Hues and colors I had no name for assaulted my eyes. I’d always thought heaven, or the Beyond as the demons called it, was a place of light. White, pure light, but this place … Oh, God. If this was where the celestials lived, our world must seem so dull to them.
It was as if every color had been taken from this palette and muted before painting the human world. There were blues that were green and yellow mixed together with a sheen that was golden. There were deep ochre colors with a silver sheen. My vocabulary wasn’t equipped to describe what I was seeing, and my mind was too small to comprehend the spectrum of hues that existed here.
“It’s a little over the top, isn’t it?” Mal said. “It’s just greedy if you ask me.”
I closed my eyes for a moment of relief from the sensory overload, and the rush of a river filled my head. The chitter-chatter of life followed shortly on its heels. I opened my eyes, and the sounds faded. It was as if my brain couldn’t process everything at the same time.
“You’ll get used to it,” Mal promised.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” a voice said from my right.
A white counter had appeared on the grass, and an androgynous figure stood behind it. Where the heck had that come from?
“Welcome, Seraphina Dawn, blood of Eve,” the celestial said. Her eyes were pure silver with no distinct iris or pupil, so I wasn’t sure she was actually looking at me. “Welcome, Malachi, blood of Lilith.”
I stared at the figure for a long beat. She continued to stare straight ahead. “You know who I am? You know my bloodline?”
“I am Celestia. I know those who enter.”
I looked at Mal. “Wait … all this time, all you had to do was ask Celestia what my bloodline was?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Mal said. “You have to come here for Celestia to identify you.”
“So why didn’t Conah just bring me?”
Mal shrugged. “Your demonic bloodline wasn’t important.”
There was something off about the way he said it … as if my demonic bloodline wasn’t important, but something else was?
Broken.
They’d called me broken.
There was still stuff they weren’t telling me. Yeah, we’d be having a little Dominus meeting about that soon enough. Once my stint at Deadside was done for the week and before my first patrol. It would be cards on the table, no more secrets, guys. I was done with that shit.
But first. I flicked my wrist, and my scythe appeared. “I have a delivery.”
A pillar slid up out of the ground, white and cylindrical, and rose up to about six feet in height then stopped. The surface was white and opaque, like the counter that Celestia was standing behind.
“Please, make your deposit,” Celestia said.
She sounded like a machine. She didn’t move, didn’t look at either of us, and her voice was neither male nor female.
“Um, Mal … Can she see us?”
Mal walked over to Celestia and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn’t flinch but annoyance bit at the inside of my throat.
“Don’t do that. It’s fucking rude.”
He arched a brow. “She’s not alive, Fee. Not in an organic way anyway. Celestia is …” He frowned. “Let me see … How to explain …” His brows shot up. “Ah, right. Celestia is kind of like the uber-powerful version of Siri or Alexa. She’s the receptionist, the gatekeeper. And this …” He indicated the forest. “Is our waiting room. A beautiful simulation that doesn’t go anywhere. Trust me, I’ve tried. You walk in any direction, and you end up right back here.”
“Please make your deposit, Seraphina Dawn,” Celestia said. “And thank you for clarifying my existence, Malachi, although it is lacking.”
Was that humor in her tone? “How does this place work?”
Celestia was silent.
“She won’t answer you,” Mal said. “There are certain questions she doesn’t respond to.”
Hmmm. “What powers the Underealm?”
“The Underealm is powered by choal, an incredibly powerful fossil fuel found only in the Underealm.”
“But what powers the Beyond?” Mal asked.
Silence.
My scalp prickled as an idea formed in my mind. “Am I broken?”
“Fee, what the fuck?” Mal intervened.
But I forged on, heart pounding, because maybe I could get my answers now. Right this minute. “Celestia, is there something wrong with me I don’t know about?”
There was a long beat of silence, and then heat rushed from the top of my head right down to my toes then back again. Celestia’s silver eyes flashed several times.
“Psychic scan commencing.”
“Stop,” Mal snapped.
The heat climbing up my body rushed back down and was gone.
Mal looked pissed off. “We didn’t come here to play with Celestia, we came to make a deposit.” He indicated the pillar. “Do it, and let’s go. I have other shit to be getting on with. I have guests this evening.”
More women, no doubt, and why the fuck did that make me ragey? “Why’d you stop her?” I narrowed my eyes. “What the heck aren’t you telling me?”
Movement at the periphery of my vision demanded my attention. I tore my gaze from Mal’s guilty face. A door had opened in the forest scene, and a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped through. I recognized that buzz cut and the harshly chiseled features. Straight dark brows flicked up slightly at the sight of us, and his amber gaze swept over us. Mine dropped to the thick leather-bound book he was clutching in his left hand. Could that be what I thought it was …
“Uriel. Grigori. Lower-circle celestial.” Celestia announced his presence.
The corners of Uriel’s mouth dimpled as if he was holding back a curse. But celestials didn’t curse … did they?
“Uri,” Mal said.
“Malachi,” Uri replied in an even tone.
“Is that the ledger?” Mal asked.
“It is,” Uri said.
My hunch had been right. This was the ledger, which held the list of items stored in the vault at the Academy. “Are you going there now?”
Uri’s impassive gaze flicked to me. “Yes.”
“I want to come with you and help.”
I sensed Malachi relax beside me. He probably thought he was off the hook about the secrets. Like fuck. I’d get him later. Right now, I wanted to help identify our missing item—the thing the Dread had attacked the Academy to steal. I needed to do something useful, dammit, but Uri hadn’t replied to me yet. He was too busy looking at Malachi. Wait, was he waiting for Mal to say it was okay?
He so fucking was.
My temper snapped. “Don’t look at him. I’m asking you a question. Me. Not him. He does not speak for me. Do you understand?”
Heat was rising up my throat and burning the backs of my eyes. I was so sick of this look-over-her-head behavior the Dominus, and now the bloody celestial, were subjecting me to. God, I was mad. Chest-achingly mad, and yes, I wanted to unleash it, just let go and rage.
Bad idea. So bad. Control it, Fee. What the fuck. This was totally over-the-top anger as usual.
“Fuck, Fee, am I going to have to kiss you again?” Mal asked.
My head whipped around, and a feral growl clawed its way up my throat.
Mal’s eyes widened. “Fee …”
Whoa, where had that come from? Last I’d checked my body didn’t make that kind of sound. Breathe, dammit. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I could do this. I could control myself.
The red haze retreated, and the vise around my chest eased its epic grip. I tucked in my chin, took a breath through my nose, exhaled through my mouth, then raised my head to lock eyes with Uri.
“I want to help.”
The corner of Uri’s mouth lifted slightly. “The rest of the watchers are on duty, so I would appreciate the assistance.”
Mal didn’t protest. Even if he had, I’d have told him where to shove it. But he was probably happy to wash his hands of me for now. Probably thought I’d forget about our little conversation.
“I’ll see you back at quarters,” Mal said, backing away toward the portal entrance. At least that’s where I thought it was because right now everything was forest.
I narrowed my eyes at him, shooting daggers of intent. “Yes, we can finish our chat then.”
I thought he’d argue with me, but he pressed his lips together and nodded. “I think it’s time we did.”
And then he was gone, just winking out of existence.
“Please make your deposit,” Celestia said for the third time.
Shit. “Uri?”
He tucked the huge book under one arm and tapped the pillar. “Just touch it with your scythe.”
I did as he asked. The blade glowed so brightly I had to turn my head away. When I looked back, the blade had dimmed to its usual glow, but the pillar had become almost translucent. White orbs swirled inside, sliding over each other, bumping into one another.
Souls.
These were human souls.
The pillar thickened to an opaque state and then slid back into the forest floor.
I looked up at Uri. “What happens to them now?”
His stormy eyes darkened, and his mouth turned down slightly. “We should go. The sooner we identify the stolen items, the better. Powerful artifacts do not belong in the hands of Dread.”
He held out his free hand. “I’ll have to touch you to take you with me.” He was looking at me earnestly. “Do I have permission?”
Permission-asking. There hadn’t been much of that for a while. “Yes. Yes, you do.” I took his hand and stepped close to him. A strange thrum vibrated between us, but it lasted less than a second.
“I will have to hold you,” he advised.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” I looked up at his hard, stubbled jaw. “Celestials need to shave, huh?”