From her perch behind me, Sunny went on, “Then they all met at the gate, and one of the shadows?—”
“Valor,” Presh interrupted. “Don’t leave off the names. They’re important.”
“Yes, Valor. He saved your Papa Gavriel at the very last second. He became completely purified at that instant?—”
“Like I will, Mom?” Presh interrupted again. She popped a marshmallow in her mouth and stared intently at my new designs, tilting her head at the angelic sigils.
I didn’t answer. I’d told her a year before, when she was crying at how different she looked from everyone else in the Limen, that of course she would be purified someday. Truth had been standing nearby, as well as Sunny, and they had both gotten violently ill. The bitter uncovering of the lie had revealeda terrible truth: that Presh would never ascend. I wasn’t sure what lay in her future, but it was not the Celestial Realm.
Sunny hummed. “Do you want me to keep telling the story or not?” Presh nodded, and flopped down to her stomach on the wispy silver grass, still weaving the flower crown. “Even though Valor could have ascended right then, he chose to stay behind with Revel, to give your Mommy and Daddies a chance to escape to the Limen and get back to you.”
At this point in the story, when Sunny had told it before, Presh had always cheered. Today, though, she sighed heavily.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I asked.
For a moment, she didn’t answer, only studied the sky, the vast, empty expanse of the void that surrounded us on all sides, save the cloud wall that separated us from the Celestial Realm. Then she said quietly, “I feel sorry for Revel. He’s stuck there, and he never did anything wrong. Valor as well. Even if he was a bad guy before, he got good, right? He changed.” I could tell the answer to this was vital.
“Yes. He did become good. You know, we don’t know what happened to Revel or Valor. Maybe they went to Earth through the Flight Hall. Maybe they ended up defeating all the Abyss beasts and are still sweeping up the mess.”
She giggled. “Maybe they found the old nursery that Papa Gavriel made me. And they’ve been eating horrible yak yogurt from the magic box for years and years.” I closed my eyes while she went on, her hands moving in an oddly hypnotic pattern as she wove flowers into the crown on her lap. “Maybe Revel’s waiting there, for his princess to come find them. And then they’ll all go together to fight the void monsters. And they’ll kill them all, every one of them, for making Revel have to stay away from…” She broke off with a tiny exhalation, almost a sob, and I opened my eyes and sat up in alarm. Then she whispered, barelyloud enough to hear, “I’ll go back and save him someday. I won’t let him stay there forever.”
I heard the deep truth in her words, and when I glanced at Sunny, she nodded, though she was frowning slightly. “If anyone can, it’s you, Presh,” I agreed.
She’d finished the flower crown, but for once, she didn’t put it on Shadow’s head. This time, she placed it over her own lavender and purple hair. “You like it, Mom? It’s my practice crown.”
“Practice crown?” I repeated, determined to ask for more, but then she leaned back on her elbows, staring out into the void.
“Look, Tata, Mom! That star’s coming right to us!” I followed her pointing finger and saw immediately what she meant.
A flare of fire, shining more like a sun than a star, was burning its way across the void. It was following the same path all the human souls did, but this one was so much brighter, the trail it left across the void an enormous, shimmering tail of power.
“Rumple,” I whispered, and began to run for the edge of the void. I wasn’t certain how I knew it was him, but something inside me insisted it was. What else would shine this brightly, if not the First of the Celestial Children?
As I ran, I called Gavriel.Come quickly, to the edge! It’s Rumple, it has to be! I need you to light up my pattern!If he didn’t see what Sunny called the Limen’s welcome mat, he might overshoot and go to the Fields of Joy, at the far reaches of the Celestial Realm, or even farther.
I’m almost there,Gavriel answered, and in only a handful of seconds, his light wings had cut through the dim early morning. He didn’t question my assertion that this was Rumple, just as he’d never doubted my belief that Rumple was still alive somehow, and would return. And now, he didn’t even wait until he was overhead before he let out a blast of Sanctuary’s fire,aiming it at the enormous mandala I’d spent years on. The sigils caught the light and amplified it a thousand times over.
Rumple!I called, out loud and in my thoughts.Seraphiel, my love! My first love, my teacher, beloved! Here I am! Here I am!
For a moment, I thought he would keep sailing past. The curved track of the brilliant star’s approach, if it stayed the same, would take him over the cloud wall.
It did stay the same for a while, but when Gavriel aimed Sanctuary’s power at the center of the mandala, all the sigils I had inscribed flared up at once, sending a pattern of reflected light in every direction, lighting the Abyss all around.
It worked. The star veered off its course, hurtling toward us instead. It stopped short of where we stood, hovering in the air as if it were taking us in. Then, slowly, it began to descend.
It was like the sun was landing on the Limen.
Sunny muttered a soft curse and wrapped Precious in her arms, protecting her from the wave of heat. I could smell the glue on the cloud ground melting.
Precious sobbed. “Get her home,” I ordered Sunny, my eyes still on the light that had landed a dozen yards away. Without hesitating, she scooped Precious up and flew back to their home, with Shadow racing along beneath them.
Gavriel stepped up to me and grabbed my hand, as I squinted into the light that was coming nearer by the second. As if the meteor had landed and was walking toward me.
My plan had worked. He had found me, seen my art, and flown to me. My tears evaporated as they fell, and I smiled into the blazing presence, and then at Gavriel.
Rumple had come back to me.
“It’s painful,” Gavriel said, flinching. “So hot. Too bright.”
