“We’ve gotten off track,” I interrupted, as Mikhail’s hands skated too close to the juncture of her upper thighs to be polite. I would have sworn he was doing it to tease me, from his challenging expression. What was he getting at? I glared back. “Let me see if I understand this. You believe the creaturewho met you in the Abyss was a High Angelus. Specifically, Seraphiel. He is also the one who met you in your first life on Earth, and taught you to take the smut you bore onto yourself, as your burden.” I paused. “The same one who encouraged you to commit serial killings again and again over the course of centuries.”
“Well, when you say it that way, it sounds pretty bad. And that’s technically true, but it was for a reason, Gavriel. Hehelpedme help others.”
I didn’t want to dismiss her feelings, but I needed her to understand. If this wasn’t Rafe who had been interacting with her for so long, it was almost certainly a vastly powerful demon. They could change their forms. But if it was Rafe… “Did you see him in the Abyss?”
“I was mostly dead,” she said, dodging the question. “I didn’t have eyes for weeks. It was dark.”
My mind spun at the implications of her claim, that the one she thought was Rafe had somehow remade her, but I pressed on. “But could youseehim at any point?”
She set her lips mulishly, clearly refusing to answer anything about his appearance. I had a feeling there was something she was hiding. “He knew about you and Mikhail; he sang songs he taught you. I can sing them now and prove?—”
I held up a hand. “The Seraphiel we knew would never have done such harmful things to a young Novice. He would not have dreamed of asking a new soul to carry such a burden, or have suggested you somehow owed it after trying to protect your sister—” She tried to interrupt again, and I stood, pacing. “No, Feather. Whoever did that, no matter how many songs he sang, or how he comforted you, that was the act of a shadowed soul. And if it was… if itisSeraphiel, then he’s not the same Angelus we knew and loved. He taught you to kill, and to suffer, Feather.Even if it is my dear friend, it sounds as if he’s been twisted past redemption.”
She hissed. “Shut up.”
I stopped pacing. “You dare?”
“I do.” She jumped down from Mikhail’s lap and strode up to me, glaring into my face.
“You’re so small,” I said without thinking.
“You’re so small-minded,” she retorted. “Can’t you see? Rumple, Rafe, he couldn’t communicate with you. If he’s twisted, it’s your fault. He was trapped in the Abyss, and by the time he got to the gate, you’d stopped singing to it. It was broken long before the Well was sealed up.Youbroke it, Gavriel. You broke your promise to him to sing to the gate!”
I flinched. Ihadmade that promise. And for centuries, I had sung. But the trouble on Earth, the imbalance, had been growing worse every year, and it had seemed reasonable, logical, to spend my time fighting. Correcting the imbalance, rather than singing.
And after Arabella fell, I didn’t have the heart to sing at all.
“It might not be him,” I said gently. “It might be someone playing his part. Trying to convince you to let him into Sanctuary, or even the Celestial Realm. I’m sorry, Feather, but I’m not going to tear down the Great Gate to find out.”
She let out a silly, made-up curse and stamped her feet. Flecks of glitter rose from the floor, swirling in the air. “You don’t need to worry about that,” she grumbled. “Rumple said he doesn’t know if he can hold the gate anyway now. Especially if you won’t sing to it.”
“It’s sealed,” I explained calmly. “When you went through—” I stopped speaking when I realized what she meant. “It’s no longer sealed? It’s…” As if on cue, a tremor began, a small one. Then a more significant shudder rocked the table, causing grapes to spill and roll off the side.
Feather heaved a great sigh of frustration, but her eyes betrayed her fear. “That’ll be the gate falling, I would think. Rumple said you needed to sing. He said he’d forgive you if you did. You better get ready to do some explaining.”
On her last word, the entire Maker Hall shook, as if the foundations of Sanctuary were being uprooted. Tools crashed to the floor, pottery and glass breaking. A low-pitched hum resounded across the room, originating from the far wall. I frowned in the direction of the sound. It hadn’t been the naming chime, the only quasi-musical object Mikhail kept in here, but something else. Something that sent a frisson of alarm through me.
Then screams about the Great Gate falling filtered in from the corridor, and we all ran to the door. Mikhail was ahead of me, but he didn’t take flight. “Come on!” I yelled, pulling on his arm.
“Not without my mate,” he replied. Feather had ducked back behind a table and was changing clothes. For a moment, she spun around, and I saw a glimpse of silvery skin, small, rounded breasts, and a feather? On her chest? Had Mikhail exchanged feathers with her so soon?
It wasn’t necessary, but in the old days, exchanging marks had been a way of cementing a claim on one’s mate. But something about the burnished feather she bore was familiar, almost… almost as if it were calling to me.
I shook off the eerie feeling, and leaped into the air. Mikhail followed with Feather in his arms, a breath later.Her wings don’t work, do they?I thought at him.
Purely decorative,he agreed, his mental tone so filled with satisfaction and humor, I was shocked. Didn’t he see what was happening? Sanctuary was falling. I must have thought that too loud because he angled a glance at me as we flew.Every realm could fall and I would still be safe inside my sweet soul’s love.
I swallowed bitterness, then flew faster. His next words stopped me, though.
Go check on Arabella, Gav. I’ll go to the gate with Feather.
Arabella. My stomach felt as if I’d eaten rocks. How had my first thought not been of her? My helpless mate, lying in a room—anything could have happened to her. I changed direction in an instant. Had I pulled the crystal domed lid over her before I left for Earth almost two months ago? Certainly I had. But I flew faster anyway, praying she was safe.
An older Protector I had known well in earlier years was stationed at the door outside her room. “Merry, what are you doing here?”
“My shift,” he replied with a puzzled frown. “When the shaking started again, I checked on her. She’s fine.” He hesitated as I folded my wings and gestured for him to open the door. “What’s happening?”
“Feather returned,” I said absently. There was no reason to hide it; all of Sanctuary would know soon enough. “The gate’s not sealed.”
