His wings were beginning to get heavy, and he thought he’d maybe begun to hear the first sign of a rushing river when a big hand grabbed him by the back of his pants and hauled him up.
“Hey!” He began to wriggle . . . and glimpsed wings of white and gold.
Poop.
Raphael grabbed Aodhan the next second, before flying up out of the gorge on powerful wings, taking the two of them into the sunshine once more. Illium looked across at Aodhan and shrugged. His friend grinned and shrugged back, and Illium had to fight off a giggle. They’d really be in trouble if they didn’t take this see-ri-us.
He had to admit it was nice to get a ride up. His wings had been getting so tired. The gorge was big, far bigger than he could’ve imagined in his whole entire life. So he smiled when Raphael deposited them at the top.
Raphael didn’t smile back. He folded his bare arms over his favorite old leather jerkin, one eyebrow raised. “Explain.”
“It was me,” Illium admitted. “I make Adi go.”
“No.” Aodhan scowled. “I go.”
“But I said,” Illium insisted, not wanting his new friend in trouble.
“No.” Aodhan stood beside him, not moving, not trying to run away.
“I see,” Raphael murmured. “So you are both culprits. Then you shall both be punished.”
Illium groaned. “Rafa, we no do again.”
“Do you think I was born yesterday?” Raphael’s lips curved up. “Turn. March.”
Sighing, Illium took Aodhan’s hand as they began to head toward Raphael’s stronghold.
“What the punish-ent?” Aodhan whispered.
“School. Write letters. Stay inside.” Illium had once tried to point out that he was too young for school—and Raphael had pointed out that Illium was too young to be trying to fire a crossbow, and “yet didn’t I just find you dragging a crossbow on the ground with felonious intent?”
Illium didn’t know what that meant, but he’d understood the tone. So he’d kept on practicing his letters.
Aodhan didn’t look worried. “I like inside.” His voice was quiet. “People point and look outside.” He made a staring face.
“Because you’re so shiny.” Illium had stared at first, too, but now Aodhan was his friend. He decided to tell him a very important thing. “My papa an archangel.” It made Illium so proud.
Aodhan turned toward him, his eyes all big. Then he looked back at Raphael. “Papa?”
“No, Rafa friend.” He felt proud to say that, too; not many baby angels were friends with an archangel. “My papa Aegaeon.” It took him time to sound out his papa’s name, but he got it right.
“Inside.” Raphael ushered them into the cool stone of his stronghold, just as Dmitri was walking out.
Illium had used to think the vampire—who his papa called “Raphael’s deadly right hand”—might not like small angels, but then one day, he’d fallen and hurt his knees bad, and Dmitri had brushed him off, then carried him all the way home. He’d stroked Illium’s hair and told him he was brave, and Illium had felt good even though his knees hurt.
Today, Dmitri raised an eyebrow as dark as his hair. “In trouble again, Illium?”
“Yup.”
Dmitri’s smile was barely there, but Illium could tell it was real, not like the fake smiles some grown-ups used with kids. “And with a partner in crime now.”
Illium smiled at Aodhan. “Adi. My friend.”
Aodhan smiled back.
Illium and Aodhan, it is now nigh-impossible to see one without the other. I find myself both looking forward to and laughingly dreading the day the two enter my schoolroom. There will be chaos, this I predict with all certainty.
Aodhan is some few years younger, but I think I must allow him to attend when Illium does, else Illium won’t concentrate for wanting to be out playing with his friend, and Aodhan is already such a quiet little one that I don’t want to separate him from his closest ally. So together they shall enter their school years.
I can already feel the gray hairs beginning to take root.
—Jessamy, Teacher and Historian
10
Today
Illium’s luggage reached the stronghold just before sunset.
He’d been in the air at the time, had actually seen the transport vehicle arrive from the otherwise deserted local airport, flanked by angelic guards. Because nothing in Lijuan’s land could be trusted. Not yet. Not before Suyin had dug out and eliminated every piece of darkness.
Supplies for Suyin’s people filled the large transport vehicle to the brim. Illium’s luggage had ridden in on the front passenger seat—it didn’t amount to much, just a duffel of replacement clothing, a few extra weapons, and a stack of horror movies he was to pass on to Aodhan.
“He can download them,” Illium had muttered to Elena when she put the package in his bag. “He knows how.” Unlike with many other immortals, Illium hadn’t had to badger knowledge into Aodhan; he’d learned as Illium learned, both of them in agreement that to be ignorant was to be left behind.
“Yes,” Elena had agreed, “but I got copies of the original cases. See?” She’d held up a case with a garish-looking image of a woman in faux terror, her breasts all but popping out of her skintight nightgown.
“How is that meant to be comfortable for sleeping?”
Elena, who’d been dressed in full hunting gear at the time, every part of her bristling with knives, had dropped the object back in the bag. “It’s not for sleeping. It’s for running from an axe-wielding maniac. Just go with it.”
Placing the stack of movies on the bedside table after Suyin gave everyone an hour off to rest and recharge, Illium scowled. A second later, he told himself to stop being an idiot and, grabbing the entire lot, headed across the hall. Aodhan’s door was open. “Aodhan?”
“On the balcony.”
“Elena sent you some horror flicks. I’ll leave them on this table by the door.”
“Oh, show me. I’ve got paint all over my hands.”
Of course Aodhan’s idea of taking a break was to pick up a brush. Illium’s lips kicked up for a heartbeat, but the surge of affection was no match for his discomfort and hurt. He did not want to be in Aodhan’s personal space.
But since he knew Elena would ask what Aodhan had thought of the original cases, he strode through the sunnily yellow room decorated with pictures of sunflowers and kittens wearing fancy hats. There was even a marble statue of what looked to have been someone’s prized pug. A less Aodhan room he couldn’t imagine—but for one thing: the wide balcony that spilled light into the space.
Light and more than one exit, those were the two nonnegotiables for Aodhan. He’d rather sleep under the stars than be stuck in a room that was dark. As for any room or apartment with difficult points of egress? Aodhan wouldn’t even step inside.
Illium’s chest ached under the weight of knowing why.
He also knew why Aodhan had gone straight to the balcony after Suyin mandated a rest break. The light at this time of day was coveted by artists everywhere. As a child, Illium had learned to amuse himself during those times—oh, his mother would’ve come to him at once if he called, but he’d seen such joy in her face when she painted in the evening light that he’d tried not to get into trouble then.
Later, he’d watched Aodhan fall under the same spell of light.
The sparkle of the other man’s wings threw colors against the walls, making Illium’s stomach clench. Sparkle. A name born in childhood friendship, but one Illium hadn’t used for a long time after Aodhan was hurt. The sound of it had made guilt gnaw at him—because it reminded him of all Aodhan could’ve been if Illium had been a better friend, had found him sooner, had not fought with him in the first place.
Aodhan would’ve been with him that day if the two of them hadn’t butted heads over Aodhan’s infatuati
on with a flight instructor Illium couldn’t stand. The asshole angel had been dangling Aodhan along on a string, while playing the same game with a female vampire and a mortal male.
Illium, furious on his friend’s behalf, had muttered that the angel in question would “fuck a goat if he could get away with it.”
Aodhan had taken that as a comment on his own intelligence and desirability when Illium had meant the opposite: that Aodhan was far too good for the likes of the instructor.
Such a fucking stupid thing.
He should’ve just shut his mouth, let the infatuation run its course.
But he hadn’t. And his Sparkle had ended up in a nightmare that had stolen his light.
“Which movies did Ellie send me?” Aodhan asked the instant Illium appeared in the doorway to the balcony. “She promised to scare off my feathers.”
Illium’s breath caught, because this man ablaze in the warm light of day’s end was full of light, of life. It glittered in his eyes, sparked in his hair, played over his skin. He sparkled once again and he was glorious.
“Here.” Illium thrust out the stack of cases, his voice gritty.
His mother would be ashamed of him, but he hated that Aodhan had had to come to China, to Suyin, to find his light. His long years of friendship with Illium, even the relationships he’d made after he came to the Tower, none of it had brought him to this level of happiness.
It was walking at Suyin’s side that had wrought this outcome—and fuck, that knowledge hurt.
Angling his body to look at the case on the very top, Aodhan held his hands to either side. Speckled with splashes of blue and green and white paint, they matched the scene taking shape on the canvas to his right. He’d always been a messy painter—and he’d never needed his subject in front of him to paint it—or them.
Aodhan’s artistic eye caught moments, held them.
Today, he’d chosen to work on a scene from the Refuge that made Illium frown. Not realizing he was doing it, he leaned in toward the canvas as Aodhan leaned in to more clearly see the image on the case . . . and the edge of Aodhan’s wing brushed his chest.
He jerked back. “Sorry.”
Aodhan scowled. “Why?”
Illium had nothing to say to that, because one thing nothing and no one would ever steal away: though Illium’s mother had held Aodhan often during his recovery, Illium was the first person whose touch Aodhan had actively sought when he emerged from his long sleep.
His fingers tingled at the memory of feeling Aodhan’s skin against his after so very long, his chest compressing. Unable to stand the deluge of memory, of emotion, he stared at the half-finished scene on the canvas instead of replying.
It could’ve been many parts of the Refuge, but it wasn’t.
That small stone house backed by jagged mountains, the flowers that bloomed outside, the path that led deeper into the Refuge. “That’s our house.” The place where Illium had grown up under the loving eye of his mother—and where Aodhan had spent as much or even more time than he did at his actual home.
At least until they both grew older. Then, they’d been assigned their own small aeries in the gorge, alongside others near their age—though they’d both visited Illium’s mother each and every day that they were in the Refuge, even staying with her during the worst times, when she forgot that they were no longer little angels.
Once they became permanent members of Raphael’s team, they’d been offered rooms within his Refuge stronghold, but had declined. For one hundred years more, they’d kept the aeries—and taken youthful delight in racing and diving in the gorge.
“Batchelor pads,” Elena had said with a laugh the last time she’d been in the Refuge. “I can definitely see the appeal.”
Not quite the right term since the aeries weren’t limited to a specific gender, but correct in tone, since no families called them home. For the most part, the aeries were favored by lone angels—with the age range skewing younger, though it did also house a complement of older angels who preferred their own company.
“You should paint the aeries,” he said without thinking. “At night, when the lights are sparkling inside and angels are diving in and out.”
He spotted something else in the painting before Aodhan could respond.
“What’s that blotch of blue over—” Breaking off, he glared at his friend. “Is that supposed to be me?”
Aodhan’s grin was a familiar thing that appeared too rarely. “Only the very beginning of you. I’m trying to capture that moment when you climbed onto the roof to try to fly off it, with me as the designated holder of the ladder.”
Memory bloomed. Of how hard it had been to get himself up to the top with his wings heavy weights on his back, of how long it had taken them to move the big wooden ladder—he still wasn’t sure quite how they’d managed that—and of how angry his mother had been when she’d caught them before he made it to the top.
“I had it planned,” he said. “I was going to land in the soft jasmine bushes below if I didn’t succeed in taking flight over the short distance.”
Aodhan laughed, the sound rippling over Illium like a song too long unheard. “I don’t recall you bringing up that piece of genius while Eh-ma was giving us both the dressing-down of our lives.”
Illium snorted. “I knew I’d be in even worse trouble for the possible accidental destruction of her plants.” Another burst of memory. “She didn’t believe you when you confessed to coming up with the plan.”
“That’s because she knew I’d never come up with anything that put you in danger.”
Their eyes met, the connection so profound, so full of shared memories that it stole Illium’s breath . . . and then Aodhan’s words penetrated, stab wounds to his heart. He knew his friend hadn’t meant them that way, but while Aodhan had spent his childhood and young adulthood trying to keep Illium safe, Illium hadn’t been able to do the same the one time it mattered.
He hadn’t been beside his friend.
And they’d lost Aodhan, first to a monster and her monstrous lover, then to his nightmares.
Aodhan’s smile faded, his eyes scanning Illium’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Shaking his head, Illium stepped back. “You should use the light before it fades,” he said, his voice husky. “We’ll have to head down to dinner soon.” Suyin had asked all her senior people to gather after their break for a short meeting over a quick dinner.
“Vetra should arrive toward the end, be able to brief you regarding the hamlet,” the archangel had said. “Prior to that, we need to go over the entire plan for the move one last time, ensure there are no holes in our strategy.”
Illium had already learned that the travel plan had been worked out well in advance of Suyin’s decision to move. It had been Xan who’d filled him in, while the two of them were strapping down a pallet full of tents.
“We always knew this wasn’t our final stop,” the vampire had said, his muscled upper body bare and several strands of black hair sticking to his cheeks after having escaped the tie he’d used to pull it back. “Even before finding that underground hellhole, we knew it was only a place to catch our breath.”
“The underground complex? How bad was it?”
A flinty look in the rich brown of his eyes, Xan had said, “I found fangs on at least one set of bones. Locked inside a cell.”
Vampires could starve to death, but it took a long, long time, most of it spent in agony as their body mummified around them. Such starvation could and had been used as a punishment for the most heinous of crimes, for many immortals believed death too easy a route. Illium agreed with them.
Yet to have been left behind to starve to the point of death?
Either the crime had been of the worst degree . . . or, given that the complex was under one of Lijuan’s strongholds, it had been an act of cruelty. It was clear Xan believed it
to be the latter, the people who’d died within guilty of no crimes.
The image of bones scattered in the dark was at the forefront of his mind as he stepped away from the balcony where Aodhan stood. The other man looked like he wanted to argue, but Illium didn’t give him the opportunity—he turned and walked quickly out.
He knew he was avoiding the inevitable, knew they had to talk, put everything out in the open. But he wasn’t ready, because there was only one way that discussion could end: with a final break.
The slow erosion of their friendship was over.
It was brittle now. Ready to shatter.
* * *
* * *
Aodhan felt the reverberation of the door Illium pulled closed behind him even though Illium hadn’t banged it. It was as if the vibration had rocked directly into his body, fragmenting his thoughts and blurring his vision. He couldn’t even remember the name of the movie at the top of the stack Illium had held out, a stack which he’d deposited on a decorative table on his way out.
Despite his state, he picked up his paintbrush. Art was how he’d always made sense of the world. His hand moved almost automatically, working to the blueprint in his mind.
As was his tendency, he left the depiction of himself to last. Because he’d never seen himself in these real-life scenes, he was the most difficult person to paint. Most of the time, his workaround was to ask someone else if they had a memory of that moment, and if they could describe him, his facial expression, his energy.
He should’ve asked Illium. For a few moments after Illium scowled at the blob-like depiction of himself, it was as it’d once been, with the two of them so comfortable with each other that they never had to verbally ask permission for anything. Not because of a lack of respect, but because they could read each other with a glance, give and ask with a grin or a touch.
Things had changed.
Aodhan accepted that he’d begun the change and, despite the pain of it, he would do so again; he had good reasons for his actions. This fractured friendship, this distance with Illium, however, had never been the intended outcome. “Be honest, Aodhan,” he muttered to himself as he outlined half-formed wings of wild blue. “You never thought this far ahead. You were too angry.”
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