by Sharon Shinn
Perhaps he had just been teasing again, she thought as she stepped out of the room and locked the door behind her. Laughing to himself. See that silly girl, angel-seeker, no doubt—let’s have some fun with her. Or maybe he simply had not remembered the conversation. Girls must gape at him every day, his handsome scarred face, his sweeping wings with their faint bronze sheen. He flirted with all of them and forgot them. That might be it. She just did not know how the game was played. She had only been in Cedar Hills a few weeks, after all.
Nonetheless, she was devastated, and she moved as slowly as an old woman when she returned to the laundry room to work for the remaining hours of her shift.
She had told no one but Faith of her triumph on the previous day—thank the great good god—so there was no one but Faith to tell of her failure. Not that Faith needed any telling. The truth was plain on Elizabeth’s face the instant the friends met in the dining hall at Tola’s.
“What happened?” Faith whispered, sliding into the seat next to Elizabeth’s.
“He wasn’t there.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Elizabeth glanced over at her quickly. “I think he forgot me. Or never meant anything by it at all.”
Faith shrugged and spooned some potatoes onto her plate. “He was probably called away. Sent to Semorrah or Luminaux. And even if he did forget, which he probably didn’t, it just means he hasn’t remembered you yet. You haven’t made that extraordinary an impression on him. But you will. Wait till he sees you again.”
“I don’t want him to see me again. I’m so embarrassed.”
“This is not the time to be embarrassed,” Faith said firmly, ladling potatoes onto Elizabeth’s plate, too, and passing the bowl over to Ruth. “This is your future you’re protecting. You have to be outrageous. Next time you see him, you must do something or say something that will make him remember you.”
They were claimed by the general conversation then, but Elizabeth spent the next few hours, off and on, thinking about what Faith had said. And what she could do to make herself memorable to the angel David. Nothing occurred to her that evening, but she knew the advice was sound. Her future was at stake. She must be bold and notable.
But the following day, it was clear no laundress was going to draw anyone’s attention at the dorm. The angel Obadiah had returned after a weeklong absence, wounded, delirious, and escorted by strangers. It was not just the dorm but the whole city that was in an uproar.
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth heard the news the minute she got to work, for the angel had arrived not half an hour before. He had been brought in by some Luminauzi merchants who had taken a leisurely route around the Heldoras, peddling their wares at small towns all across Jordana. They realized, as they saw an angel fall from the sky one afternoon, that they had acquired far more valuable cargo than their dyed silks and gem-set baubles, and they had made all haste to the hold.
Elizabeth barely had time to hear the details of how the Luminauzi caravan had pulled into Cedar Hills, and how Magdalena had instantly spotted the broken shape of the angel sprawled in the back of one wagon. Chaos and confusion had ensued, no doubt, but Obadiah had ultimately been carried here, to the room he had called his own for only a few days. And here, said Doris, he would be nursed back to health.
“Double the load on us, you’ll see, for a sick man uses twice the bedding a well man does, and think of the visitors he’ll have,” Doris grumbled. Privately, Elizabeth thought she was as excited as everyone else to have such events occurring under this very roof. “People rushing in and out all day—well, we won’t even have the worst of it; the cooks and the housekeeping staff, now, they’ll be run ragged, just you wait.”
A breathless figure burst through the door, indistinct through the coiling steam. “Please,” a girl panted. “We need more cloth for bandages.”
Doris whirled to face her, instantly professional. “Plain strips? How wide?”
“I don’t—some very narrow, I think, to bind his fingers, and some—wider ones, I suppose, for his leg, but I don’t know—”
Doris pointed. “Elizabeth. That cabinet against the wall. Get an assortment and take them up to the angel’s room.”
All the other women watched with envy as Elizabeth hurried across the room, quickly snatched up a selection of cotton strips, and followed the girl out of the laundry room and up to the second floor.
The sickroom seemed overfull of people, Elizabeth thought, glancing around quickly to see as many details as she could. The blond angel lay, pale and motionless, on the bed in the middle of the room. His wings hung limply over both sides of the bed, looking as rumpled as soiled linens. One dark-haired angel sat beside his bed, mopping his face with a damp cloth, and two other angels milled about the room, whispering to each other and glancing over at the hurt man. A middle-aged mortal woman sat on the other side of the bed. Her efficient air and general confidence led Elizabeth to suspect this was a healer. The angel showing such compassion for the fallen Obadiah was, she was fairly certain, Magdalena herself. The girl whom Elizabeth had followed into the room was nowhere in sight, but splashing from the water room made it clear she had gone back to a task she had merely abandoned for a moment.
No one looked up when Elizabeth walked in, so she spoke in a carrying voice. “I brought the fresh bandages,” she said.
The healer looked over and smiled. “Good. Bring them here. Do you know how to set a bone?”
Elizabeth felt her eyes stretch to their widest. “Set a—I can’t do it myself, but I’ve helped hold a man when someone else set it,” she said. That was true, too; on the farm, workers were forever being hurt, and Angeletta would no more aid in the doctoring than she would labor in the kitchen. Elizabeth hadn’t liked it much either, clinging to a cursing, sweating, smelly man while a splint was put in place, but she had considered it basic human kindness to help ease a man from his misery.
“Oh, thank you,” Magdalena said in a soft voice. “I can’t do it—I just can’t—”
Elizabeth didn’t ask why the other angels or the girl washing out something in the water room weren’t able to aid the healer. She just placed her pile of bandages within easy reach of the healer’s hand and stepped up to the bedside. “Where’s he hurt? What would you like me to do?” she asked.
“His left arm and three of his fingers are broken,” the woman said. “I want to start with the small bones.”
“However did you manage to get so hurt in so many places?” Magdalena wailed, but in a soft voice, pitched to cause an invalid no stress. “For your leg is a mess and there’s a tear in your wing—”
Elizabeth had thought the angel barely conscious, so she was startled when he answered in a low, breathless voice. “I told you. I fell from the sky—and I must have landed on my arm. That part is—rather hazy.”
“You did not wound this leg falling from the sky,” the healer observed. “That’s a burn mark, I’m certain.”
“Yes,” Obadiah said faintly.
“A burn!” Magdalena exclaimed. “But—Obadiah—how could you—what did you—”
“I’m not entirely sure. I need to—talk to Nathan.”
“What? You’ll tell him secrets you won’t tell me?”
A smile lit the pale, handsome face. Elizabeth thought him very attractive, even in his present sorry condition. “I will tell—you, too. When you are both here—and I don’t have to tell the story—twice over.”
“You just look so battered,” Magdalena said in a worried voice. “I am so concerned about you.”
“He’ll be fine,” the healer said briskly. “But we’ve got to get these bones set. You—are you ready? What’s your name, girl?”
“Elizabeth. Yes, I’m quite ready.”
It took them the next hour to splint and wrap the broken bones of the angel’s forearm and fingers. By the time they were done, he was tense with the stress of withstanding agony and covered in a light film of sweat. While they worked, the splashing g
irl and one of the angels left, and two more visitors arrived and departed. The healer ignored all of them, so Elizabeth did as well.
“I can’t say—that your ministrations—have made me feel any better at all,” Obadiah panted when they were done.
The healer permitted herself a small smile. “No, I imagine you feel much worse at the moment. But I’ll give you something for the pain, and I would think you would feel better by morning. You angels are lucky. You have no idea how long it takes a mortal man to heal.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Magdalena said.
He turned his eyes her way, not moving his head from the pillow. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. “I just want to sleep.”
“Then I’ll come back later tonight.”
“Yes—I’d welcome that.”
“I’ll bring Nathan, so you can tell us all your secrets at once.”
The healer turned her serious gaze on Elizabeth. “You. Elizabeth. You work in this building?”
Elizabeth nodded. “In the laundry room. Yes.”
“Can you come back and check on him from time to time? Make sure he doesn’t have a fever and that his bandages have not come loose?”
Could she? She would be elated to do so. “Certainly,” Elizabeth said coolly. “And if he does have a fever, what should I do?”
The healer was laying an assortment of pills and potions on a bedside table. “One of these for fever, a teaspoon of this for pain. Only two more doses of each by day’s end, though. Can you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Can he eat?” Magdalena asked.
“Broth. Soft foods,” the healer said. “For a day or two. After that, anything he wants. I imagine he’ll be plenty hungry by then.”
“I’m hungry now,” he said in a whisper.
“No doubt, but right now you’re likely to throw up everything we pour down your throat, so we’ll just be cautious,” she replied. “Is there anything else you need? If not, I’m clearing this lot from the room, and you should sleep as long as you can.”
He moved his head weakly on the pillow, an attempt to shake his head no, Elizabeth thought. “I need nothing I can think of. Sleep. I am so happy to be here I cannot tell you—”
The healer rose, and Elizabeth jumped to her feet. Magdalena more reluctantly stood up. “I hate to leave you,” the angel said, looking down at the patient.
“Go,” he said. “I’ll see you later. Thank you. All of you.”
Elizabeth gave the healer a little nod and said, “I’ll check on him,” and the healer nodded in return. Then Elizabeth stepped from the room, trying to move with the measured gait of someone who could be relied on to watch over a sick man, a wounded angel, with the closest attention. Once out into the empty hall she paused for a moment and had to squeeze down her squeal of delight. Then she ran back downstairs toward the laundry room to tell everyone there every scrap of information she had obtained in the overheard conference of the angels.
Three times that day Elizabeth returned to the sickroom to check on the angel. He was asleep the first two times she stole in, so she lay her hand tentatively across his forehead to check for fever. The skin of an angel was hotter than the skin of a mortal—she knew that already, mostly because of some very revealing things Shiloh had said—so she was not too concerned when his flesh felt a little warm against her fingers. Still, she wet a cloth and wiped his face with cool water, then checked his bandages to make sure all was well.
The third time she crept inside, he was awake. It was late afternoon, and her shift would soon be over, but she did not want to leave again without a final visit. He resettled himself on the bed as she crossed the room and gave her a faint smile.
“You’re back,” he said in a thready voice. This afternoon he was lying on his side, and his wings spilled behind him, down the edge of the bed and onto the floor. She could not help thinking of the down stuffing pouring from the hole in a torn mattress.
She gazed at him, convinced that he looked more flushed than he had when he was sleeping, which might not be a good sign. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “I haven’t been able to tell if you have a fever.”
“I am hot enough to say yes, I think,” he said, so she put her palm on his forehead. Yes, even by angelic standards, his body seemed overwarm. “And every separate bone feels broken, and each individual muscle is bruised.”
“Well, you haven’t had any medicine since this morning, so let me give you some drugs. You’ll feel better.”
“I’ll fall asleep again.”
She gave him a small smile. “That might make you feel better, too.”
He moved restlessly, though not very energetically, on the bed. “I feel like I have been—sick or sleeping—for days now.”
She had picked up a pill and a glass of water, but if he wanted to talk a few moments before she administered the drugs, she was more than happy to oblige. “Why, when did you first get wounded?”
He appeared to think for a moment. “Five days ago? Maybe six? I am tired of lying about helplessly.” He smiled up at her again. He seemed like a man whose face was formed for smiles. “Though I have not minded the part about being nursed by pretty girls.”
“If by that you mean me and the angela Magdalena, I thank you for the extraordinary compliment,” she said.
He gave a weak laugh. “Yes, but—someone else helped me, too. When I was first injured. Or I might not have survived.”
Now there was a tale Elizabeth would have liked to hear, but she didn’t think the angel would be confiding any secrets to her. “Where did you get injured?”
“In the desert. Outside of Breven.” He looked at her, then looked away. “I was very fortunate to find help.”
“They say it was Luminauzi who found you and brought you here.”
“Luminauzi—yes—who else would help a fallen angel?”
Which was a strange thing to say, so Elizabeth assumed he had acquired delirium along with the fever. “Here, you’d better take this,” she said, holding the pill to his mouth and following that with a glass of water. “How about the pain? I’ve got some kind of powdery mix here I’m supposed to give you if you’re hurting.”
“Yes—I think a powdery mix is just what I need right now.”
She frowned. “Would you like me to bring the healer back again? Do you feel worse?”
“No—no worse—just no better. I hate being such a pathetic creature!”
She could not help smiling. “Well, I’m sure you’re magnificent when you’re feeling whole.”
He laughed shakily. “I am—at any rate—not as contemptible as I am now.”
“I can’t imagine anyone would think you were contemptible ever,” Elizabeth said softly. “Here. Drink this, and maybe you’ll feel better.”
He obediently pushed himself up on one elbow and swallowed the glassful of medicine. When he lay back on the pillow, he gave her a smile of great sweetness. “Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said. “Isn’t that your name?”
She felt such a flutter in her blood that she almost could not keep her hold on the glass. An angel calling her by name! “Yes, angelo,” she said with assumed calm.
He appeared to be straining to keep his eyes open, and then he gave up and let the lids fall. “Come by tomorrow and see me again,” he said drowsily. “I will feel better then, I assure you.”
“I will,” she said, setting down the glass and straightening up. “I hope you feel very much better in the morning.”
And as she stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her, she realized that she had never been so happy. Frail, helpless, and fevered he might be, but the angel Obadiah had thanked her by name. She had been right to come to Cedar Hills after all. This was the place she was meant to be.
Elizabeth was quite a celebrity that night in the dining hall as she recounted her tale of Obadiah’s arrival and her role in caring for him. Everyone else had heard of the angel’s fall and rescue, of course, for the stor
y had been talked of on every street in Cedar Hills, but no one else had firsthand information about the disasters that had beset him. She was pelted with questions, for Obadiah was a newcomer to Cedar Hills, and not much was known about his looks or his personality.
“He seemed very sweet—he thanked me more than once—and he has the prettiest smile,” Elizabeth said. “But I think he was embarrassed to be seen like that. He said he must seem contemptible.”
“He’s one of Magdalena’s favorites,” Shiloh said.
“Oh? And just how do you know that?” someone asked skeptically.
Shiloh tossed her long blond hair. “I hear things. They have been close since the days she lived in Monteverde and he resided at the Eyrie. She’s the one who wanted him brought to Cedar Hills.”
“Well, heavens, I suppose she can have friends if she wants to,” Faith said. “And who else are the angels friends with except each other?”
Shiloh shrugged. “But they’re close.”
Faith rolled her eyes and turned back to Elizabeth. “So what else did he say? Why wouldn’t he say how he got injured in the first place?”
They went over the same material three or four times, everyone chiming in with her theory as to what might have brought an angel down from the skies over Breven. Elizabeth was happy to speculate along with the rest of them, but she doubted they would ever find out.
She had not counted on being in the invalid’s room the following day, just as Magdalena and Nathan arrived.
She had presented herself to Doris as soon as she arrived in the laundry room, and the old woman had grunted at her, “You’re wanted up in the angel’s room.”
Elizabeth’s heart gave a little bounce. David had come looking for her, realizing that he had missed their tryst? Or—“Which angel?” she asked.
Doris glanced over with a look of wry amusement on her face. “That’s true, how would you know, in a houseful of angels, once you’d gotten cozy with one or two of them?”