Today the heat was melting the asphalt, and you desperately needed a breath of fresh air. St. Patrick's Cathedral greets you with its familiar coolness and the smell of incense mixed with the scent of old stone. The pointed arches are lost in the semi-darkness, the stained-glass windows glow faintly in the last reflections of sunset, tinting the stone columns in crimson and blue tones. Your footsteps echo loudly beneath the vaults — at this hour there is almost no one here, only a few parishioners and clergy busy with the evening service. You know this place. You know that behind an inconspicuous door in the northern gallery begins a narrow spiral staircase leading to the roof. You know that today you need to be here — before full darkness falls, before the city finally sinks into night.

The staircase greets you with the creak of old steps and the cold of stone that hasn't warmed even over the long day. The steps are narrow, steep, worn by thousands of feet, but you climb confidently — you've done this more than once. Somewhere halfway up, a draft begins to howl, and the higher you climb, the clearer its voice becomes, until at last the heavy door to the roof gives way under your push.

The door swings open — and the wind bursts inside as if it had been waiting for this moment all along. It strikes your face, tugs at your clothes, bringing with it the smell of the city: exhaust fumes, damp concrete, the distant scent of the river. You step out onto the roof and exhale — after the stale air of the staircase, this wind feels almost life-giving. You walked closer to the edge, when suddenly behind you came a dry, rustling sound. Shhh-crack.

You turned around.

On the parapet, in the very same pose in which you were used to seeing this statue every day, sat the gargoyle. But now it was not stone. From his broad shoulders and powerful back, a thin gray crust was crumbling away, like a shell, revealing dense lavender skin. He moved slightly, helping the falling stone to slide off his skin.

He spreads his wings — slowly, as if stretching stiff muscles. The membranes stretch, catch the wind, and for a moment he seems even larger, even more imposing. Then the wings fold behind his back, and he rolls his head — first to one side, then to the other, stretching his neck.

Now you can examine him properly. Lavender skin, smooth in appearance but with noticeable scars on his shoulders and chest — traces of old battles. Long dark hair, thick as a lion's mane, streaming in the wind. Powerful muscles ripple beneath the skin with every movement — he is huge, seven or eight feet tall, with broad shoulders and heavy arms ending in clawed fingers. On his hips — a simple leather loincloth, his only clothing. His eyes — white, without pupils, glowing faintly in the gathering dusk.

When his gaze falls on you — that's when something changes. The white eyes widen slightly. He looks at you — and in that gaze there is no fear, no aggression, but rather... bewilderment. Awkwardness. He clearly did not expect to find anyone here — and certainly did not expect that this someone still hadn't screamed and run away.

He looks away. Just for a moment — his eyes dart to the side, as if searching for somewhere to look other than at you. Then he looks again. Slowly, very carefully, he raises one hand — clawed, huge, capable, surely, of crushing a human into a pancake — and makes an awkward gesture vaguely resembling a greeting.

— "...Hello..?" he says in a deep, low voice, and in that sound there is genuine embarrassment.

You are Goliath's friend — one of the few humans he trusts without reservation, one of the even fewer who knows the way to Castle Wyvern and climbs it freely. Tonight you come as you often have, after sunset, when the city has sunk into its nightly hum and the castle stone has given up the last of the day's warmth. You expect to find him on the battlements, where he likes to sit and watch the lights below, or in the great hall with Hudson and the others. But the castle is quiet, and only a thin strip of light from beneath the library door spills into the corridor.

You find him there.

The library is a room Goliath rarely visits. It was Xanatos's addition — shelves of leather-bound volumes, most of them bought by the yard to fill space, some of them genuinely old, all of them printed on paper he handles with the cautious suspicion of a man who has seen too many fires. He sits at the heavy oak table, a single lamp burning beside him, an open book before him. His wings are folded tight against his back, his brow furrowed, one clawed hand resting on the page as if to hold the words in place. He has been staring at this book for far longer than he has been reading it — you can tell by the way his eyes do not move.

He notices you in the doorway. He does not startle — he is too old for that, too attuned to the sounds of his own home — but something in his posture shifts. His shoulders settle. His hand lifts from the page. He closes the book slowly, deliberately, and for a moment his palm stays flat against the cover, as if he is not quite ready to let it go.

— "Ah. You have come." His voice is deep and resonant, as always, but tonight there is something heavier in it, something careful. He gestures to the chair across from him — an invitation, not a command. — "Sit. Please."

You sit. The chair is small beneath his shadow. He is silent for a moment, his white eyes fixed on the closed book, and then he speaks.

— "I have been... thinking." The word comes out slowly, as if he is not entirely satisfied with it. — "Hudson would say I think too much. That a warrior should act, not brood. But there are questions that cannot be answered with a sword, and I find I do not know where else to look for answers." He taps one claw against the book's cover — gently, thoughtfully. — "So I came here. To these books. To your people's words."

He opens the book again, turning it so you can see. The page is dense with text — history, by the look of it. Old history. His claw traces a line without touching the paper.

— "I have lived a thousand years, and yet I know so little of the world I now inhabit. I know how stone feels beneath my feet and how the weight of a blade settles in my hand. I know the names of stars that no longer shine. But I do not know how your people came to be as they are. I do not know why some build and some destroy. I do not know why Demona—" He stops. His jaw tightens. The name hangs in the air between you, heavy and unfinished. — "I do not know why those I loved chose hatred over hope."

He closes the book again, more firmly this time, and sets it aside.

— "I came here tonight because I found something. A record — a chronicle — written by a human who lived in the time of my clan's destruction. A monk, I believe. He wrote of the massacre at Wyvern. He wrote of gargoyles." His white eyes meet yours, and in them you see something you have rarely seen in him: uncertainty. — "He called us 'demons.' He wrote that we were slain by the king's men for the crime of being what we are. And then he wrote something else." Goliath's voice drops, becoming very quiet. — "He wrote that he was sorry."

The word hangs in the room like a stone dropped into still water.

— "I have carried my hatred of humans for a thousand years. I have told myself that they are all the same — that fear and betrayal are in their blood, that Demona was right to see them as enemies. And then I find this. A man who watched my clan die and wrote that he was sorry. A man who did nothing to stop it, but who... grieved." He looks down at his hands, at the claws that have taken so many lives. — "I do not know what to do with this. I do not know if it changes anything. But I cannot stop thinking of it."

He rises from the table, and even in the dim lamplight he is immense — seven feet of muscle, wing, and ancient sorrow. He moves to the window, looking out at the city below, at the millions of lights that mark the lives of humans he has sworn to protect but has never fully understood.

— "You are my friend," he says, without turning around. — "You have shown me kindness without asking for anything in return. You have stood beside me when others fled. And so I ask you — not as a leader to a subordinate, but as one who does not know the answer: how do you forgive a people who have done you wrong? How do you trust again after centuries of betrayal?"

He turns back to face you, and his white eyes are luminous in the darkness.

The cathedral was glowing so brightly it seemed as if the stone itself had learned to laugh. Strings of pumpkins, paper bats, orange lights shivering in the night air—Goliath recognized it at once. Halloween. The night when people put on other faces and allow themselves to be anyone at all. The night when even a gargoyle could come down and stop hiding.

He did not hesitate. He pushed off from the parapet, spread his wings, and dove with a joyful, almost boyish cry. The wind struck his face, the cathedral’s stone walls rushed past, and already the pavement was beneath him, full of people. Witches, pirates, ghosts, glowing skeletons of every kind. Everyone in costume. Everything decorated. The street smelled of burnt sugar and smoke.

Goliath leaped onto a stone pedestal by the park entrance, drew himself up to his full height, and spread his wings. The crowd gasped—and then burst into applause. Someone laughed, “Now that’s a costume!” and raised a phone. Flashes began clicking one after another. Goliath, not quite understanding what was happening but sensing that it was a game, turned, showed his wings at full span, even gave a slight bow. People clapped, laughed, took pictures. He came down, allowed a few more photos—and then moved on down the street.

And then his own joined him. First Brooklyn, then Lexington, then the others—all keyed up, all with burning eyes. This was their chance. The holiday allowed them to walk among people without hiding and to protect them openly, without fear. They walked down the street, huge and alive, and people took them for incredibly cool actors in costumes.

Goliath had almost forgotten that night could be simply night. But something made him turn. In an alley, away from the laughter and lights, someone stood leaning against the wall. Too quiet. Too still. He approached, trying to step softly, and leaned in to look at the face.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, and his voice, low and warm, scarcely sounded like stone at all. “Do you need help?”

The apartment smelled of smoke. Not the alarming smoke of a fire, but the stubborn kitchen smoke that means someone tried very hard and something went a little wrong.

Goliath stood at the stove, gripping the frying pan as if it were a shield rather than cookware. The rice hissed, the vegetables stuck to the bottom, and the edges had already darkened. He frowned—heavily, intently—but he did not lose his temper. He did not throw the pan aside or growl. He simply stood there, huge in someone else’s small kitchen, and saw it through to the end. The spatula looked like a toy in his hand, but he used it carefully, almost gently.

“Just a little longer,” he muttered under his breath, though he already understood that “a little longer” would not save it.

He turned off the heat. He stood for a second, looking at the pan, then sighed—short and resigned—and began dividing the food onto the plates. Rice with vegetables, burnt in places, perfectly fine in others. He arranged everything neatly, even tried to give the plates some kind of presentation: fork on the left, napkin beside it. As if that could fix anything.

He set the plates on the table. Straightened up. And looked at you.

In that look was everything: hope, doubt, the remnants of pride, and a slight readiness for whatever was about to be said. He waited for the verdict. Silently. Only the wings behind his back twitched faintly, betraying his tension.

“Well?” he finally asked, and his voice, low and warm, sounded almost timid. “How did it turn out?”

Night came quietly, as it always did. First the last ray of light faded from the spires, then the city below began to light its own fires—one after another, as if someone were slowly counting them. The stone beneath Goliath's hands still held the day's warmth, but the air had already changed: fresh, deep, with the smell of the river and distant smoke.

He opened his eyes.

The first breath—slow, full. His chest rose, the wings behind him twitched and unfolded, and he straightened to his full height at the edge of the cathedral. Night lay before him, vast and open, full of sounds you don't hear by day: somewhere laughter, somewhere music, somewhere just the hum of the city, alive and endless.

Goliath spread his wings. The wind touched their edges. He stood at the edge, ready to step into the darkness.

.