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The City of Lights is no place to be ugly, Catalyn decided, looking out across Paris from the steps of Sacre Coeur. The view down along Montmartre was beautiful—the cafes were bright, the parks inviting, but the feeling the place gave her . . . it was worse than New York, worse even than LA, which had come as some surprise. She was an expert on the subject now, World’s Worst Places to Be Monstrously Deformed—that was a guide book she could write. She should have stayed in her hotel, she knew, watching the wave of tourists break and reform around her, entering the cathedral with flashbulbs flicking. Her room was comfortable; there was no one to look sideways along at her, no reflecting surface to catch her unawares. My job keeps me moving, she repeated to herself, almost as if someone had asked why she was there alone. A French pair, mother and son, came up the steps, looking nearly as different from the tourist set as she did. It was the small touches: the beautifully twisted scarf, the low heels, and the well-groomed, non-exhausted child that marked them out. Her French was rusty, but it wasn’t hard to interpret the little boy’s whisper. What’s wrong with her, Mama? Neurofibromatosis was the answer, which she presumed was the same in French as English, where medicine was spoken. The Elephant Man’s disease, that was an easier description—people had heard of that. What was French for elephant, though? Lapin was all that came to mind, and that meant rabbit, she was fairly sure. The mother hushed him, and they passed by, like the others, before she could form an answer, even if she wanted to. And why should she have to explain? Just because she looked the very definition of infectious, like her skin was bunching up in knots, getting ready to jump ship. She clutched the book she had found in the back ways of the Shakespeare Bookshop, her only other venture out this trip. It had been up two stairways, and through a reading den, and under a cut-out wall, and then around what might have been a kitchen, until she had started to worry that she had wandered out of the store and into someone’s home. The article she’d read had claimed that was the charm of the Shakespeare, the best-known English language bookseller in Paris. In any case, that was where she had found it, the odd, musty-smelling little journal that proclaimed, on its cover, Hope for the Afflicted. She’d picked it up, expecting the same platitudes as a hundred self-help books, if maybe phrased in earlier, more romantic prose. Love yourself, or maybe, hope for heaven, depending on the publisher, and the author’s slant. Instead, she’d found practicalities. Case studies. Statistics, in Victorian tones. Five hundred and fifty people went to be healed at the Dance of Saint Alyssa. They proceeded up to the gates of Sacre Coeur, where the boundary between Earth and Heaven has always been weak, where the wall may be breached by need. Best of all, in the final chapter was the ultimate in hope—it gave step-by-step instructions. Go to Sacre Coeur, it said. Dress in shades of white, and unwrap any bandages or splints. No need to wait for a processional; the boundary is place, not time based. Find the statue of the Angel Gabriel. Fall to your knees and wrap its low-flung left hand in Christmas roses, with the thorns unstripped. Say these words—and here she read and memorized—then state your need and take your cure, if you have the nerve. It couldn’t possibly work, and she couldn’t possibly not try. Catalyn entered the cathedral. The apse was cool and darker than the dusk outside, close, compared to the sense of space ahead, where the buttresses rose and crossed further overhead than she could clearly see. She felt inside her purse; the garland was still there. The florist hadn’t cared what Catalyn wanted it for, or else hadn’t wanted to discuss it. Guidebooks were available on an old, carved table. She dropped the requested francs in the basket, and flipped through the colored illustrations. The index of statues alone spread two pages; she read it as she walked from the apse down the broad central aisle, wide enough for three thin priests, she figured, or, if plumpish, maybe two. She found a reference to the healing of Saint Alyssa, and directions to a statue located high up on the roof walks. That wasn’t quite right, though—she needed the angel that her book had specified. She flipped further, then her fingers stilled, almost before her eyes could read the caption. That was the one she needed, there—a black-and-white photo showed an angel emerging from the stone wall of the cathedral, wings still half-buried in the vaulted ceiling, sweeping low as if to touch a supplicant’s upreaching hand. Eastern quadrant, section two, located behind the tomb of the Navarres, it said. A swirl of tourists around her nearly ripped the book from her hands, then stalled her as she pushed toward that section of the cathedral. Finally they melted back, drawn off by the access to the stairs, up to the city views from the rooftop cupolas, or down to the crypts, and the promise of old tombs and history and more morbid pleasures. The quiet, after they passed, was the more startling for the change, and the air felt darker, without the brightness of loud chatter and even louder clothes. Catalyn nearly wished them back, at least one or two, to ease the sense of weight pressing down upon her, as if the cathedral had decided to rest itself upon her shoulders. She was beneath the statue nearly before she realized it. It towered overhead, seeming at first a projection of the cathedral’s inner wall, before features resolved: a face, mouth set tight, in pain, or maybe disapproval, eyes wide with shock or awe, wings billowing back as if pushed by a fierce wind from below. Catalyn reached into her purse, pulling out the garland. No need to think. Just get it over with, and go home, knowing one more thing that didn’t work. Less painful than surgery, at the very least, and less disappointing than its purely temporary cure. She positioned herself beneath the angel’s hand and dropped to her knees. “Please don’t,” said a voice behind her. She turned. A wide-ish man stood there; a priest, she realized, taking in his white collar and dark robes. Interesting, Catalyn thought, feeling the first tinge of hope. Nobody cared if you did something that didn’t work. “Why shouldn’t I?” “Did you know that Saint Denis is the patron saint of Paris?” the priest said, instead. “My namesake.” He spoke in English, easily, with a trace of an accent. “He was executed in the square outside the cathedral. They say after his neck was severed, he picked up his head, and walked through the streets of Paris holding it in his arms.” “You’d think a saint could re-attach it.” “Perhaps he didn’t want the price of a cure.” Father Denis shrugged. “I don’t really know. He must have been a religious man. He might have approved of what you’re going to do, for all I know.” He settled down next to her easily, as if they were in a pew instead of the hard paved floor. He gestured up at the thick stone walls around them. “You know, this place is rather like a fortress, isn’t it? Interesting. Who would attack this place, after all?” He leaned back and looked up at the stone-cast angel with a speculative look. “Makes you wonder if they were trying to keep something in, instead?” Catalyn felt a surge of irritation. This man had no right to try to talk her out of what might be her only chance. A few minutes ago she hadn’t even honestly believed it might work; now nothing could beat back the hope that was springing up. “Why don’t you forbid me, if you don’t want it done?” “I can’t. It’s your right.” He struggled to his feet, pushing up on his knees with a grunt. “I’ll wait for you by the door. Whatever you decide.” Catalyn watched him go, still holding the garland in her hand, and kneeling beneath the angel’s down-stretched hand. The decision was easy. She wrapped the rose around its wrist, and prayed, not for truth, but beauty.  Nothing happened. The disappointment was crushing. Catalyn rose from her knees, feeling nothing but a soreness along her shins and a sting in her fingers, where the thorns had caught and scratched. The angel loomed overhead, claustrophobically close, but as set in stone as ever. Ridiculous. Stupid of her to try it, and cruel of the priest to make her think that it might work. Catalyn brushed her hands along her pants, rubbing away the last trace of rose petal, and made her way back to the cathedral entrance. Maybe she could find a boulangerie, take something back to the hotel, eat it in front of a newscast she couldn’t understand. “I think we’ll soon regret this,” Father Denis said, as she approached the cathedral’s doors. Catalyn barely glanced his way. Was the man delusional? She’d heard the Vatican was promoting odder and odder practices these days—even brought back a school for exorcism, she’d read—maybe he was in the vanguard. Although from what he had said before, she’d taken him for more of a modernist, a humanist. He hadn’t seemed to approve of anyone’s religious fervor. He persisted, walking by her as she stepped through the enormous wooden doors onto the cathedral’s outer steps. “Nothing happened,” she said, finally, as they reached the bottom. Maybe with that he would leave her alone. Father Denis laughed, and waved his hand at the darkening sky. The lights were on in the cafes below now, and the smell of butter and rich sauces was drifting up the hill. “Angels don’t come out at night, my dear. That’s vampires.” Some priest. He didn’t even know his scripture. “The Annunciation was at night. When the angels came to the shepherds in the fields.” Father Denis shrugged. “Special occasion?” He guided her along the path beside the cathedral, heading down towards the Montmartre stairs. “Dinner, at any rate, I think is in order.” At her glance towards his priestly collar, he shared another smile. “I lean more towards the Benedictines. Trouble is better faced after a nice repast, would be their advice.” Artists were still sketching in the square as they approached, surrounded on four sides by creperies and dining clubs, and here and there a glass or jewelry store. They settled into seats outside a yellow-draped café; the air was warm, still, with a hint of breeze, and the passers-by were lazy and loaded with bags. Paris was nicer with someone who everyone knew. The waitress smiled at her as she asked for tea and pastry, and laughed when Father Denis upgraded the order to a full dinner, for both of them, pastry still included. “She’s having an affair, you know,” Father Denis confided, as the waitress stepped into the back. “A nice boy, really. But they’re not married, so it’s adultery.” He speared an escargot with a small fork. “According to the letter of the law.” Catalyn ignored him, cutting into her crepe instead. The gossip was good—she’d never had someone who told her juicy bits of news—but she didn’t need the running social commentary. It smacked a little too much of A Lesson To Be Learned. And what was the point of lessons, if there wasn’t any knowledge anywhere that could fix her problem? Father Denis kept on going, escargot disappearing in the space between passers-by. Everyone in Montmartre, practically, had some type of sin, from minor all the way to newsworthy. He pointed out one man, a smallish portly fellow, loaded down with groceries. Affairs were the least of his sins; he had done enough to merit a short but eye-popping biographic. Catalyn gestured across the square, to a crowded, red-striped restaurant. The mother she had seen earlier in the cathedral was dining there, in the company of a man who, from the resemblance, must be the little boy’s father. “What about them? Sinless, surely, right?” Father Denis nodded their way. “They covet their neighbor’s house. It’s got a fine garden attached, unlike theirs. I agree it would be nice for Tomas to have a space to play outside, but there it is. Covetousness.” Catalyn objected, snorting. “No one gets in trouble for just wanting something. You have to do something about it for it to be a crime.” “Hmmm. That’s the human interpretation, though, isn’t it? No harm, no foul, as your countrymen might say. Not quite the way the law is written, though, now is it?” Catalyn leaned back, finishing the first glass of wine she’d had in a very long time. It was nice, sitting here with someone who looked at her face as if he didn’t see the bumps and mismatched knots of flesh. It was even nice hearing about the people round about here, as if she were a native and entitled to their secrets, even if Father Denis was pushing his own agenda. She supposed that was in his job description, and worth a pleasant, cream-filled meal. Father Denis pushed his plate away, looking satisfied, and sighed as if she’d asked him, directly, for his point. “What I mean to say, dear, is that what man desires is not at all what heaven would provide. The church does best in times of misery after all—the pews are never more full than when there is strife on Earth.” Catalyn leaned forward, smiling. She had a counter for that. “Why would the angel heal people, then?” Denis looked thoughtful. “We don’t know that it does. The old records say that the sick could approach the cathedral and call the angel forth, who would roam, terrible, for the space of a day.” He fiddled with his napkin, twisting it on the tablecloth. “We know that the square would be littered with crutches, etcetera, with the apparatus of the sick, left behind as they entered the cathedral.” Catalyn nodded, feeling a chill despite the pleasant evening air. This was close to what she had read in the book. “It’s possible they were healed. It’s also possible they simply never returned.” Father Denis pressed his hand over Catalyn’s, warmly, and waved for a check. “Either would account for the recorded facts.” He stood up, lending a hand to Catalyn as she arose too. “Sunrise, dear. I think we should meet again, then. Perhaps these questions can be answered then?” Catalyn doubted it. But she stood, and smiled and nodded anyway. Nonetheless, just before dawn, there she was, back on the cathedral steps. Catalyn wasn’t sure if it was the vestiges of hope that had brought her back—if there was any hope of an angel, of a cure, then she had to be here—or if she was just hoping to meet the priest again. He’d been nice, if possibly a trifle cracked. Of course, if this angel was real, and as terrible as he described, perhaps she should run, far away. Probably no point, she figured, looking up at the spires of the cathedral as the sky turned pink, then yellow. If an angel wants to hunt you down, distance was unlikely to be an object. The change, when it came, was sudden. One moment the cathedral was grey; the next it was reflecting every color of the sky, less like a mirror than a projector, as if it were the source of dawn, and not the sun above. The effect crept upward, from base to spires, up to the very highest point of Sacre Coeur, and then it just kept going, up into the air. It focused, then, the light resolving and contracting into a denseness, a presence, something winged and yet translucent. Angel, her mind decided, finding no other word to put to it. It filled her with awe, a hairsbreadth-span from horror; it was too much, too great, too filled with light, too impossible to understand, or to ask for favors. It dipped then hovered, wings undulating like a bat. It sank down towards her, and she dropped to her knees on the pavement, more from an urge to make herself small than from any piety. A wind whipped around her as it came closer, blowing back her hair and exposing her face to the creature overhead. It reached down, hand outstretched like in the cathedral. “Sinner,” it said. Its breath was roses and spring showers, and a thousand sweet, rare things. Catalyn was frozen, as unable to move as if she’d been snake-charmed. Its hand came closer, almost near enough to brush against her face, and she fell back farther still, against the cathedral steps. She wished the earth would swallow her; in the light of this terrible radiance, she could almost understand the urge to descend, to turn away and choose the dark. It came closer still, its head turning this way then that, blindly, as if seeking her by heat, or smell. She pressed as far back as she could, the steps cutting into her back. Please, God, came to her mind, then disappeared just as quickly. Who do you call on when panicked by the might of the Lord? A sound, then a flash of color showed through the angel’s nearer wing. Catalyn held still, hoping for something that might distract the creature hovering above her. Another flash, then another, and she could make out more: something oddly shaped, thick, and grey-veined, swooping in to harry at the angel’s wing. It was too large for a pigeon, too large for a hawk as well, not that she believed any bird would dare approach. It ducked and swooped again, and this time the angel seemed to notice; cooler air brushed her face as its wings curved back and it lifted it sunward, fractionally. The attacker came again, undaunted, with a daring that Catalyn wished dearly for herself, at least enough to move her legs from under her. Closer, the attacker looked too solid to suspend itself in air, too obviously stone; its wings groaning like asphalt expanding in the sun. Gargoyle? It was; she gaped, then kicked herself across the pavement as quickly as she could manage without standing upright, afraid of regaining the host’s attention. The gargoyle renewed its assault, distracting the angel as she powered backward. Deliberate—could it be helping her? She watched as it sank in again on the attack, worrying at the larger creature like a sparrow on a hawk. It was hideous, starker in contrast with the translucent beauty of the angel, and its mouth was twisted in a permanent scowl. Its left eye winked cheerily as it took a healthy bite of angel wing. It spat out a mouthful of feathers, grinning wildly, as Catalyn felt a hand on her collar. She turned, and Father Denis was there, pulling her further out of the danger zone. He tugged on her hand and urged her faster, toward the edge of the cathedral, as the feathers drifted downwards catching in her hair and blowing around her face. “Grab those,” Denis said, slowing their pace to snatch wildly at the air, stuffing feathers in his pockets. Catalyn followed suit, pulling a large white one off her sweater, and two more out of her hair. The air swirled above them, making the ones still air-borne bounce and quiver, and she snatched at them as they scuttled to the corner. Around the bend, they slowed, Father Denis holding up a hand and taking inventory. “I’ve got six,” he said, spreading them out like a small, exotic fan. Catalyn counted hers: just three, but all of them were large, and one of them looked to be a pinfeather. “I held very still. I think maybe it can’t see you if you don’t move.” Denis grinned. “That’s velociraptors. Angels hunt by sense of sin.” His smile faded as they heard a raspy squawk from around the corner, like their protector had taken a hard hit. “We’ll need these feathers, of course.” “What for?” “More fighters to force it back where it belongs,” he said, waving a hand sky-ward in the direction of the battle. “The angel’s wing must have brushed one or two of the Defenders as it descended.” Defenders? The gargoyle, Catalyn realized—it had come to her defense. “We can animate the gargoyles with these?” she asked, fingering the feathers. They felt alive, whispery, in her palm; it easy to believe that these held potent magic. “We need to get inside the cathedral,” Denis said. “The largest and strongest of them are in there, on the pillars.” Go back around the corner? Catalyn’s heart sank. It was easy to feel braver here, easy to start wondering if she’d been a coward, not asking for her cure. Much harder to imagine facing it again, if only to sneak past it into the sanctuary. Denis didn’t wait for her, just set his face and inched back to the corner, taking a cautious peek around it. “We need to hurry. People will be arriving for morning devotions soon.” The sounds of battle raged ahead, but he motioned her to follow as he took off at a run for the cathedral steps. She didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t let him go alone. Catalyn ran after, catching up to him as he hit the open space in front of the stone steps. Above them she felt a density, or maybe a Presence, still extant in the air. She kept her head down, eyes focused on the door, and prayer firmly off her lips. She was nearly to the top of the steps when the scream came. The priest was ahead of her, but he turned, shaming her into turning too. The mother she had seen yesterday was there, on the edge of the square, emerging from the Montmartre steps. The creature above turned too, focusing on the source of the noise. It was denser now than before, more substantial as the day brightened. The sense of danger it evoked, of instinctual fear and dismay, increased likewise, tenfold at least. A small form interposed itself before the heavenly creature could reach the woman. Just a moment, it gained her, enough for the woman to stumble backwards down the Montmartre stairs and out of reach. Too long for the little gargoyle, though; the angel’s hand passed over, passed through it, and it crumbled. Catalyn felt a completely unexpected pang at its loss, as it broke upon the ground. With the mother safe, Denis ducked through the cathedral doors at speed, Catalyn again behind him. “How can an angel be so horrible?” She didn’t need confirmation that whatever it would have done to the woman, or to herself for that matter, would have been dreadful. It was no different from knowing that a crocodile doesn’t wish you well. “When have they ever been described as nice? Terrible is the usual adjective used for them.” Denis grimaced. “Maybe by definition any angel here on earth is fallen. Maybe it’s impossible to manifest that power here and have it be benevolent.” He shrugged, then smiled, as if giving up theology as impenetrable and strode to the nearest column. A snake-like gargoyle was carved into it, at least eight feet in length, wrapped around it and stretching up towards the stained-glass reflected light. He stroked it with the feather, carefully, moving upward from the bottom as if painting a stripe along its wide back. As he touched it, it brightened, not so much in color—it stayed rock-grey—but in depth; it twitched and the effect spread upward until it dropped, live-seeming and whole, off the column. Denis moved on to the next one without looking to see her reaction. The second column contained a bear-like hulk, and the next an eagle-winged lion, set rampant in the stone. One by one he stroked them, using up a feather with each animation. Eight of them, in the end, and she still had one feather left. “Saint Alyssa. One of the patron saints of healing. I know there’s an icon of her here, in the upper reaches of the cathedral.” Catalyn glanced in the direction of the stairs. “What would happen if I used this feather to awaken her?” Father Denis nodded, biting his lip. “It will conjure the power of the saint, from accounts I’ve read. I wasn’t planning on telling you, either, and I don’t care if you look at me like that. We need these feathers for the defenders.” Catalyn stiffened her spine. She hadn’t come this far, and faced that thing outside down just to let her chance at healing go. “That’s the reason I started all this.” “And that is the reason I told you not to.” Denis pointed through the great doors at the storm that raged outside. He turned away, muttering something about getting tired of free will, then turned back, quickly. “Go on, go up.” Denis stood stiffly, not asking for the last feather in her hands. “Your statue is up there.” He moved off, heading for the cathedral doors. The defenders lumbered, hopped and winged, still rock-clumsy, past her, after his robed form. Maybe they had enough defenders, without this one piece of magic. Maybe this one was hers. She lifted it, whisked it across her face, light as a blessing, then headed for the stair and the healing saint’s niche, far above. Guilt trailed her all the way up the stairs to the cathedral’s highest reaches. He’ll be fine ... they’ll be fine ... Obviously they’d faced this before and come through well enough, or they wouldn’t know what to do in this situation. For all she knew, they fought that thing off every week, and tried to guilt people out of their cure, in case it encouraged even more to come. Unlikely. But still.... She kept climbing, as the stairwell narrowed to no wider than the steps themselves, eroded slightly in the middle. The roof was close overhead, low, leading upwards like a tunnel. She didn’t count the turns, just kept pushing upwards, ignoring the ache in her legs. Daylight, finally, as she emerged onto a narrow walkway far above the ground, then back into the dimness as the path led into another stairwell. Up further, and further, until by her reckoning she must be nearly at the top, and then out a wooden door, and she was there. She emerged into a small cupola, at the top of Sacre Coeur. A waist-high stone railing blocked what looked to be a mile-long fall to the square below. Denis was there, minuscule from this height, surrounded by his strange pack of protectors. Above, halfway between the ground and the cathedral spires, the angel spread its wings. It was brighter and more corporeal than it had been before, and more active too, darting down to swat and bait the gargoyles. Worse, she could see the Montmartre steps beyond them had filled with the morning worshippers, the ones at the top bunched in by the ones at the bottom, who couldn’t see the threat. She turned away, toward the center of the cupola, trusting the defense to hold. Three statues, or rather three niches, faced a sloping well, closed at the bottom except for a pinpoint hole. One niche held a gargoyle, twin to the one who had come to her aid before. The second held the saint, her hands outstretched, beatific smile upon her face. The third niche was empty. The angel had emerged over the cathedral, she realized, and further, the spot where she stood must be nearly directly above where its statue had been, within the church below. It must have crawled through here, animating the other gargoyle as its wings unfurled. Not that it mattered, as far as she could see, as long as it didn’t come back any time soon. Catalyn turned her attention to the saint, circling the cupola to come closer to the statue. She peeked over the railing as she moved, catching sight of the angel down below. It had one of the gargoyles pinned, as Denis tried to move a knot of panicked tourists into the safety of the church. A man was waving him on; he looked familiar, even at a distance. A second look and Catalyn recognized him as the man Denis had pointed out at dinner, the man with an interesting past. Whatever it was he’d done, it included a familiarity with weapons—the man held some type of gun, and shots rang out as he took aim at the angel overhead. She admired his nerve, although the attempt seemed only to attract the host’s attention. It moved in on him, fast, scooping him up and off the ground, even as a gargoyle leapt to his defense. It rose toward her, half the way to the top or more until she feared that if it turned and peered upwards, it would see her. The man was screaming, more furious then terrified, it seemed, and then the angel’s hand opened, turned, and let him fall. She turned her eyes away and kept moving, tried not to hear the dull crack from down below. There was nothing she could do from up here. Around the cupola, on the other side, she could just reach the saint’s robes if she leaned over far enough. She stretched, feather in hand, wishing she could block both ears with the other hand. She was so close, so close to a normal life, and there was just no point in turning back now. Another, louder shot, and then a shriek came close at hand. Catalyn looked up to see the angel’s wingtips, visible just beneath the opposite railing and, worse, another body in its grasp. A third shot, and the angel spun higher, and then she could make out the face of the man it was holding close. Denis. He saw her at the same time, but didn’t cry out to her. His face was white and he looked terrified. Catalyn’s gaze darted back to the remaining gargoyle. It had wings, she realized, as she took in its squat, stone body. Her heart sank, and all her hopes stuck in her throat as she moved off, away from the healing saint and toward the other statue. It was wrong all the way around, she felt—she knew, to the depths of her bones, that she deserved this cure, but still.... A third-circle around and she was behind the gargoyle; she reached out and stroked it with the final feather before she could change her mind. It sprung to life with a low purr, leering at her as it launched itself off of its perch, whirling to face the angel. Attracted, perhaps, by the power, the angel drifted in; its nearness was as overwhelming, as unbearable as before. Catalyn ducked her head and grabbed, across the railing, and thankfully felt flesh. She grabbed again, harder, and then hauled backwards, and Denis flopped, ungainly, across the railing. A squeak and growl above them and she caught the flapping of the gargoyle out of the corner of her eye, as it played the decoy for them, and drew the angel off. Denis was saying something to her as he hit the floor, gesticulating at the angel’s wrist. The garland, she saw, the one she had wrapped around the statue’s wrist—this creature had one too, a shadow version, on its right. She grabbed it; it came off in her hand. The effect was instantaneous. The angel pulsed, run through with every color, then turned midnight dark. Feathers drifted down around them, coal-black this time. “Don’t touch those,” Denis yelled, the sound half-muffled by the floor as he pressed his face into it. She’d already figured that. The white ones had no effect on them, but then, they’d already been alive. She caught her breath as the little demon’s back brushed underneath the angel’s wing. White ones for life, black to be set in stone: the feathers touched it and it turned human for an instant—a crippled man, it seemed, suspended for a moment between the earth and sky. Then it was back to granite, and it fell, the crack resounding upward from the square a moment later. Father Denis lay there, exhausted, beached. “Don’t touch the feathers. It won’t be as fast as for the old defenders, but when the sun goes down, you’ll turn to stone.” Catalyn already knew that, like she knew where some, at least, of the gargoyles had originated. All those crutches, left behind, and few, if any, who’d ever got their cure. Supplicants turned soldiers; that was something she could understand. She picked up the feather and pressed it to her face.  So this is how gargoyles are made. It was less of a revelation than Catalyn had expected, certainly less of a wonder than the why of it. She settled back into her perch: nice view, at least, from the summit of Sacre Coeur. The sun would rise over Montmartre in the morning, and she could see the cafes and the artists in the day. Enough of Paris to see, and love it for existing, here where it was sight in silence. She wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned back into the niche, resting her head, oversized, against her knee. The cathedral stone was grey, her favorite color (what an odd little girl you were), and it seeped upward into her feet, binding her in place. She’d feared this, expected panic at this point, an urge to flee or rip her flesh from stone. It wasn’t like that, though. It was a sense of more, not less, like the stone was breathing upward, grounding her in vastness, embedding her in age. A sound on the steps: people, making the ascent up centuries-old stairs. A tourist snapped her photo; she bit back the urge to smile. Who wants to grin for all eternity? A half-smile; that was better, like a stone-cast Mona Lisa, to make them wonder what it was she knew. The tourist leaned forward farther than he should, and touched her shoulder. She feared he would feel flesh, but that part must have turned, and if it was still warm he seemed to take it for a function of stone in sun. “You’re very ugly,” he said, smoothing a hand across her neck. He said it simply, as a statement of fact. There was no revulsion in it, no suggestion that she should change. It soothed her soul like a compliment would not. She set her gaze across the city, and settled in to guard the gate.
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