“That bread roll,” Aodhan murmured, “it’s old, but surely, it would’ve disintegrated or been in a far worse condition if it was lying there for a year?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Illium chewed on that. “Could’ve been Suyin’s arrival in the region that spooked them.” Picking up another book, he flipped the pages to check the language. English. Another proved to be in French. “An angelic halfling could survive such a short starvation.”
“The guards who did this,” Aodhan murmured, “they would’ve had to be some of her most loyal people, must’ve considered her their goddess. They’d have clung to the hope of her return long after any hope was lost.”
“Yet to assist in the torture of a child?” Putting down the book, Illium shook his head, his jaw working. “That isn’t serving your goddess; it’s an embrace of evil.”
“Yes.” Nothing could ever justify this place, this act. “What have you found?” he asked Illium, well able to see the tic in Illium’s jaw, the whiteness around his mouth.
No quicksilver heat this, but a bone-deep rage that echoed Aodhan’s.
“The child had an extensive study schedule and, from the handwritten notes, kid’s smart.”
“So there’s reason to hope they aren’t responsible for the carnage.”
“Yes.” Despite his answer, Illium’s gaze was bleak. “I can’t imagine what this life would do to a child’s psyche. We have to be prepared for the worst.”
Neither one of them spoke again until they’d looked over every inch of the space, then—retrieving Smoke, who was now awake enough to hold on to Illium’s shoulder when he tucked her up there—made their way back outside. Illium was on alert for any sign of distress from Aodhan, but his friend’s simmering anger seemed to have pushed out every other emotion.
Illium was glad for it. Aodhan was slower to anger than Illium, but when he did reach that point, his anger burned for far longer than Illium’s own fury. The only living person against whom Illium had held a long grudge was Aegaeon. Even then, he was fairly certain Aodhan’s grudge on his behalf was a harder, darker thing.
Once outside, they flew up into the sky to speak, on the off chance the child was hiding out nearby, watching them. Hovering opposite Aodhan, the kitten held to his chest with one hand, Illium said, “I’ve been thinking about the lack of dust. Tidiness is one thing, but a place like that wouldn’t remain dust-free without maintenance. I think the kid’s been coming back on a regular basis.”
“It’s the only stable place in their universe,” Aodhan said, his voice gritty. “The only place that they know in great detail.”
Illium chewed the inside of his cheek. “Aodhan, any angelic child that grew up in there wouldn’t be able to fly.” Flight required muscle strength, and that strength developed over a childhood of trying to fly. Sunlight was also a requirement for much the same reason mortal children needed sunlight—it helped with bone growth and the health of the mind.
Aodhan’s shoulders were tight as he said, “It’s possible Lijuan did allow the child small trips outside. If so, that would make them even more inclined to madness. Because a child who grew up in there would know nothing else, but one who knew an outside world existed and had seen it? Then to become aware they were trapped?”
Nausea threatened to strangle Illium. He stroked Smoke’s warm, fragile body—all fur and bone, she was—in an effort to comfort both her and himself. “We need to come back here in the daylight.” With all that had occurred, it wasn’t far off now. “We’ll see more. And we need to bring food.”
Aodhan looked at him. “You want to lure the child here?”
“Think about it—if they’re used to being fed by others, it won’t seem unusual to them. They might even be comforted by the idea of being given food.”
Illium made himself take the next step. “I think they ate their way through the easy consumables that they could find in the hamlet, but don’t have the cooking skills to use the staples like rice. And if it was the child . . . it makes sense that they didn’t know how to make such a simple thing as soup.”
Aodhan looked in the direction of the hamlet. “Why would a child do such horrors, Blue? I can’t believe it.”
It wasn’t the first time this day that Aodhan had slipped into using Illium’s childhood nickname, and, to Illium, it was a measure of his friend’s mental struggle with all they’d seen and experienced today. He wanted desperately to wrap Aodhan up in his wings, protect him from the nightmares of the past, but he’d gotten the message there: Aodhan was in no mood to be protected.
It grated on Illium to not be able to do anything, but he kept a grip on himself. “We know Lijuan was a monster,” he said. “We have no way of knowing what she did to this child, what she raised them to be.”
Eyes of crystalline blue and green, shattered outward from a black pupil, as familiar as his own, looking into his. “Do you think she purposefully raised a child capable of such evil?” He shook his head on the heels of his question. “Why am I asking you questions you can’t answer?”
Shoving a hand through the glittering beauty of his hair, he said, “You go and get the food, take care of Smoke. I’ll keep watch here in case the child returns.”
Illium hesitated. “We don’t know the danger—”
“Go, before I lose my temper again,” Aodhan muttered. “How do you think I’ve survived without you this past year? Go.”
Narrowing his eyes, Illium decided not to argue. Not when lines of tension marked Aodhan’s face and his skin was an unhealthily pale shade. Tucking Smoke close so she wouldn’t be buffeted by wind, he arrowed his body toward the stronghold—but couldn’t help throwing back a final caution. Don’t land. You’re harder to jump in the air.
One more word and I’ll pluck out your feathers one by one.
Even as Illium scowled, relief bled through his veins. Aodhan was sounding more and more like himself—though he was more irritable than Illium had ever before known him to be.
“He is the deep, boundless ocean to your tempestuous storm,” his mother had said to Illium once, her smile wide. “He anchors you and you take him flying.”
“Right now,” Illium complained to an alert Smoke—who didn’t seem to mind flying at all, “he’s a grump.” But he was Illium’s grump and this was far from over.
* * *
* * *
Alone in the stygian cold of the night, Aodhan began to do slow, steady sweeps over the area around the cavern while never losing sight of it. Given the darkness, it was likely he’d miss any signs of movement were his prey stealthy, but none of Raphael’s Seven ever just gave up. That wasn’t who they were—alone or as a group.
The forest and the pillars of Zhangjiajie remained motionless. Even the wind had fallen to silence.
Then it came, the first breath of air that held not only cold but an icy chill.
He glanced at the horizon, but of course there was nothing to see. When he looked straight up however, he could make out a sudden heaviness of clouds in the night sky. Snow? Possible in this time and place.
Zhangjiajie tended to have light snowfall in general, but angelic and mortal meteorologists had both warned of a high chance of a nasty winter across China due to the way Lijuan’s fog had altered the atmosphere. Not a permanent change, it was thought, more a lingering aftereffect that would fade after one bitter season.
If only Lijuan’s evil would fade as fast.
On the heels of that thought came another: would a child who’d grown up in that dank prison know how to survive in the snow? Even an angelic child was still a child, without the recuperative capacities of an adult angel. It was part of the reason angels were so careful to keep their children out of sight of mortal eyes until they were of an age where injury wouldn’t lead to death.
They were called immortals, but angels could die. It just took so much to achieve such a result
that the point was moot—except when it came to children. Children could be killed far easier than adults. And this child’s growth was apt to already be stunted as a result of their captivity.
Fine white flecks began to hit his face—a pretty spray of sugar if not for what the cold of it could mean for the vulnerable. Like a child with no armor.
No, this wasn’t good.
He said as much when Illium appeared out of the softly falling snow, his wings dusted with white in the moments before each wingbeat. “We have to make it so the child feels safe to return to his cavern,” Aodhan said. “Else he’ll be out in the snow—and I can’t see him having the skills to survive that.”
“It’s cold in that place,” Illium said. “Did you notice? I don’t think an angelic child could’ve survived there while a babe. I’m guessing there must’ve been some system to provide heat—might be it broke down after Lijuan’s fall.”
Aodhan’s skin prickled under a memory he’d done his best to bury for two hundred years: of cold, cold water dripping onto his face, seeping into his skin, rising up past his nostrils until he drowned and drowned.
It had taken him until the war to realize he couldn’t outrun that piece of his past; he had to face it or he would always be the prey and the memory the hunter. He’d spoken to Keir privately in the immediate aftermath of Lijuan’s defeat, and the healer had made time for him many times this past year, regardless of all the other demands on his attention.
“Why now?” Aodhan had asked while New York lay devastated around them. “Is it because of the horror of what Lijuan did? It’s awakened my own horror?”
“I can’t answer that,” Keir had murmured, his wings a stir of golden-brown next to Aodhan and his power a quiet thing of profound depth, “but I think I have earned the right to say I know you, Aodhan. So I say with certainty that the memory rises now because you are ready now.”
Keir had been right. Aodhan had been ready to face the nightmare head-on. And so today, while it whispered to him, it didn’t derail his thoughts or suck him back into the darkness. “Do we still lure the child with food?” He knew he wasn’t rational on this topic, needed to rely on Illium’s clearer vision.
“It’s our best bet of catching them,” Illium confirmed. “Which is why I spent a few minutes heating up the food. The scent might help. We’re here to scare off any predators who might be drawn to it.”
Aodhan stayed on watch above while Illium landed. Where’s your new pet?
I left her with Kai, who will undoubtedly spoil her.
They both went silent as Illium stepped inside the passageway to place the food. I’ll leave it close to the door. More chance of the scent reaching them—and less of us having to chase them deep inside the cavern. Last thing I want to do is freak out a kid.
An out-of-control and scared child would be no match for two angels of their strength—but they’d be trying not to hurt the child, while that child would have no such compunction.
Blue?
I’m done, but I was thinking I should go farther inside, hide in the shadows. If the child does come in, you can land behind them, while I’ll be in front. We should be able to make a quick capture.
Aodhan’s neck muscles knotted, his biceps rigid. It’s not safe down there.
Illium didn’t give him a smart-ass reply about how the mountain wasn’t about to fall down on him. He said, I’ll stay in touch throughout. In fact, I’ll tell you bedtime stories while you freeze your ass off in the snow.
The snow was increasing in force, but Aodhan had flown for hours through worse. I hope the caravan is out of range of this snow front.
Even if not, Illium said, they’re prepared to hunker down. Still . . . I didn’t want to bring it up with Suyin, but were things really that bad with the survivors that the move had to be now? Everyone looked like they were soldiering on to me, but I know I only glimpsed the surface.
Yes, Aodhan confirmed, remembering the hollow-eyed man who’d woken to repack his belongings. China’s people are broken. Not only the mortals. Any surviving vampires and angels, too, even those that followed Lijuan into war. Being close to a physical reminder of Lijuan, it was leeching away their ability to be happy in any real sense.
We saw it, but thought they would make it through winter. I, myself, hadn’t understood the depth of their growing depression until Suyin made her pronouncement and I saw hope return to their faces—she proved herself a true archangel that day, Illium, by seeing what even those living the pain couldn’t.
In angelkind, such depression was simply called “mind darkness.” Aodhan’s mind had gone dark for a long, long time after his captivity, the shadows so infinite that he’d barely been able to glimpse the light. He would’ve castigated himself for not picking up the populace’s increasing despair if Suyin alone hadn’t been the one to spot it.
Sometimes, it took an archangel. Because an archangel wasn’t formed by power alone.
One angel said to me that they’d rather fall under the weight of snow on their wings, than shrivel up inside the tainted walls of the stronghold.
Illium’s response was swift. I get it.
Of course he did. Because he’d witnessed Aodhan’s spiral into despair firsthand. It hadn’t been right after his rescue. He’d been badly physically injured then, but he’d been present—and focused on his recovery. The mind darkness had come after his body was whole once more, his wings capable of flight. But he hadn’t flown.
He’d fallen.
36
Yesterday
It was Naasir who finally found Aodhan.
Twenty-three months of relentless searching and it was Naasir’s primal ability to follow scent trails that led them to Aodhan. Raphael had made the strategic decision to pretend to stop looking and allow everyone to believe they’d given up on the lost young angel—but he’d made the decision on Naasir’s advice.
“Sometimes, predators hide their prey,” Naasir had said, his eyes not in any way human. “Hide it so well that no one else can find it. They only come out when they think the coast is clear—that’s when they can get careless, and that’s when we’ll strike.”
Because they all, each and every one, knew this had nothing to do with an accident on a courier run, Aodhan’s body lost to the ocean. Aodhan had always been coveted—unhealthily so by many.
Now, one of those ugly obsessives had taken him.
Raphael respected Naasir’s advice and wild instincts, but he hadn’t been certain the gambit would work—and he’d hated the anguish of Aodhan’s parents and Lady Sharine. They all believed he’d given up in truth—because he couldn’t let them in on the plan; they all loved Aodhan too deeply not to give away the game.
Illium, of course, had had to know. The three-hundred-year-old angel who’d been on the road to make squadron commander of an elite squadron prior to Aodhan’s disappearance, had lost considerable weight, his cheeks hollow and his shoulder blades sharp—but he’d lost none of his strength. Rather, he’d made a concerted effort to force nutrition into his mouth.
“I can’t help find Aodhan if I’m in the infirmary,” he’d said, his face grimmer than Raphael had ever seen it. “Whatever it takes, I’ll do.”
But even Illium, with his fierce faith in Naasir’s strategic thinking abilities, had hesitated when Naasir first suggested his idea. It was Dmitri who’d put it all into stark perspective. “We have no other option,” he’d said. “We have to try this—if it fails, we restart the open search. Nothing is lost in attempting to mislead our quarry.”
What was left unsaid was that they’d failed in their open search. Not only Raphael and his people, but the people of friendly archangels and senior angels. Even Neha, busy with problems in her own territory, had assigned squadrons to search India. Uram, too, had come through, as had Elijah and Titus, and they weren’t the only ones.
The cooperation wasn
’t only because of their friendship or respect for Raphael, but because of the gift of Aodhan. It had become clear in the last century that Aodhan was the Hummingbird’s artistic heir. Their styles and pieces were unique to each, but the glory of their work . . . One day, Aodhan would be as revered as Lady Sharine, but for now, he was a bright, bright light no one wanted to see extinguished.
All of angelkind knew that to hide a single angel wasn’t a difficult task, especially had the hiding place been prepared in advance. What Raphael refused to believe was that Aodhan was gone forever. He’d shut his ears to those who whispered that talented, loyal, quietly powerful Aodhan had been stripped of his wings by an angel who coveted his beauty, then murdered.
He wouldn’t believe Aodhan lost forever until he saw concrete evidence. Given how obsessed certain angels and vampires were with Aodhan’s unique appearance, captivity also made far more sense. There were many stunning immortals and near-immortals in the world, but there was no one like Aodhan.
“I don’t want the attention,” he’d said to Raphael as a youth on the verge of manhood, a flush on his cheekbones and confusion in his unusual eyes. “Why do they keep insisting?”
“Is it any particular person?” Raphael had asked.
“A few.” Aodhan had given him the names, and those names had spanned the gender and age spectrum, Aodhan’s astonishing beauty a drug to many. “I don’t want to get them in trouble . . . but they make me uncomfortable.”
“I’ll deal with it.” He’d gripped Aodhan’s shoulder when the youth went to open his mouth. “What they are doing is unacceptable, Aodhan. You’ve made it clear that you aren’t interested. They have no right to keep pushing—so now they will get a personal visit from your archangel.”
Raphael would’ve done the same for any young person in his court. He did not intend to keep a court like Charisemnon’s, where sexuality was encouraged to the point that it enveloped every part of court life—and ensnared those far too young.
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