Raphael’s second was so much older than Illium and Aodhan that, most of the time, he treated them like awkward, fumbling pups. But, on that one occasion, Dmitri had seen something in Aodhan and pulled him aside. “He won’t listen to you right now,” the vampire had murmured.
“That first love is a small madness.” Haunted echoes in his voice. “For some, it leads to a bond indestructible. For others, it ignites fast and fades as quickly. This shows all the hallmarks of the latter. Leave him be to make that discovery himself rather than turning yourself into an enemy of his love. Be there for him when his heart breaks.”
Aodhan had followed Dmitri’s advice, gritting his teeth and staying quiet whenever Illium mooned over Kaia. What he’d never expected was that he’d have to be there for Illium because he’d breached such a fundamental law that it gave Raphael no choice but to punish him with utmost harshness.
“Are you grounded, too?” To not be permitted to fly, to miss his squadron training, it would hit Illium where it hurt him the most.
A sharp bark of laughter. “He’s taking my feathers. It’s what I deserve.”
Aodhan swallowed hard. The taking of an angel’s feathers by an archangel was just one step below total excision of healthy wings. The impact of the process would leave Illium with translucent wings that, unlike an infant’s, could be spread and stretched—and that were hauntingly beautiful when opened in the light, a shimmering mirage of flight.
Only a member of the Cadre was capable of doling out the punishment—which, despite the visual impact and painful surface burns, caused no serious damage to the underlying wing structure. So it was another mercy that Raphael was doing Illium. But an angel wasn’t designed for featherless flight; to lose your feathers was to lose your wings.
Aodhan didn’t know how long it’d take for Illium’s extraordinary feathers to return, how long his friend would be tied to the earth. Despite his question, however, part of him had known this was coming; he’d just hoped for leniency. But Raphael had already shown the greatest possible leniency by allowing Illium’s lover to live.
Not many of the Cadre would have been that kind.
Aodhan was happy for that mercy for Illium’s sake, but he worried at the repercussions. He knew Illium. As soon as he healed, he’d be unable to stop himself from going back to the village to watch over his lover from a distance.
That was how Illium was about his loves—he held on to them with teeth and claws. It made him capable of a depth of loyalty rare and precious, but it also left him wide open to devastation.
Today, that devastation was a gray rain that washed all the color from Aodhan’s best friend. Heart aching for him, Aodhan sat in the cold and held him, and let him talk. Then he flew beside Illium as he made his way back to Raphael for the final part of his punishment. Aodhan was the only witness, for Raphael would never make Illium’s chastisement a public spectacle.
As long as he lived, Aodhan would never forget the searing flash of archangelic power, the voiceless agony on Illium’s face, the dragonfly shimmer of wings gone translucent before they blazed red from the burn . . . or the carpet of wild blue left behind in the aftermath. Neither would he forget how hard Raphael embraced Illium once it was done, the archangel’s eyes glittering with rage and sorrow.
33
Today
After leaving Li Wei and her team safe within the stronghold, Aodhan flew a grid over the thick forest between it and the hamlet, his eyes trained on the landscape below—though he never lost track of his aerial surroundings. Lijuan still had many angelic admirers in this land.
The wind was cool over his wings, the sky darker with every moment that passed—but when he looked in the direction Illium had gone, he was still able to pinpoint the dot of blue that traced a grid in the sky. Illium was a dancer in the air even in so repetitive and routine a task; it was a pleasure to watch him fly.
As a child, he’d always tried to teach Aodhan the tricks he could do in the air. Aodhan, in turn, had tried to teach him how to draw the lines and shapes that came naturally to his hand. Illium had produced enthusiastic blotches on canvas—and Aodhan had tangled his wings more than once while attempting fancy flying tricks.
They’d laughed hysterically at each other’s failures, but it had been a laughter without malice, the kind of laughter shared between fast friends. Soon enough, they’d understood that their abilities were divergent and couldn’t be shared—and so had switched to supporting each other’s efforts.
Aodhan had turned up to all of Illium’s flying contests and races, and Illium had attended every showing of Aodhan’s art—where he’d once talked up a painting with such enthusiasm that it had ended up being bought by an angel of old who’d once shared a bottle of honey wine with Gadriel himself.
In the distance, the dot of blue halted, hovered.
What do you see? Aodhan asked.
Something we need to explore—but I don’t think we should do it in darkness.
Aodhan frowned. Phone flashlights?
You really were paying attention when I gave you phone lectures. Yes, that should work for a while.
I’ll finish the sweep on this side, then join you. There was no point in leaving things half-done when that might mean their mouse fled through the hole.
But he found nothing, and twenty minutes later, was hovering beside Illium, night on the horizon. There was just enough light to reveal the face of a short, squat pillar that looked a bit “off.” It took him a minute to work out why. “There’s no moss or other greenery growing in a pattern that looks like the outline of a door.”
“Good to know I’m not seeing things,” Illium murmured. “I think our hopes of a human psycho were premature and are about to be dashed.” He withdrew his sword from the sheath on his back, the sound a quiet slide.
Aodhan left his dual blades on his back, and they landed together in silence as night fell in a pitch-black curtain. Though he’d mentioned the phones, he wreathed his hand in light instead. That part of his ability had always been brighter than Illium’s for one simple reason—any light near Aodhan was multiplied many times over by his skin, his hair, even his eyes.
It was why he so often wore long sleeves even when around people who never made a mistake and forgot his aversion to touch. The coverage made him a little less like a streak of white fire in the sky. But today, he’d pushed up his sleeves as he landed, and so the light bounced off the skin of his arms to throw a glow around them.
“Way better than a phone flashlight.” Illium grinned before crouching down; the kitten, who’d climbed up to sit on his shoulder, stayed quiet. “Signs of recent movement.”
The dirt was rucked up, the small plants crushed.
“Could be an animal,” Illium added as he rose to his feet, “but I don’t think so, not with the door to nightmares right there.”
“I’ve always liked how you think positive.”
A snort of laughter that actually sounded real, sounded like Aodhan’s Illium. “Sparkle, there’s thinking positive, and then there’s suicidal mania. I have the sword, I go first.”
Aodhan rolled his eyes. “I have the light, you idiot.”
“Which is quite wide enough for me to stand in. You also can’t focus on that and still focus on attack or defense.”
Aodhan shrugged. “I can see over your head anyway. I’ll just shoot bolts of power at anything that comes.”
He could all but hear Illium’s narrowed eyes in his response. “You’re exactly one and a half inches taller than me. Don’t try to convince anyone otherwise.”
Oddly happy with their bickering—normal, so fucking normal—Aodhan didn’t argue any further as Illium stepped in front of him and they began to move toward the door that shouldn’t exist. His heart was quiet, his breathing calm. He’d moved into full combat mode, with no room for extraneous emotion.
It wasn’t h
ow all soldiers worked, but it was how Aodhan worked.
Having reached the strange pattern in the rock, Illium pulled, pushed, and had no success whatsoever in opening it. “Well, phew, false alert.”
Aodhan blinked out his light . . . and there it was, the faintest glow emanating from the rock . . . in the shape of a rounded door.
“Fuck.” Illium followed up the harsh expletive with words far quieter—and far more potent. “Adi, you can’t go in there.”
Aodhan bristled against what sounded like an order. “I got over my fear of confined spaces a long time ago.”
Raphael had never pushed him, never made overcoming his phobia a condition of his position in the Seven. It was Aodhan who’d been desperate to shake off the chains left behind by his captors. He’d gone to Keir, and the healer had worked with him over a period of a decade to patch over that broken piece inside him.
“Don’t snarl at me,” Illium muttered, his face invisible in the pitch-black of the night. “I know you can do it. I also know you hate it beyond anything else in the entire world.”
“No,” Aodhan said. “I don’t hate it beyond anything else. It would have to be underwater for that.”
The words fell between them like bullets fired point-blank.
A slight movement, as if Illium had staggered back.
“Blue?” Aodhan went to reach out, but a noise from the forest had them both going motionless.
When the noise came again, Aodhan recognized it as the rustling made by a small nocturnal predator. Two glinting eyes low to the ground confirmed his supposition. The kitten hissed. “There,” he said to Illium, “your new love will protect us.”
“I swear to—” Biting off whatever he’d been about to say, Illium moved again, and Aodhan brought back his light.
It took them over ten minutes to trigger the door open, both of them just pressing and pushing at various points on and around the door until the mechanism finally clicked. Aodhan half-expected a groan as he pulled back the door while Illium stood guard, but it moved smoothly . . . and he caught a hint of cooking oil.
He moved his light toward the hinges to check. They gleamed; there were also stains on the floor that could’ve come from oil. He swiped a finger over a hinge to confirm. “Recently oiled.”
“Those hinges would need it—they’re ancient.”
Aodhan saw his friend was right. The hinges weren’t simply old, they were from a different time. “What was Lijuan keeping inside?” Because he had no doubts, none, that this was the doing of the Goddess of China, the archangel who’d believed herself above life, above death.
Illium stepped forward, stopped. “Aodhan, are you sure?”
Aodhan fought back his aggressive response. “I won’t break,” he said, the words stiff. “I can watch your back.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about and you know that.” It was a dangerously quiet statement.
The kitten hissed again.
“She’s going to give us away,” Illium muttered, “but I can’t exactly leave her outside. What if whatever this thing is eats her? She’ll be scared in the dark, too.”
That was Illium, forever a collector of the lost and the weak, forever the angel who protected those who couldn’t protect themselves. Aodhan was his most long-lasting project.
“I can put her into a doze,” he said past the knot that final thought put in his chest.
“New power?”
“No, just an extension of the butterfly entrancement.” He didn’t often bring up his ability to call butterflies to him, since it wasn’t exactly the most practical power, but it turned out it had hidden depths. “I worked out that butterflies are kind of hypnotized around me, and before I left New York I accidentally called five kittens, who all laid around languidly and watched me, so . . .”
Illium took Smoke from his shoulder, held her out. Scared by the situation, she bared her teeth at Aodhan, but was soon heavy-lidded, her mouth opening in a yawn before she curled up on Illium’s hand. As he placed her back into her safe spot against his chest, Illium said, “Can you affect larger animals?”
“Not as far as I know. Just butterflies, tiny birds, cats, and”—he sighed—“bats.”
He saw Illium’s shoulders shake, his eyes brighten, but he didn’t tease Aodhan about his strange little side ability. Instead, he focused on the barely lit passage they’d exposed. “You’re really sure?”
“Go before I fry your hair for asking again.”
“How would you explain my bald head to my mother?” Illium muttered on a snarl before they stepped into the passage.
Aodhan couldn’t see any lights, but the tunnel wasn’t dark. Bioluminescence?
Could be. We survive this, the scientists can run tests. Or, you know, Lijuan figured out how to lock her energy into external things. Maybe she did a Uram and left behind a batshit piece of herself.
Aodhan was not even going to entertain that idea. All her lingering energy died with her. The biggest evidence of that was the mass “death” of her black-eyed automaton soldiers. They’d fallen from the sky, rotting from the inside out.
I don’t trust even my own eyes when it comes to Lijuan, Illium muttered. But yeah, it’s probably bioluminescence. I can see what looks like moss on the walls—glow seems to be coming off that.
A part of Aodhan was fascinated by this living thing that thrived without sunlight—an act impossible for Aodhan—but the rest of him was hyperfocused on watching Illium’s back. Despite his earlier teasing, their height difference was minimal, and he couldn’t see over Illium’s head, so he had to watch and listen with all of his sensory energy to ensure he didn’t miss a threat.
But there was nothing to miss, not for a long time as they went steadily downhill. He had to fight every step of the way not to turn back and run screaming into the night. That was what his work with Keir had done—taught him to feel the fear and go forward anyway.
“Your wound is great,” the healer had said, his eyes too old for his age, and his face a delicate beauty of fine bones and soft lips. “But our lives are measured in millennia. This step is just the first one on your journey.”
That step was enough for now. It allowed him to do all his tasks as a member of the Seven—and it had kept him from faltering in his position as Suyin’s interim second. His muscles might be locked in painful tension, his head pounding from his awareness of being in a place that might turn into a tomb, but he could function.
Aodhan? A single word that held an entire question, as if Illium could feel his increasing inner panic even though Aodhan’s breathing hadn’t altered, his step steady.
I’m maintaining, he said, because Illium was his partner in this walk into the unknown, and needed to be aware of Aodhan’s status. But then he said other words, venturing into a past long shrouded in curtains he didn’t part for anyone. It helps that we’re moving. I couldn’t move then.
Then.
A single word to encapsulate the months of horror that had changed him in a way that could never be reversed. The Aodhan I am today, he found himself saying, isn’t the Aodhan I would’ve been without what happened.
Illium inhaled sharply. You’re still you, he insisted. Still the Aodhan who makes art that stuns people to silence, still the Aodhan who’s gentle with the vulnerable, still the Aodhan loyal to those you call friends and family.
Aodhan shook his head under the weight of the mountain pressing down on him. I used to be made of light, Blue. Now . . . now there are patches of indelible obsidian within. So strange, that he’d railed against his blazing presence as a youth, a presence that meant he could never walk in the shadows, and now the shadows lived and breathed inside him.
34
Illium fought to keep himself from stopping and turning to Aodhan. He’d never pushed Aodhan to talk about the twenty-three months when they’d lost him, or what had
followed in the aftermath. Had he imagined Aodhan bringing it up one day of his own volition, he’d have guessed it would be in the brightest light, in a wide-open space.
Not in near-darkness in a tunnel dank and echoing.
Yet this was the location Aodhan had chosen, and Illium wasn’t about to push against the opening of a door that his friend had bolted shut for hundreds of years. Aodhan, he said. Trust me when I say you didn’t lose anything of yourself. You’re still—
You’re not listening. Hard, angry words. You’ve never listened, never accepted that I’m not who I was before I was taken. I can’t be your Aodhan. That Aodhan died over two hundred years ago and you can’t pretend he didn’t!
Illium’s heart shuddered at the blows Aodhan was landing, his first instinct anger that his friend would talk about himself this way. But then he remembered what his mother had said to him one of the times he’d talked to her about his and Aodhan’s disintegrating relationship.
“It’s like he’s put up a wall I can’t cross,” he’d said, angry and confused and hurt. So badly hurt.
“Has he, my heart?” Gentle eyes. “Or are you just seeing a newly awake part of him?”
At the time, emotional and wounded, Illium hadn’t really paid attention to the meaning behind her words. But now, under the silent whip of Aodhan’s anger, he forced himself to consider every aspect. Was it possible Aodhan’s current behavior was just a sign of growth . . . and that his friend had grown away from him?
Everything in him rebelled against that conclusion. Because even though the two of them had been fighting for more than a year now, even though he’d believed Aodhan wanted distance from him, there was no sense of distance in either one of them now. Naked emotion pulsed against the walls of the tunnel, angry and intense, with not even a hint of fucking remoteness.
You’re not listening to me, he argued back. I know what happened changed you. I fucking know! He’d witnessed it firsthand. But those monsters didn’t succeed in erasing you. They didn’t kill Aodhan.
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