A Temptation of Angels

by Michelle Zink

  She gave him a small smile. “I meant what I said in the ballroom, Griffin. You had to know you could count on me, and while I certainly proved myself an unskilled fighter, at least I know I’m not a coward.”

  Surprise touched his face. “A coward? Why would you say such a thing? Why would you even think it?”

  She looked away. “I’ve never stood up for anything. Not really.”

  “You’ve never had cause to until now,” he said.

  But I have, she thought. I had both cause and opportunity when I was alone with Raum.

  “Yes, because I’ve been nothing but a coddled child,” she said instead, her words full of bitterness.

  “You’ve suffered more than most.” His voice was gentle. “We all have. Throughout history, most of the Keepers have lived sheltered childhoods before taking their place among the others and living in obscurity until the task was passed on to another generation. You haven’t even reached Enlightenment, and look at all you’ve suffered.”

  “It doesn’t count,” she said stubbornly. “Not really. Not until I actually do something. And today, for the first time, I felt like I might be able to do just that. Like I might be able to make a difference instead of standing by while everyone else makes sacrifices.”

  “Helen.” Something in his voice made her look into his eyes. “I wish you could see what I see.”

  “And what is that?” she whispered.

  He took the cloth from her hand, placing it on the washstand, his eyes never leaving hers. “Someone who is brave and intelligent and true.”

  “Yes?” Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Yes.” His hands traced the fine bones of her cheek. They were so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “And beautiful.”

  “You… You think I’m beautiful?” She had never thought of herself as beautiful before. Had never even thought to wonder about it. Now she felt the heat rise within her at the knowledge that Griffin thought so.

  His eyes darkened as he looked down at her. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She could find nothing to say as his hand slid from her face to the curve of her neck, his fingers sliding into the waves that had come loose during her fight with Darius. The distance between them closed further, filling up with their bodies as they moved together. When he lowered his face to hers, she leaned up and met him halfway.

  At first, his lips lingered gently on hers. She wasn’t sure what to do. What came next. But it didn’t matter. Even this was enough, and she stood as still as she could, not wanting the moment to end. Wanting his mouth on hers forever. Then the passion between them erupted, and all at once, his mouth opened on hers and she fell into the warmth of his kiss.

  The floor dropped out from beneath her feet, sending her spinning into a black abyss where there was only Griffin. Only him and his mouth and their bodies molded together. She lost all track of time as his kiss transported her to a place where there was no death, no loss, no Raum. It was not until Griffin’s lips left hers that she realized she had pressed herself shamelessly against him. But even this realization was a whisper through the desire that was still thrumming through her veins.

  They didn’t move. His fingers were still entwined in her hair, his breath coming fast and heavy as he looked down at her, his eyes dark with desire.

  “This will complicate things,” he said.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Darius won’t be pleased.”

  “Whether or not Darius is pleased doesn’t matter.” Griffin’s voice took on a hard edge, and for a moment, he almost sounded like his brother. “He has what he needs. He always has. Now…” he began.

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  “I need you,” he said.

  TWENTY-THREE

  They met in the library to go over the schematics delivered by Galizur’s messenger boy.

  “All right?” Darius asked, glancing distractedly at her arm.

  “Right as rain.” She did not tell him that the gash throbbed every time she so much as moved a muscle.

  He nodded in reply, his eyes shifting to Griffin, standing at her side. An imperceptible shift occurred behind the armor of Darius’s face. An appraising, as if he could sense that something had changed between Helen and Griffin in the two hours since the exercise in the ballroom.

  Griffin’s mouth was set in a thin line. She had only seen the expression on his face a couple of times, but she already knew what it meant. Griffin was prepared to battle his brother, whatever the cost.

  A moment later, Darius turned his attention to a large roll of paper sitting atop the desk.

  “These are the plans for Victor Alsorta’s manor house outside the city. We need to go over them until we know every inch of the grounds and every way in and out of the house. That’s where you come in, brother.”

  Helen looked up in question.

  “Griffin is something of an expert at reading drawings like this. Architectural, engineering…” He shrugged. “My brother can read them all.”

  Griffin said nothing as Darius unrolled the paper, spreading it across the surface of the desk and using odd objects to hold down its curling corners. Helen and Griffin leaned in, taking in the obvious markings of the house and its grounds.

  “The first thing we need is a way in and a way out. A couple of backups on both ends wouldn’t hurt, either.” Darius placed a fingertip on a circular marking on the paper. From the looks of it, the area was some distance from the grounds. Darius continued. “There is a tunnel entrance just inside the gates connecting the house to the sewage tunnels of London. If we enter the tunnels here—”

  “Excuse me,” Helen interrupted. “Did you say sewage tunnels?”

  Darius grinned. “That I did, Princess.”

  Helen took a deep breath. “Why can’t we jump?”

  “Because according to the schematics of the surrounding roads and grounds, there aren’t any streetlights near the house. And even if there were, I’m not sure we could find a way over the fence.”

  “Fine,” she sighed, trying not to envision the tunnels in her mind. It would do no good to think about them now. “The tunnels it is.”

  Darius nodded. “It’s about five miles to this exit point. If we hurry and don’t encounter any trouble along the way—”

  “What sort of trouble would we encounter?” It had never occurred to Helen that they might encounter trouble even before arriving at Victor’s estate.

  There was no hiding the exasperation in Darius’s eyes when he answered. “Wraiths, demons, rats, thieves. Anything of that sort.”

  Helen nodded, trying not to panic. “Right.”

  Darius’s gaze lingered on hers for a moment before he continued, as if he wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to interrupt him again. “Barring any trouble, we should be able to make the trip on foot in about two hours.”

  “And then what?” Helen asked.

  “We come up here.” Griffin tapped the circle and began tracing a line from it toward the house. “Then we make our way up the path to the house. It should be dark and easy to manage without being seen.”

  “What about guards?” Darius asked. “Does the schematic show where they’re posted?”

  “Here, here, and here.” Griffin tapped three sets of Xs on the map. One was at the gate, one at the front of the house, and one at the rear.

  Darius narrowed his eyes. “Seems a little light for a man of Alsorta’s position.”

  “These are just the ones we know about,” Griffin said. “There are almost certainly others inside.”

  “What about the guards at the gate?” Helen asked. “They look to be close to our entrance point.”

  “Not as close as they look on paper,” Griffin said. “But, yes. We’ll have to be quiet and careful when we make our ascent from the tunnels until we get our bearings.”

  Helen’s mind was working in pictures. She could see the grounds, the tree-lined drive depicted in the plans spread out on top o
f the desk. She envisioned the imposing stone house in the distance, though she had no real idea what it would look like once they got there. It didn’t matter. Her mind simply needed a placeholder for everything so it could do the work of calculating their options.

  “All right,” Helen said. “So we make it out of the tunnels without being seen. Then what? We sneak our way up the pathway and into the house?”

  “That’s right.” Griffin agreed. “There’s a dark side to the house here.” He tapped the grounds to the right of the house, and Helen could see a thick patch of diagonal lines drawn in close to the building. “The trees come almost all the way up to the house and there’s only one small light near the front. If we use the wooded area to skirt the more open grounds, waiting to move in closer until we get around to this side, we should be able to find a way in from there.”

  “Should?” Darius raised his eyebrows at his brother.

  Griffin shrugged with a smile. “It’s the best we can do.”

  Darius dropped his eyes, scanning the center of the schematic. “How will we know where he is once we’re in the house?”

  “We won’t,” Griffin said simply. “He could be anywhere. And as you can see, it’s a rather large house. But Galizur has confirmed that he’s in residence. The rest is up to us.”

  The room grew silent as they stared at the plans spread out in front of them.

  “When do we leave?” Helen finally asked.

  “Nine o’clock,” Darius said. “It will be fully dark by then and easier to slip into the tunnels unnoticed. Until then, it would be wise to rest and prepare. It will be a long night.”

  She said good-bye to Griffin with a chaste kiss at the door to her chamber, and though they did not linger as they had before, Helen felt herself dissolving once again into his embrace. This time, it was she who pulled away. It would be too easy to lose herself in the feel of his mouth on hers. The press of his body against her own.

  And now was not the time for distraction.

  They agreed to meet in the hall just before nine o’clock, and Helen closed the door resolutely behind her. She was halfway into the room when she heard a voice from the shadows in the corner.

  “That was touching.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” She nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “I hope you’ll forgive my unconventional entrance.” The voice was masculine, with a tinge of wry humor. “I didn’t think my presence would be welcome through the front door.”

  She peered into the shadows, the smudge of darkness in the wing chair finally clarifying.

  “Raum?”

  He rose, stepping toward her. “The one and only.”

  She took a step back, too many thoughts and possibilities running through her mind. She gave only passing consideration to screaming or running for help. Raum would be gone by the time Darius or Griffin arrived. And besides, he had helped her, in a manner of speaking, discover the identity of Victor Alsorta. Or had opened her eyes to it, at least.

  “Your ‘unconventional’ entrance hardly excuses you.” She continued into the room, stopping at the small sofa in front of the firebox to remove her boots. “I think it’s safe to say you aren’t welcome through any door—or window—in the Channing house.”

  “It’s not surprising.” He stopped near the bed. “I don’t seem to be welcome anywhere anymore. Even those few places that once offered me solace.”

  His sarcasm was steeped in sadness. Helen looked at him, trying to see beyond the rough exterior. “What do you mean?”

  He laughed a little. “Let’s just say that my employer has not been pleased with my work of late.”

  “Alsorta?”

  He waved away the question. “It doesn’t matter. I was alone long before I came to know Alsorta. I’m no stranger to isolation.”

  His words were not a ploy for sympathy. There was not martyrdom in them. They were instead cavalier, and for one fleeting moment she understood all that keeping her alive had cost him.

  She took a deep breath, pushing aside the sympathy that threatened to bubble to the surface.

  “What are you doing here, Raum?”

  “I heard you figured out Alsorta’s part in the killing of your parents.”

  His mention of her parents’ death caused her to feel their loss anew. She swallowed against it. “How do you know that?”

  He wandered to her dressing table, lifting from its surface a jar of face powder and holding it up to the light for inspection as if it were a foreign object. “I hear many things.”

  His knowledge of their discovery made her blood run cold. “Because of Alsorta?”

  He laughed, setting the powder back on the dressing table. “Hardly. Alsorta only knows what money can buy. There’s greater knowledge which cannot be had for any price.”

  She tried to decipher the cryptic words as Raum picked up a vial of her perfume, squeezing the bulb and spraying it into the air. He closed his eyes. “This smells like you.”

  She blushed, crossing her arms over her bosom as if to defend herself from the words. “How do you know what I smell like?”

  He opened his eyes slowly, as if reluctant to return from a pleasant dream. “I don’t know. I simply do.”

  The statement sat between them in the moment before Helen gathered her wits enough to speak yet again.

  “You should leave. I’ve let you stay too long already, and for no good cause. I should call Darius and Griffin right now. You deserve whatever is coming to you for what you’ve done to our families.”

  His expression darkened. He turned to the window. “I’m sorry, Helen. I already told you; I didn’t know it was you. Didn’t even know you were one of them.”

  She stalked toward him, stopping a few feet away. She relished the anger sparked by his words. She wanted—needed—to feel something. Anger was better than nothing at all, and certainly better than the sorrow that threatened to overtake her if she thought too long and hard about all she had lost.

  “The fact that you would even say such a thing only validates how despicable you really are.” She practically spat the words at him.

  It took him a few seconds to answer. “You think I’m despicable?”

  “What would you call it? You’ve murdered people—families, children—for your own personal gain.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “Not just for my gain. And not the way you think. It isn’t as if I was paid.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I told you; I need something.” He didn’t turn as he spoke. “Something Alsorta promised me.”

  And all at once, Helen knew. She saw Raum as a little boy, handing her the key in the garden. She heard Galizur, speaking in the depths of the laboratory, the Terrenious Orb turning its movements laborious and slow.

  Have you heard of the Lost Keeper?

  When the Dictata got wind of it, the Baranovas were banished from the Alliance. Andrei Baranova and his wife both committed suicide a short time later.

  She stepped closer to Raum, still facing the wall. “You want access to the records.”

  Raum turned to meet her eyes. And now, she saw the anguish there laid bare. “Alsorta promised that if I found the key and brought it to him, he would allow me into the records so that I could change the past.”

  “You want to bring your parents back.” She heard the wonder in her own voice. “But that’s… That’s mad.”

  His face flushed with anger. “Spoken as someone who was not orphaned at the age of sixteen.”

  She stomped toward him, stopping only when she came within inches of his body. “Spoken as someone who was orphaned days ago. By you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. I understand that you sought to ease your own pain, whatever it took. Even murder. Even bringing that pain upon others.”

  She saw his throat move, as if swallowing her words was painful. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is, Raum.” Sh
e looked into his eyes. “It is.”

  “What would you have done?” He said suddenly. “What would you do now? If there were a way to bring your parents back—to right my wrong—would you do it? Would you lie to do it? Would you kill to do it?”

  He seemed to look into her very soul in the moment before she turned away, making her way to the firebox, his questions ringing in her mind. She didn’t want to think about the answers. Didn’t want to imagine herself in Raum’s shoes. Most of all, she did not want to find reason for the sympathy she had felt for him almost all along.

  “I’d like you to leave now,” she said quietly.

  At first, she thought he had left. That he had gone through the window the way he came without another word. But then she felt the touch of his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t flinch. As if his touching her were the most natural thing in the world.

  “I’m sorry, Helen. I…” She heard him suck in his breath behind her as if drawing strength from the air in the room. “Now I have more than one reason to wish I could go back.”

  The admission sent a wave of regret crashing through her body.

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  He didn’t answer right away. She wondered if she had gone too far. If she had pushed the limits of their strange acquaintance beyond that which even Raum could abide. But then he spoke, his voice soft.

  “If you need me, I’ll be there.”

  She turned in time to see him sitting in the window frame, his legs dangling out-of-doors as he prepared to lower himself to the ground.

  “And Helen?” He looked back at her.

  She swallowed, steadying her voice. “Yes?”

  “Watch out for the dogs.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was just after five o’clock, and the afternoon was as gray as ever. Helen didn’t know how much light was required to jump, but it did not seem advisable to attempt it in the dim glow of the table lamp. Especially since she’d only jumped on her own once before and that was with Griffin’s help.

  She had less than four hours to see to her errand. Four hours until Griffin would expect her in the hallway outside her chamber.