Dark, shimmery smoke slithered around the white rock, enticing andchilling.
“How long do you think it will take Jarod to get his score to fifty?” I asked, just as two Malakim materialized in the Channel behind us, golden orbs nestled in their palms—harvestedsouls.
“Evening, Seraph,” bothintoned.
“Good evening,” Ashersaid.
“How long?” I asked again, one-trackminded.
Asher cleared his throat. “Your parents are here.” He nodded to the AbaddonChannel.
“My . . .parents?”
Two winged figures emerged from the steel smoke, draped in black leather from neck to toe. They stopped in the middle of the canyon, shimmery wings tucked into theirspines.
I pushed all thoughts of Jarod aside and concentrated on the angels who’d created me. I didn’t run to them, the same way they didn’t run to me—all of usstrangers.
My mother’s golden hair snapped in the breeze, wavy and long like mine. My father’s was cut short but not short enough to hide the copper shade of it that shimmered in the glowing rocks confiningus.
“Are you ready to meet them?” Asher asked, as another Malakim passed by us, leading his collected soul toward the dark entrance ofpurgatory.
Jarod’s face flashed behind my swollen lids, and my hand rose to my heart. “No. But I wasn’t ready for any ofthis.”
I pressed my palm to my chest and shut my eyes, and for a second, I could almost imagine it washispulse I was feeling instead of my own. I’d started to know the rhythm of his blood better than myown.
Soon,I told myself, inhaling the lingering scent ofhim.
When I opened my lids, the two angels were watching me, patient or unhurried, I wasn’t sure. “What am I supposed to call them? Mom andDad?”
“It’s up toyou.”
“What do you call your parents,Seraph?”
“I call them by theirnames.”
My gaze lingered on my father’s wings, entirely silver as though tipped in a vat of liquid metal. Like mine. “What are my parents’names?”
“Raphael andSofia.”
I studied their features as I loomed closer, trying to spot othersimilarities.
“Hello, child,” Raphaelsaid.
Child?How old was my father? Since he was a pure Verity like myself, and I was the first to be born in several generations, I estimated he was quiteancient.
“How lovely you are,” Sofia said, her gaze running over me the same way mine had raced over her. She broke away from my father to move closer and lifted her hand but hesitated. “MayI?”
May she what?Touch me?I nodded, and the pads of her fingers landed gently on mycheekbone.
“You have my eyes and mouth, but your wings”—she turned to Raphael, her pale pink feathers tipped in silver swaying from the abrupt movement—“they’re your father’s. Pure Verity wings.” She swung back around, green eyes glistening withamazement.
In the human world, she would’ve been considered my sister. Not my mother. Angels who remained in Elysium were untouched by time. Only those who traveled to Earth or lived in guilds aged, slowly but still their faces wrinkled and their skinsoftened.
“Why didn’t you ever come to see me?” I hated how juvenile I sounded, especially since most parents didn’t visit theiroffspring.
Sofia looked at Asher as though seeking help in how to answer my question. “It is hard to get away from Abaddon. Our workforce isn’t very consequent in the nether region of ourdimension.”
Work had kept them away? “In twenty years, you couldn’t get a single dayoff?”
