Behind me, Arabella hissed, “Kneel!”
Yes, kneel before Zod,I mocked, but she didn’t get it. We had a lot of movie nights to catch up on.
The Guide went an odd shade of purple when he realized who had spoken. “Gavriel’s mate!”
Arabella made the same face I did. “Not even for one second,” she said. “What has happened to these servants of the Maker of All, that they don’t recognize your position, sister? That they don’t feel it in their very beings. The realm answers toyou. If nothing else, they could see the proof of it, lying bound before…” Her voice trailed off as she examined the shadow creature. “Seriously?”
I glanced at the beast, which was still tied up. “What?”
“You… bound it in veryintricateknots, Feather.” Her eyes were wide as she took in the patterns I’d made with the ropes.
I shrugged. “It’s macramé.”
“It is not macramé.” Her eyebrows wiggled up and down. “Macraméis one of theholyarts.”
I fought back a laugh. “Stop judging. Shibari knots are incredibly difficult to master. I had to watch a lot of YouTube videos to learn that pattern.” I tilted my head to one side. “It’s actually very pretty, I think.” She hummed in assent, and we both turned back to the Guides.
Perception waved to catch my attention. “Feather, I need to go help Truth and the others. Can you hold these?”
“Sure.” I pulled up a few more strings of power, and looped them around the Guides’ wrists like zip ties. When one of them cursed at me, I tightened their cuffs like I was tying off a garbage bag full of liquid poo.
“The others were taking the food, too,” they complained. “It’s every soul for themselves. The Abyss is upon us.” Their voice was filled with greed and anger, but also with fear. I’d seen this sort of thing dozens of times or more on Earth. When people got scared, they got grabby. Hoarding things they didn’t need, just in case. They couldn’t see past their fear. I understood it, but I had to put a stop to it, now.
I tried not to yell. “Where were you going with all that food? To a group of injured Protectors, like we are?”
The Guide’s gaze fell. “No. I was… I was not.”
Just then, Truth and the others came racing out of the Dining Hall, carrying sheets so full of food over their shoulders, they looked like Santa sacks. A few Protectors I’d never met came behind them. “These are the chefs, Feather,” Truth explained breathlessly.
One stepped up and bowed before me, his wings glinting a pinkish-gold in the dimming light of the hall. He had marks on his face, like he’d been in a fight, and when he glared at the Guides I’d tied up, I knew why. “The other chefs and I have the ability to tap into a small pocket of Sanctuary’s power to create new foods from the pure power source.”
“You’re Makers?”
He blushed. “No, nothing like you and Maker Mikhail. We do what we can.”
“We’ll need you.” I nodded to Perception. “Take them to The Merge. Sing loud as you go; it’ll attract attention. If anyonepokes their head out, tell them the leader of Sanctuary said to meet at The Merge.”
“The leader of Sanctuary?” the head chef asked, his eyes moving from Arabella, to the bound shadow beast, to me. Then he and all his chefs bowed their heads in my direction. “We hear and obey, Leader Feather.”
Aw yeah. I could get used to that.
As soon as he’d divested them of all their stolen food, Truth dragged the sputtering, protesting Guides away to The Merge. Arabella stayed with me, and we both stared down at the shadow beast. The tiny knots that lined up all along what sort of resembled a spine really were well done, I thought. “I need to untie its… foot parts, so it can walk,” I mused.
Arabella gasped. “You should kill it! You can’t be thinking of taking it with you. It’s not a stray kitten.”
I sighed. Yeah, that probably wasn’t my best idea. It was a guaranteed way to cause a panicked stampede out of there. But… “I can’t kill it, Beauty. It’s helpless. And I keep thinking, why does the Abyss even want inside here? Is it like a moth, trying to get to a light? Is it the moth’s fault that it doesn’t want to stay in the dark?”
“Technically, moths are following a mating instinct,” she began. But then the shadow beast… moaned. It was a multi-tonal, agonized sound, and I could have sworn I recognized the underlying voice.
I squatted next to the thing, running one hand over the golden cord that bound it prettily, appreciating my own efforts, even if no one else did. I spoke to Arabella as I thought of what to do with the captive beast. “They tried to teach me that there were some souls that were bad to the core. That couldn’t be helped. But Rumple—Seraphiel—told me that all souls are redeemable. There are no bad ones.”
“These souls have become something else, Feather,” she said, leaning over me, her wings wrapping around us both. “They have taken on so much spiritual imbalance, they’ve been twisted. Warped.”
I held up one hand, showing her the curling patterns of hematite gray that moved under the surface. “Like I am? I’m not pure. But I talked my way into the Celestial Realm. And who am I to say that these lost souls can’t find their way there, too? If I unmake them now, I’ve decided they’re not redeemable. And I’m not prepared to do that.”
“It’s not fair,” Arabella complained, in a voice thick with emotion.
I glanced at her. “What’s not?”
