I took another step back. It was perfect in its imperfections.
Hazel sidled up to me, holding a sausage in her hand. She stared at the cottage. “Yeah, that thing looks like a piece of crap.”
“Thanks, sis.”
“You should just stay at Kratos’s castle with me.”
“This is my paradise,” I said. “And you know what? I’m going to eat godsdamn soup in here. You can visit us from his castle.”
She bit into her sausage. “Whatever.”
Hazel turned to the garden behind us. “Did you make all this?”
I turned to survey my work. A blue river carved through the forest, and red anemones dappled its banks. “It’s modeled after the garden where Adonis was born. He hasn’t seen it yet.”
There were seeds of death, here in Paradise, but that was okay. I rubbed my rounded belly. Death grew in me, too.
Hazel pointed at my stomach. “How’s your little deathling?”
I swallowed hard. My mouth had been weirdly watery since I’d gotten pregnant. “It’s making me puke three times a day, and I have an uncontrollable urge to eat a vat of soup. But Yasmin keeps telling me that’s normal. It’s not a horseman-spawn thing.”
“Remind me never to get pregnant. I’m going back to the castle. Kratos is making me a gin and tonic. He’s never had alcohol before a week ago, and between you and me, I think he likes the sauce too much, if you know what I mean.”
I scowled. “I told him you’re not allowed to drink.”
“Oh, yeah. He said I’m not supposed to tell you.” She paused, turning to frown at the cottage. “It’s still missing something. I’m not sure what.”
I narrowed my eyes at it. She was right. It was missing something.
It was missing Adonis’s touch.
I crossed to the other side of the cottage. This is where I'd planted the vegetables—potatoes, carrots, cabbage. I was even growing garlic.
The crunching of footsteps through the leaves turned my head, and I smiled at the sight of Alex coming closer.
“I think this garden is a step up from our Bethnal Green garden.”
“Want to help me catch some rabbits?” I asked. “I have rabbit stew plans. Adonis doesn’t know that stew and soup are basically the same thing, and he’s agreed to eat it.”
“I don’t mind setting some traps. As long as I never have to eat rat meat again.”
“You know you’re welcome to stay here at the castle. Kratos said it was fine, and he’s got a billion rooms.”
Alex wrinkled his nose. “I came here to say goodbye. I was fine letting him lead us into battle, because it meant we got to live. I was fine with recovering here. But I don’t want to spend any more time around the Hunter than I have to. And anyway, I want to go back and rebuild the city. We have a lot of angel bodies to clear.”
“Do you really think London can recover?” I asked.
“My lovely American friend—London is one thing I’m not worried about. Do you have any idea how many times that city has been burnt to the ground completely? Queen Boudicca slaughtered everyone, burnt it to the ground. A seventeenth-century baker lit the whole place up. Nothing remained when the fire was done except ashes and melted bones. The Luftwaffe bombed the ever-loving shit out of it.
“And you know what happened? Every time, Londoners just went back and recreated the same winding, meandering, nonsensical bullshit streets we’ve been using for two thousand years. We are putting it back exactly like it’s always been. We’re rebuilding the crooked streets with ridiculous names like Poultry and Crutched Friars. In a few years’ time, I could be passing out under pub tables again.”
“Passing out under pub tables. Your aspirations are awe-inspiring.”
“Hey, we survived all this because we knew how to fantasize, didn’t we? You fantasized about cupcakes—”
“And cottages with soup.” And Adonis naked.
“And I fantasized about having fun again. Being irresponsible again. Doing shit just for the hell of it instead of for survival. We survived this because we told stories of the good old days, and for just a few minutes, they felt real to us. Golden-flaked cupcakes, expensive burgers. Burlesque routines. That’s why we’re alive.”
Our lives and souls were defined by the stories we told. “I call that the phantom life.”
“What?”
“The life you create in your mind that seems almost as real as this one.” I nodded at my vegetable garden. “You haven’t had time to plant stuff yet. Take some of this with you. When I go back to London, I'm going to clear that entire field in Bethnal Green.”
“The one with our shitty garden?”
“Yeah, except I’m going to make a not-shitty garden.”
“Your words inspire me. And I’m taking some potatoes with me because my stomach is about to eat itself.”
On the way out of the garden, Alex leaned down, pulling up a few potatoes and stashing them in the crook of his arm. I smiled as I watched him walk between the oaks. I had an overwhelming urge to make sure that man always stayed fed from now on.
I crossed to the potato patch, plucking a few out for myself, and I brushed the soil off them. I had my rabbit, potatoes, and carrots. Adonis and I would eat by the fire tonight.
Metatron had tried to get into my head, to convince me that paradise on earth wasn’t possible. That a fae like me would always give in to her feral, bloodthirsty instincts. He’d tried to destroy my phantom life.
But I was here, now, and I might be a feral fae with stones in my head who sometimes tried to eat people, but that’s not all I was.
I stirred the stew, breathing in its rich scent.
When the sunlight slanted lower through the trees, casting long shadows over the forest floor, I felt Adonis’s presence—his rich, soothing magic that whispered over my skin. It felt like home now. Adonis had been spending his days healing the injured members of the resistance. We’d set up a triage system, and the most severely injured had been healed first.
During the nights, I’d come here to work on my little project.
I’d kept my work here hidden from him, because I wanted to surprise him. Admittedly, the cottage had been for myself.
But the garden outside, the one modeled after his home in Afeka—that was for him. Here, our two worlds could meld together.
I crossed out of the cottage into the vibrant garden outside. I’d built this cottage next to the river on purpose, at the mouth of a cave. The bright blue of the river mirrored the color of the gemstones still embedded in my forehead. Using my plant magic, I’d grown myrrh trees lining the river’s edge. And among them, I’d created the blood-red anemones in the tall grasses, just like the one he wore around his neck.
I watched him as he walked along the river’s edge, his blue-gray eyes glinting. I felt ridiculously proud of my work.
His dark, sensual magic slipped around me, raising goosebumps on my skin.
“This is perfect,” he said.
I squinted in the dying sunlight. “Not quite perfect, but good enough.” I grabbed his hand, leading him into the cottage. “I made us dinner.”
“I don’t actually need to eat.”
“It doesn’t matter. You can enjoy life, now, so enjoy it.”
We crossed into the cottage, and Adonis swept his gaze over it. “It’s beautiful. You made all this?”
“With my bare hands. Except I don’t understand things like plumbing and electricity, so someone’s going to have to magic that into existence before we stay here overnight.”
The stew simmered in a cauldron over the stone fireplace, and Adonis crossed to it.
“Taste it,” I said.
He plucked a ladle from the stone mantle and scooped out a small spoonful. When he tasted it, his eyes lit up. “This is delicious.”
I beamed. “See? I knew you’d like soup. I mean—stew.”
His forehead crinkled. “This is what soup is?”
“Yeah.” Once again, I was stagger
ed at how little time he’d spent eating in his two thousand years. I’d be spending the rest of our immortal lives working on changing that. “What did you think it was?”
“I think I had it confused with that dish of mashed fruit and lard.”
I gagged. “I don’t even want to know what that is.”
He took another spoonful. “People eat it all the time. You light it on fire.”
I blinked. “What?”
“At Christmas.”
“Oh, that’s Christmas pudding. Only the British eat that. Let’s never speak of it again.”
I crossed to the stew, stirring it again while the steam curled around me.
Adonis sidled up behind me and rubbed the gentle curve of my belly. “Do you know that I’ve never seen you look more perfect?” His voice caressed my body. “How’s little Thanatos?”
“We’re not calling him the Greek word for death.” I scowled. “Or her.”
“It’s a noble name. What were you thinking of?”
“Jackson for a boy.”
His body went stiff. “Jackson’s not even a real name. It’s the surname of America’s second-worst president.”
“Thanatos is not a real name. It’s the personification of a rather grim concept.”
“It’s been my name for several thousand years.”
“It’s also your horse’s name. We’re not naming our baby after your horse. You can’t just keep calling everyone Thanatos.”
“Fine.” He took another spoonful of the soup. “We’ll think of a new name.”
“Speaking of names.” I turned to face him. “This cottage is missing something. It needs your mark.”
“What do you mean?”
“I used my hands to build it. And I used the magic of the Old Gods to cover it in anemones. But it needs something from the angelic world. This is supposed to be our home together.”
He pushed a strand of my pale, blond hair out of my eyes. “I think I have an idea.”
He crossed outside and stood facing the cottage. He closed his eyes, and he began speaking in Angelic. I still couldn’t understand what it meant, but the words no longer bothered me. They sounded beautiful on his tongue. As he spoke, golden Angelic letters etched into the sides of the cottage, beaming out from the wood. When he finished, he opened his eyes to stare at his work.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“It’s just our story. You know, beautiful, angelic perfection meets argumentative beast-woman.”
I gave him a shove. “Don’t make me bring out my feral side.”
“You scare me, woman. And I like it.”
I stared at the cottage, at the golden words glowing among the ropes of flowers. Here, in our new home, the Old Gods melded with the new.
My phantom world—the stories I’d told myself—had come to life in front of my eyes.
Epilogue
I held Liora up just under her shoulders, trying to coax a smile from her. Mornings were when she smiled the most, before the sounds and noises of the day started to annoy her and she yelped angrily.
“Come on, Liora. You woke me up four times last night. I deserve a smile.” The corners of her lips turned up, and I beamed. “That’s a smile! That’s a good girl! Smile for Mommy!”
A few years ago, if I’d overheard this sickly-sweet tone, I’d have rolled my eyes, and now it was just flowing out of me like spit-up from a baby.
Liora stuffed a pudgy fist in her mouth, gnawing on it. She had her father’s stormy gray eyes—almond-shaped, with dark eyelashes—and some of the fattest cheeks I’d ever seen on a baby. Faint, blond wisps grew on her head.
Liora was lucky—born into a world we were rebuilding. With the angelic invasion driven from the earth, we were starting to put the world back together just the way it had been.
I drew Liora in closer to me, sniffing her head. She had that perfect baby smell.
Adonis’s footsteps creaked the floor behind me. “See?” He said. “Dirt and moss smells lovely.”
From the floor of our cottage, I scowled at him. “That’s not what she smells like.”
He reached down, picking her up and cradling her in his arms. Light from the morning sun washed over him.
Adonis had lived for two thousand years thinking he was unable to father a child. And he had been, all that time. But when I’d pulled the curse off him, something had changed, I supposed. Death could create life.
I wasn’t going to second-guess it, anyway. I had my imperfect paradise here, and I wasn’t going to ruin it.
I hope you liked A Spy Among the Fallen. Our next series, Institute of the Shadow Fae, will connect to this series.
We have other books set in the same world. You can read Caine and Rosalind’s story in the Vampire’s Mage books, and you can check them out here. www.cncrawford.com
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to my lovely beta reader Michael who talks me through all my book crises (and other crises to be honest), and to my editors, Robin and Isabella Jack.
Doc Wendigo, Rebecca Frank, Shayne Rutherford, and Brian Jaramillo contributed their design expertise to our gorgeous ebook and paperback covers.
About the Author
C.N. Crawford is sometimes one person, and sometimes two. We live in Vermont with our son. In this case, A Spy Among the Fallen series is written by Christine.
Christine grew up in New England and has a lifelong interest in local folklore—with a particular fondness for creepy old cemeteries. She is a psychologist who spent eight years in London obsessively learning about its history, and misses it every day.
Also by Crawford C.N.
C.N. Crawford has written two other series that take place in the Demons of Fire and Night world.
Please Check out the Vampire’s Mage series, and The Shadows and Flame series for more books in the same universe.
A full listing of our books are found here:
http://www.cncrawford.com/books/
Rogue Fae (A Spy Among the Fallen Book 3) Page 20