his empty bowl aside.

"Speaking of morning, I should go."

"I’ll walk you out." Margrit got to her feet as Alban did. Cole remained on the couch, yawning until his jaw cracked, but Cameron stood, as well.

"It was nice to meet you, Alban. Maybe sometime we can get Margrit’s new boss to send a car with really tinted windows around for you, and you can come to dinner."

"We’ll have to make it a European sort of meal," Alban said apologetically. "Beginning late and ending even later. I simply don’t go out in the daytime."

"We could come in," Cam volunteered, then caught Margrit’s expression and subsided. "Well, I’m glad we met you, anyway, and that you’re not a murderer."

Margrit put a hand over her face as Cole roused himself enough to stare at Cameron. "Even I’ve been more tactful than that, Cam."

"Not much," she muttered, then smiled brightly. "G’night, Alban. G’night, Grit. You can stay up all night," she said to Cole. "I’m going to bed."

"I already stayed up all night. It’s way past all night and seriously into all morning." He dragged himself off the couch to follow Cameron out of the living room.

Margrit swayed in the abrupt silence, as if Cam’s chatter had kept her grounded. Alban murured, "That went better than I feared."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did." She held out her hand. "Come on, let’s get you out of here. Even if sunrise isn’t for another two hours."

"Agreed." He slipped his hand around hers, enveloping her fingers, and she led him from the apartment, automatically choosing to climb rather than descend the stairs. Only on the rooftop did she release his hand and step back, wrapping her arms around herself as she searched for the right words to say.

Alban took away the need, shifting to his gargoyle form as he spoke. "Malik threatened you in daylight hours, Margrit. It’s a gargoyle’s weakness, that we can’t defend what we-" He caught his breath and an anticipatory chill shot through Margrit, thoroughly wakening her. "What we care for," he said after a moment, much more softly. "Everything we hold dear is vulnerable during the day."

Disappointment at what he hadn’t said cut through her. Margrit dropped her gaze to the rooftop beneath her feet, swallowing against a tight throat. "Well, I can arm myself against him, but why go after me now?"

"The selkies have named you as the instigator of their revolution, and djinn and selkie are ancient enemies. You’ve upset our whole world, our balance. That’s reason enough, even if he didn’t already dislike you."

"The feeling’s mutual," Margrit said beneath her breath. "I don’t want to put on airs, but if Malik goes after me now that I’m working for Eliseo, isn’t that just slow suicide? He’s still furious over Vanessa’s death. If I wind up dead, too…."

"It’s not a risk I would take," Alban admitted. "Our laws may demand exile for killing each other, but if Eliseo were to lose two assistants to Janx’s people within half a year, he may not care about the rules."

Cold sharper than the spring night shivered through Margrit. "You don’t think this is all Janx’s idea, do you?"

"No." The immediacy of Alban’s response did more to reassure her than she’d thought possible. "Janx would consider killing you to be shortsighted. Murdering Vanessa was a blow in an eternal game, but you’re still too finely balanced between the two of them."

"Am I? Even if I’m working for Eliseo?"

"You are." Alban’s voice softened. "If for no other reason than you’ve involved me in their standoff, whether you intended to or not, and that’s something they’ve both wanted for a long time. Without you, they have no control over me."

"That sounds like a good reason for you to stay away."

"It is, but my intentions to do so are thwarted at every turn. Perhaps it’s past time I learned from that."

"It is," Margrit echoed firmly. "Alban, hear me out, okay? My life has seemed like a washed-out watercolor for the last three months. I didn’t even notice it until you fell out of the sky again a few nights ago. It all looks fine until somebody throws a splash of real color onto the page, and then everything else looks pale and dull."

"I thought that was what sent you running through the park at night. I thought that was where you drew your colors from." Alban sounded bemused and sad, any flattery taken from Margrit’s comment lost beneath deeper emotion.

She stepped back, gazing up at the gargoyle in astonishment. It took effort to whisper, "Nobody understands that," through a throat gone tight with longing.

Alban’s heavy eyebrows drew down. "Isn’t it self-evident? It’s a dangerous behavior. Why would you do it if not to throw paint on the canvas, to use your words? It’s why I began watching you all those years ago, before any of this." He made a brief circle with one hand, encompassing the two of them. "Before I knew anything about your life, I knew that you ran in the park at night to challenge the order of the world you lived in."

A fluting laugh escaped Margrit. "You should have said hello years ago. Nobody gets it, Alban. Not my parents, not my housemates, certainly not Tony. They just see me being stupid. I can’t explain that I need to-" Her voice broke and she fluttered her hands, tiny gestures of desire as much for the right word as a burgeoning impulse to catch Alban and his understanding and never let them go. "To fly," she finally finished, feeling the explanation was wholly inadequate.

His strength enveloped her, solid as stone, yet filling her with warmth and confidence. A surge of power sent them upward. Alban’s wings snapped open, their apparent delicacy belied by the authority with which they swept down and drove them higher into the air. Margrit gasped laughter into Alban’s shoulder, hardly knowing when she’d wound her arms around his neck. "I thought gargoyles weren’t impulsive."

"Occasionally," Alban growled, good nature in the deep sound, "even stone is inspired to enthusiasm. I told you once you could fly now."

Margrit twisted, looking over her shoulder at the receding city. Hair blew in her face, stinging her eyes as much as the cold wind did. She felt tears slip through her lashes and streak her temples. "You did." The accusation that he’d then left her for months hung unspoken between them, until Margrit dared unwind an arm and wipe tears from her face. "I should get aviator goggles. And warm pants."

She shivered, drawing close to the gargoyle again. He rumbled, tightening his arms around her until she felt his heartbeat, slower and steadier by far than her own. She counted those heartbeats, both his and hers, until they became nothing more than a tangle of shared life, similarities played up instead of differences. Engines and horns honking in the city cut through the sound of wind rushing in her ears, a distant reminder of the world below them. Her world, the one she moved through every day, and at the same time separate from her in a way made clear not just by the gargoyle in whose arms she flew, but by the extraordinary men she’d encountered in the past day.

"Alban." She whispered his name against his skin, nose pressed into his neck so she could inhale his clean earthy scent. He curved his head over hers, listening, and she smiled at the temptation to brush her lips against his throat. His ears tapered to narrow, delicate points just in her line of sight, making an intriguing target. The temptation to discover if gargoyle ears were as sensitive to nibbling as human ones teased her. Alban’s inhumanity seemed less of a barrier than it once had, time helping her to adjust and distance replacing caution with inquisitiveness. In his arms, the possibility of freedom from the ordinary seemed so close that she ached from the burden of wanting it. Margrit turned her face against Alban’s shoulder once more, clinging a few long seconds before forcing practicality and the matters at hand to the forefront. "Where are we going?"