“Would a comb help?” she asked.
Oddly touched, I shook my head. “Combs are designed for hair.”
There was an awkward beat of silence. I could hear her unsteady breathing as she glanced anywhere but me.
The study was small, with a wooden desk in the center. Bookcases lined two of the walls, filled with very thick, leatherbound tomes that look incredibly dull. The back wall, behind the desk, had a large, poorly painted artwork of their god Erlik. I assumed—who else would a man dressed in gray robes with his arms outstretched be? All in all, I could touch the sides of the room with the tips of my wings even without fully stretching them out.
Lilith sniffed, breaking the growing silence. She turned to face one of the bookshelves. “I last saw the book in here, but that was two or three years ago. It was very old. The parchment was crumbling. He’d left it open on his desk, and I was afraid to touch it. I shelved the other books.”
“What sort of work did you do for Grimshaw?” I asked, running my eyes across several of the books. Where to start? “Why do the elders ask you to do so much?”
“Goodness, I don’t even remember how I began helping them.” Lilith strode to one bookshelf and plucked a random book up, turning the pages. I suspected it was to give her an excuse not to look at me anymore. “I must’ve been tidying around the church, like most of the older girls do, and began helping here. Reverend Grimshaw was a busy man, and he wasn’t domestic. Soon I was invited to help prepare the elders for their meetings.”
Mmm, and I knew why, too. I’d seen the men in the church look her up and down, elders included. She was also sharp-witted, though she tried to hide it. Did the elders know there was a quick mind behind those pretty eyes?
I carefully went to the bookshelf, barely able to fit between two uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, and picked up a book from the top shelf. It had taken me several years to learn the Anglian language, especially with reading, but I was fluent now. I glanced at the title and made a face. Something about religious tax law. Ugh.
“So why do you need this, exactly?” Lilith asked. “You’ve said you want to go home, but I don’t understand what this book has to do with it.”
I sighed and glanced down at the top of her head. She resolutely refused to look up, instead paging through the next book. “Do you remember the stained glass panels in the manor house up north?”
“Where Gabriel, the leader of your seraphim lives,” Lilith confirmed.
I nodded. “We were a part of a warrior unit together, all twelve of us, called a sedge. He was our captain and I was the third in command, before the sky opened in the middle of battle and we Fell. We sheltered in the highlands of Alba as we healed. About forty years ago Gabriel purchased Mirkwold Manor, but never paid any attention to it.
“It wasn’t until Eve cleaned the place we discovered what the stained glass depicted.”
Lilith nodded. “The angel with black wings falling from the sky.” She’d been the one to notice it, the one to connect that image to here, Zorababel Grimshaw’s study.
“We assumed we were the first to Fall here. But that is clear evidence someone Fell before us. Someone from the royal house.”
“How do you know?” Lilith finally paused to look up at me, her eyes wider and bluer than the sky.
I swallowed, unnerved by the intensity of her gaze. “Only royal seraphim have black wings.”
“Do you think he made it back home?” She was being unusually reasonable and genial. I liked seeing Lilith thawing.
My wings hitched up and down. “I don’t know. If we can piece together who he was, where he went, and how his story became etched in glass in an old manor house…maybe we can follow his wingbeats to find a way home.” My mind drifted to Gabriel and Eve, his human mate. Gabriel had been clear that he would not return to Aerie, even if we eventually found the way. Eve was his home now, he said.
What would that feel like? That assurance and comfort found in another person?
As if reading my thoughts, Lilith asked, “What about Eve?”
I put another book back on the top shelf, then reached for the next. I thought I’d put all hope of love aside years ago, but meeting Eve and seeing Gabriel with her caused a little tendril of hope to surface again. “What about her?”
“You didn’t answer me last night. She’s sleeping with the seraph with white wings—Gabriel, you said.” She raised her brows in a wordless question.
“She is his mate. They’ll be together for the rest of Gabriel’s lifespan—hundreds of years,” I said simply, though it wasn’t simple at all.
Seraphim married for all the same reasons humans seemed to. But seraphim also had mates—if they were lucky. “Not every seraph has a mate,” I explained. “Or, at least, not every one can find their mate. It’s a matter of debate. Some people still argue over how and why we have mates at all—though mated pairs seem more likely to have children and heal faster. We’re not a very prolific species, and we rarely can have children with anyone who isn’t another seraph.”
“Hundreds of years! What makes them different from husbands and wives?” Lilith glanced down at the book in her hands.
“Mates are prized above all relationships. If you’re married and then find your mate, it is considered socially acceptable to dissolve the marriage to be with your mate.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus on the words in front of me. “But perhaps only one in five find their mates? So that doesn’t happen often.”
“How do you know you’ve found your mate?”
“It’s a feeling in your body. The ayim in our blood pulses wildly, and we feel hot and chilled, unsteady, and our chests often ache. The men grow possessive. The bond is complete after—” I broke off, thinking of how innocent Lilith likely was.
