All That Falls

by Kimberly Frost

  “Sorry,” he said in a lower voice, “but I don’t know. Miss North also asked why Director Easton had taken him outside, but that doesn’t really matter at this point,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Richard North’s better off with Director Easton than here where his daughter and that guy would’ve found him.” He hurried into the control room.

  “If Alissa’s bodyguard’s out and Richard’s not locked up, then who is? Someone’s banging on the wall.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, grabbing a walkie-talkie. “Director Easton, do you read me?” he asked frantically.

  She walked to the monitors. The outdoor lights blazed, and ES officers sprinted across the snow-covered ground. Examining the screens that showed the rooms inside the building, Cerise finally found the occupied holding cell.

  “How did they end up locked in there?” Cerise murmured as she watched Dorie and Troy bang on the interrogation room wall. “At least they’re safe,” she added, somewhat relieved.

  Now where’s Alissa?

  Had Merrick’s blond friend caught up with them? And, if so, was he making the situation better or worse? Cerise had a feeling she knew the answer.

  Trouble often comes in attractive packages.

  Chapter 1

  Despite the scandal that had rocked the Etherlin six weeks earlier when Alissa left the new retreat center with a cold-blooded ventala assassin, the Etherlin Council was determined to pretend that life in the Etherlin was perfect and unchanged. To that end, they were throwing a lavish party. Cerise would have skipped it, except that it was being held at her house. Her father, the Etherlin Council president, was the host. With her mother out of town, Cerise was the de facto hostess and was doing her duty by smiling on cue, until she saw the text message from Jersey Lane.

  The message made Cerise freeze as if she’d been doused in slush. The sounds of the party receded as she stared down at her phone.

  Can’t face people after last night. Plz don’t blame yourself for not being able to help, Cerise. I can’t keep it together without Griff, either.

  Cerise exhaled through pursed lips, chilled as if it weren’t late spring. Two of Cerise’s secrets were thinly veiled in Jersey’s message, but seeing them displayed wasn’t what concerned Cerise most.

  Cerise slipped the phone into the pocket of her gunmetal gray silk pants as she glanced around. She forced a smile when she made eye contact with friends, but her gaze didn’t linger. She searched until she spotted Hayden Lane slouched against the wall. He was laid-back and shy, unusual for a rock star, but he’d been poured from the same mold as his older brother, Griffin. Pain skewered Cerise’s chest and tightened her throat. His name alone could still ambush her. But this wasn’t the place to get emotional about Griffin, and it definitely wasn’t the time.

  Cerise tipped her chin up a fraction as if daring fate to sock it again. She strode across the room, weaving through people and reaching Hayden a few moments after Dorie did.

  Dorie’s new nose and pencil-thin brows had transformed her cute face into something vaguely plastic. Her hips, however, continued to betray her despite a diet completely devoid of everything that tasted remotely decent. If their parents let Dorie get body-sculpting liposuction as a teenager, Cerise would be sick. Of course, the blame wouldn’t rest solely on their shoulders. One of Cerise’s assistants had described Dorie as a Machiavellian princess in the making. Cerise had fired him, but later there’d been moments…Cerise could understand lying to steal a little freedom. All the muses did that from time to time. But lying to hurt another muse? Ever since seeing evidence of that at the retreat center, Cerise hadn’t felt the same about Dorie. And Dorie, who seemed to sense it, had been trying too hard. Tonight though, Dorie glued herself to Hayden, which gave Cerise a bit of peace. But also didn’t. Hayden had already been through a lot.

  “Hayden, I got a text from Jersey. She’s not coming,” Cerise said.

  “I figured.”

  “What happened last night?” Cerise asked.

  Hayden shuffled his feet. “All week she kept forgetting lyrics in rehearsals so she was a nervous wreck last night. She decided to have a drink to calm down, but on an empty stomach…”

  Cerise grimaced. Already petite, Jersey had lost weight since Griffin’s death and was probably all of ninety pounds at the moment.

  “She got wasted off two vodka cranberries,” Hayden said, frowning. “She slurred her way through ‘Sympathy, Too’ and went word salad on ‘Burn It Down.’ I jumped in even though I don’t have the voice to do it. People were pissed. They started yelling for her to get offstage.” He shrugged lean shoulders. “She did.”

  “It hasn’t even been a year since Griffin died,” Cerise whispered.

  “I know, but drunk people get annoyed.”

  “She’s torn up inside,” Cerise said, knowing that feeling all too well.

  “Everybody misses him. You. Me. Jersey. But so do the fans, and we can’t charge people money and then fuck up his songs ’cause we’re too wasted to sing.”

  “You’re right,” Dorie said. “Griffin wouldn’t have wanted that. She should respect his memory.”

  Cerise didn’t spare Dorie a glance. Her sister, the sudden expert on Griffin Lane, had met Griffin for a sum total of about twenty minutes.

  “Where is she?” Cerise asked.

  “At the apartment.”

  “Griffin’s place here in the Etherlin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go check on her,” Cerise said.

  “Oh, come on,” Dorie said. “You guys can’t leave the party now. Dinner’s about to start. How would that look to the council, Cer?”

  I don’t care what the Etherlin Council thinks. Haven’t for years.

  “Besides,” Dorie continued hastily, probably at the sight of Cerise’s stony expression. “Jersey will never pull herself together if everyone gives her a ton of attention every time she screws up. If she’s going to sulk, ignore her.”

  Cerise turned a frigid gaze on Dorie, who blanched, then Cerise glanced back at Hayden.

  “I’m worried about Jersey,” Cerise said. “I have a bad feeling.”

  Hayden’s shuffling ceased, and he straightened. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.

  Dorie fell in step with them. “Considering that you and I are the only Etherlin muses here tonight, if you’re gone, they’ll probably hold dinner till you get back. So it won’t matter if I go out, too.”

  Neither Cerise nor Hayden said anything.

  “I’ll come with you,” Dorie added.

  “No,” Cerise said.

  Dorie narrowed her eyes. “Why not?”

  Because I don’t trust you. “Because this isn’t your business,” Cerise said.

  Even while not dancing, Cerise’s fluid movements seemed to recall her ballet training, Lysander noticed. Her fingers extended gracefully as if reaching for something beautiful. Like a stolen moment.

  With the beat of massive wings, Lysander rose from the tree bough that overlooked Cerise’s house. Her scent didn’t reach him that far up, but it didn’t need to. He remembered it too well, along with the warmth of her body and the fierce way she’d fought to free herself when he’d restrained her.

  She’s nitroglycerin wrapped in the softest skin, he thought as he swooped across the sky, skimming the treetops of roof gardens. Cerise’s wild passion had awakened his own.

  Enough.

  Enough of watching the girl. Enough of thinking about her.

  The more a preoccupation is fed, the more powerful it becomes.

  The prophecy—the one that pertained to his only chance for redemption—contained several parts, including a warning that getting involved with a woman could make him fail. He’d never risk that, no matter how beautiful she felt or smelled or danced.

  He flew over the Etherlin, so named by her kind, the descendants of the ancient muses. They were the only remnants of the lofty society of the Olympians, the superhuman creatures who had once been caretak
ers of the world. Until their hubris and their manipulation of mankind had led to their exile from earth.

  Exile.

  Lysander knew all about exile. But he was hoping to make his own a distant memory.

  Movement below caught his eye. There’s a child on that roof.

  A little girl. Eleven or twelve perhaps?

  With an unsteady gait she wobbled across the concrete.

  It’s dark. Why is she there alone?

  She climbed onto the ledge. Bare feet shuffled over the faded artwork that someone had painted. He hovered in the clouds.

  “Be careful,” he whispered.

  She rubbed her arm and swayed.

  He held his breath. Archangels weren’t allowed to consort with humans. As an arcanon—a fallen angel—Lysander wasn’t barred from it, but he avoided people out of habit. He also avoided them to resist the temptation that beautiful women presented.

  The girl teetered.

  She’s not my responsibility. I’ve let myself get too entangled with human beings lately. I shouldn’t—

  She pivoted too fast and stumbled, her eyes wide with shock and terror as she fell.

  He dove, a torpedo through the air, until he caught her. Her eyes rolled back and her head hung toward the concrete street that would have destroyed her skull.

  She’s unconscious and barely breathing, he realized.

  Opium-scented breath emanated from a fragile body. She was small, but not a child after all. He landed and laid her on the doorstep under a large awning.

  “Opium tastes like heaven, but isn’t,” he said, resting her head gently against the step. Her bleached hair fell away from an unlined forehead. Under cherry lipstick her lips turned dusky blue.

  She goes, he thought. “You’ll see the difference soon.”

  The click of heels in the distance made him look over his shoulder. He recognized the cadence of those footfalls.

  Cerise.

  Lysander straightened, very tempted to stand his ground, to wait for her to arrive. No law forbade him from talking to her.

  The scuff of other shoes was paired with her heel strikes.

  There’s someone with her.

  Who? A man or a woman?

  He ducked around the building into shadow and waited.

  From a roof’s edge, an icicle hung like a dagger ready to fall. Spring had arrived but then receded, like a virgin clambering under the covers on her wedding night. Two days of freezing rain had claimed the Etherlin, but a new warm front was steadily melting the ice.

  As Cerise walked with Hayden, she drew her shoulders forward, huddling against the chill.

  I’m so cold. Why is it always like this when I think about Griffin?

  Memories of him gushed like a flood…Griffin’s sandy brown hair and the crooked smile that could transform his expression from angelic to devilish in an instant. The collection of vintage rock T-shirts that he and Cerise had shared between them. The “morning” coffee they’d drunk upon waking at 6 p.m.

  Cerise dug her nails into her palms. He’s been dead almost ten months. You have to deal with it and move on. The problem was she couldn’t.

  The final night with Griffin was a hazy blur that haunted her. And the holes in her memory stretched back insidiously. She couldn’t remember the songs they’d worked on. She couldn’t remember their last fight, though she was sure they’d had one.

  Worst, and most important, her magic had been damaged. The power she used to inspire people had melted like so much snow. She’d been faking it since then, kept expecting it and her memory to return after the pain receded, but they never did. After ten months, she felt worse than ever.

  Some of her aspirants suspected, and it was only a matter of time before the council realized, too. If only she could unlock her mind. If only she could review the steps she’d used to tap into her power in the past.

  I need Griffin’s missing songbook. I need to see the flow of ideas, to relive the way the magic worked. The missing pieces are on those pages. I know it.

  Instincts more powerful than any she’d ever felt outside of her muse magic were driving her to find the book. She dreamed about it constantly.

  Unfortunately, she and the band had been searching for Griffin’s songbook since they buried him. The journal had contained all the songs that Cerise and he had worked on during his last year. There were thirty-seven songs in total, including several that Cerise had known would be number-one hits.

  After Griffin died, Cerise couldn’t remember a single lyric or melody from all that work, which had left Griffin’s band, the Molly Times, without their lead guitarist and unable to record new material. They’d begged Cerise to work with them, to inspire them, to come to rehearsal and jam with them. But without her magic, Cerise couldn’t help. It broke her heart. Hayden and Jersey had lost their brother; they should’ve at least had his final musical legacy. Cerise couldn’t even help them retain that much.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with Jersey. She knows the songs,” Hayden said as they walked. “She hears a lyric once and remembers it. Always has. Do you think she’s screwing up on purpose?”

  “No.”

  “Not even subconsciously? As a way to get back at him for dying?”

  Maybe, Cerise thought and flushed. Hayden wasn’t only asking about Jersey now. “I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist.”

  “I wish she’d let me take her to one. She needs to talk to someone about how she really feels. It might help.”

  “Maybe,” Cerise murmured, reflecting on her own failed experience. She’d seen a therapist in secret, hoping that through hypnosis the woman would be able to unlock Cerise’s memories and free her muse magic. For a few moments of their session, Cerise had seen a glimpse—a very unsettling glimpse—of the past, but then it had deteriorated and Cerise had been back in the dark and more troubled than before.

  Cerise pressed her fist against the side of her thigh. When Griffin had died at twenty-seven, he’d deprived Cerise of more than her favorite aspirant; he’d been the guy she was crazy in love with, the one with whom she’d been having a secret affair.

  That Griffin’s death might have been partly Cerise’s fault was a detail that no one knew—except Cerise, who could not get over it. She never let on how much she still hurt, but the pain was there, just below the surface.

  “I’ve been writing,” Hayden said.

  “That’s great. I can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on.”

  “Yeah, sure…” He paused.

  “What?”

  “Dorie’s cool. I thought maybe I’d show my songs to her.”

  Cerise’s gaze slid to him. He wanted to replace her with Dorie? Cerise’s blood ran cold. “Is that right?”

  “Well, she’s a muse, too. And I thought—”

  She raised a brow, but said nothing. He flushed and clenched his teeth. She might have admired the way he was trying to assert himself if he hadn’t been stabbing her in the back in the process.

  “Look, we can use all the help we can get right now. Things are falling apart. You and Griffin were amazing together, but talking to you doesn’t light my mind on fire like it did his. If anything, it brings me down and makes me feel—I don’t know, exhausted. Kind of like I’m hungover or something.”

  The words crushed her, but before she could respond, she spotted Jersey’s body. Jersey was the same blue color Griffin had been that morning at the bottom of the ravine. Cerise recognized it as the color of death.

  Chapter 2

  To distance himself from the frenzied attempt to save the girl, Lysander had flown to the roof. He stood at the edge looking down, unable to tear himself away. The girl’s death was bringing Cerise pain, which made him want to comfort her, to touch and reassure her.

  Don’t interfere.

  He stepped down from the ledge so he wouldn’t be able to see Cerise any longer, and in doing so noticed the graffiti. There was very little of it in the Etherlin, but the place where the g
irl had tread so unsteadily was covered with elaborate artwork. The white ledge had been painted with the tangled green of a woodland scene. He studied it and within the tendrils of vines, he spotted a blackbird. He froze for a moment, unable to believe…But yes it was there.

  He flapped his wings and rose, hovering above so he could see the entire thing at once, could stare at the swirling patterns, and he spotted what was buried. A message woven into the vines. The letters emerged in one long string.

  Sadly talks the blackbird here. Well I know the woe he found: No matter who cut down his nest, For its young it was destroyed. I myself not long ago Found the woe he now has found.

  The verses were from a ninth-century poem called “The Deserted Home.” Lysander knew who and what had inspired it. Reziel.

  Lysander’s muscles locked, and his gaze darted side to side as if expecting his former brother to appear. But of course Reziel wasn’t lurking nearby. Lysander would’ve known, would’ve felt him. Still, there was the message…

  Had the demon invaded the dreams of an artist? Or maybe one of Reziel’s followers lived in the Etherlin. It didn’t matter how Reziel had accomplished it. What mattered was that it was part of the prophecy: Watch for a sign. The message left by your betrayer marks the beginning of the end.

  With stunned triumph ringing in his ears, Lysander thought, This is it. After thousands of years of waiting, the prophecy has finally begun.

  The largest tombstone in Iron Heart Cemetery was also the newest. Twelve towering feet of carved marble announced that Cato Jacobi had been laid to rest in the fresh grave. No one mourned him more than his sister, Tamberi.

  A vicious kick launched the flowers that lay at the base of the headstone. Cato couldn’t have cared less about dead plants, and Tamberi didn’t want anything touching Cato’s grave that she didn’t put there herself.

  From her tote bag, she extracted a one-of-a-kind Venetian vase, created nearly a hundred years ago. She clenched her jaw and flung the vase against the headstone. Shattering, its shards rained down like multicolored tears and joined the pile of fragments from what had once been Tamberi’s quarter of a million-dollar Italian glass collection. Since she’d buried Cato, she’d smashed a piece each day against his headstone, marking time, creating a testament to the fact that nothing else mattered except that her brother was food for worms.