“See,” she said to Nisia, “even Keir expects you to know everything.”
Harrumphing in a way only Nisia could, the healer continued her examination while Keir set up the IVs. As they worked, Elena admired Nisia’s wings—dark gray with white spots, she’d never seen them up so close. “Your feathers are so pretty.” Far more delicately beautiful than she’d ever realized.
Glaring at her as if she’d offered a mortal insult, Nisia stuck silvery things to Elena’s temples that led to a machine Keir had pulled out of another room. Then she pressed the stethoscope to Elena’s chest again. “Your heart is behaving oddly.” The healer sounded irritated. “It’s beating in a rhythm that’s not yours.”
“Huh?” Elena scratched her head, the damp strands of her hair cool against her skin. “How can you tell?”
“You’re a hunter. Surely you know mortal and immortal hearts beat in unique rhythms.”
“I mean, yeah, vampiric hearts can slow down to the point of almost not beating, but Raphael’s heart feels pretty normal to me.” She’d fallen asleep more times than she could count with her head on his chest, the steady beat of his heart lulling her into a deep rest.
“It may seem similar,” Keir murmured, “but there are minor but telling variations. The older the angel, the less power the heart needs to exert to keep the body functional. Prior to being encased, your heartbeat was close to a mortal’s.”
“Is my heart beating like an archangel’s now?” She couldn’t see a downside to that.
“No, not quite.” Nisia scowled at another device in her hand. “It’s beating as if you’re a three-hundred-year-old immortal rather than one barely born.”
“Her own cells must be merging with Raphael’s donated heart,” Keir murmured to Nisia. “The innate structure of her, her DNA, is yet morphing.”
The two switched into another language, the back and forth rapid.
“That’s another thing,” Elena interrupted when the discussion showed no signs of ending. “Why did my body accept the heart? What about donor rejection, all that stuff?”
Both healers stared at her. It was Nisia who said, “You were encased in a chrysalis like a giant insect and you’re worried about tissue rejection?”
“I’m just saying.”
“It was ambrosia that made you an angel,” Keir reminded her. “Ambrosia that came from Raphael.”
The pieces clicked. She and her archangel, they’d always been two parts of a whole. Settling back with a deep sense of rightness inside her, she stopped interrupting the healers and concentrated on zapping the IVs dry.
“I spot no signs of a chitinous shell,” Nisia said at one point. “It appears only your head is hard.”
Elena grinned. “Takes one to know one.”
Keir snorted a laugh—the first time Elena had ever heard him make such an inelegant sound.
Nisia was still glaring at him when the two left a half hour later. Elena wanted to go visit Tower friends, drop by the Legion’s green skyscraper, but even she wasn’t insane enough to attempt any of that in her current state. So there she sat with a blanket over her legs, mentally cursing the Cascade using blue words in multiple languages.
A knock on the door.
15
Come in before I die of boredom!”
The face that peeked around the door was thinner than when she’d last seen it, but as ridiculously pretty. She held out her arms. Illium came inside in a rush, his eyes brilliant with emotion, but halted a foot in front of her. “Will I break you?”
“I’m going to hit you in a second.”
A wicked grin before he put his arms around her . . . with conscious care. Elena told herself to be patient; she’d be careful, too, if a friend came back looking sixty-eight percent dead.
Good thing he hadn’t seen her at ninety-three percent dead.
“I brought you a present,” he said when he drew back. Stepping out, he returned with her special lightweight crossbow.
“Eeee!” Elena made grabbing gestures.
Laughing, he placed it in her hands. Then he proceeded to crash onto the sofa beside her and raid the fresh tray of food Montgomery had left for her. His wing brushed her side, warm and heavy. An intense happiness uncurled deep within her. This was normal, her friendship with Illium an easy thing that didn’t stand on ceremony.
As he ate, she petted and stroked her beloved crossbow.
It didn’t surprise her that Illium didn’t mention her lack of wings—he probably assumed they’d grow back, as was usual with angels who lost their wings in accidents or otherwise. Stomach tensing, she decided to let that subject lie for now.
It didn’t strike her till five minutes later that a person who couldn’t fly didn’t need a specialized crossbow. The blow hurt. Fuck that, she thought furiously. Deacon handmade this crossbow for me and I love it. No goddamn Cascade was going to steal that joy from her.
Another thought blindsided her a second later. “Hey, hold on! Did you go inside the house to get this?” Her heart was ice.
“Uh-huh,” Illium said from around a mouthful of tart.
Putting the crossbow aside with slow deliberation, she turned and grabbed the front of his sleeveless leather tunic. “Let me get this straight. You went back into a house that was about to blow up just to retrieve my crossbow?”
“I saved Aodhan’s painting, too,” said the blue-winged demon she was going to kill the instant she was strong enough. “Oh, and the jeweled blade the sire gave you.”
“He’s going to murder you, too.”
Illium shrugged muscled shoulders. “Worth it.”
“Nothing is worth your life!” Releasing his unrepentant form, she picked up the crossbow again. “I should shoot you with this.”
Instead of another infuriating riposte, he leaned in close. “Ellie, will you be all right?”
She heard the tremor in his voice, saw the pinched look in his eyes, her Bluebell who had grieved so long for his mortal lover. He didn’t forget the people he claimed—and he hurt for an eon if they were lost.
Raising one hand to cradle the side of his face, she said, “I came back from the dead, didn’t I? Twice.” The first time, she’d fallen in Raphael’s arms, her back broken and her consciousness fading. “My track record’s pretty good.”
Illium bowed his head, let her run her fingers through the blue-dipped black silk of his hair in soothing strokes. Outsiders might see them interact and believe it an omen of betrayal but those outsiders knew neither her heart nor Bluebell’s.
Illium chose to serve Raphael, his fidelity to his liege beyond question. He coveted nothing of Raphael’s and had been devastated when it appeared he might ascend early and have to leave the Seven. Elena still worried about that. He was becoming more and more powerful, but he wasn’t ready for the Cadre, wasn’t tough enough to withstand their brutal politics.
Today, he smiled at last and returned to the food.
“You want to know who asked after you?”
“I can guess.”
“Not all of them you can’t.” A gleam in his eye. “The man who sells bagels on the roof and has a little sister who he brings to work sometimes.”
“Piero?” She thought back to the last bagel she’d shared with the former petty criminal, the one where she’d lost three feathers: shimmering indigo and dawn, midnight black, charcoal gray with indigo at the edges.
Her heart had broken a little more with each one.
Ridiculously touched by the idea that Piero had worried about her, she said, “How is he?”
“Doing a roaring business, but he asks every angel who drops by his stand for news of you. Go say hello to him when you can.”
“I will.”
“Your father came, too.”
Her spine turned into an iron rod. “Jeffrey in the Tower?” She’d expect frogs to fall from the sky first.
“Wasn’t a doppelganger, I promise. I even asked Dmitri if he was breathing and looked human.”
Elena couldn’t find the words to reply. She was just glad she’d called Jeffrey.
“He cares about you, Ellie.” An odd tone to Illium’s voice. “My father . . .” A rough exhale. “Never mind.”
The comment broke through her paralysis. “What is it?” Illium never talked about his father.
He just shook his head today, too. “Jeffrey’s here and he cares enough to keep track of you.”
At least he stuck around.
Elena had spoken those same words or similar enough plenty of times. She’d loved her sparkling, effervescent mother so much. So had Jeffrey. Marguerite had always been the laughing, loving heart of their family, sunshine bottled up in a delicate frame, her love for her husband and daughters worn on her sleeve. But, when the worst had happened, that love hadn’t been enough to convince her to fight to hold on to life.
She’d forgotten Jeffrey and Elena and Beth in her grief over Belle and Ari. Elena’s final memory of her mother would always be a swinging shadow on the wall, a high-heeled shoe abandoned on tile. Marguerite had chosen to leave them. Jeffrey had chosen to stay. At times, it was that painfully simple.
16
The skies above Manhattan were night-dark by the time Raphael landed on the balcony outside his and Elena’s living area. Warm light poured out through the glass, welcoming him home. His consort was ensconced on the sofa, lovingly polishing what looked to be a well-used set of throwing knives.
Looking up from her task, she raised an eyebrow. Why are you standing there staring through the glass like a creepy stalker?
He felt his lips twitch. I was simply admiring my consort. Entering, he walked across to press a kiss to her nape. “Where did those come from?”
“Deacon used my old throwing blades to get the weighting right for my new ones. He kept the old ones in storage for reference. Sent them over today to keep me company while he forges new ones.” She played a blade through her fingers with a dexterity he wouldn’t have expected so soon after waking. “I told him to send the bill to you.”