“She has such hands, Sharine.” His mother came to stand beside him. “Did I tell you that I visited her? She has settled well into her new role in Morocco.” A touch on his forearm. “That is a good thing you did, Raphael.”
“The Hummingbird was the best person for the task.” The Cadre had needed a neutral party to take over the running of Lumia and its surrounding village, and no one in angelkind had a bad word to say about the Hummingbird. “She is outside politics and alliances.”
“But for her son,” Caliane reminded him.
“Yes.” For Illium, the Hummingbird would do anything . . . but even Illium hadn’t been able to hold his mother fully to this world. The Hummingbird existed in one of her own; she was a broken instrument, a lovely shattered piece. Raphael had never seen so much of her work in one place—and in doing so, he mourned her all the more.
The woman she’d been had understood life and love, understood what it was to be part of the world. Part of a family. But the family she’d painted with such tenderness was now as splintered as the Hummingbird’s mind.
34
While Elena’s stormfire wings continued to attract attention in the weeks after their return to New York, Raphael’s consort got off much easier than expected—the entire world was watching China. Not because anything had happened, but the opposite. Gadriel had reported a sudden and eerie calm among the residents, including vampires formerly on the verge of bloodlust.
“Nothing I can put my finger on, but . . . my skin creeps.”
Other commanders had reported much the same.
That might not have been enough to keep the Cadre distracted had Michaela not caused short tempers three weeks later with her outwardly petulant refusal to attend any meetings of the Cadre, even via a screen.
“The birth was a difficult one,” Keir murmured when Raphael and Elena called to check on her welfare. “I tell you this only because she has authorized it—but it must remain between you and Caliane.”
“You have our word.” This was not a thing of games or manipulation.
“The babe is strong, healthy,” Keir told them. “Michaela recovers with archangelic speed but even that is not instantaneous after a birth.” The healer’s ageless eyes held theirs. “She will not move to the Refuge. She is convinced her child will be safer within the walls of this stronghold.”
Raphael saw no real cause for concern, not with Keir overseeing the newborn’s health as well as Michaela’s convalescence. “It’s unusual for a child to be raised outside the Refuge, but it’s not an unheard-of choice—I spent much of my time in either Nadiel’s or Caliane’s territories.”
At first, his world had been confined to the safe spaces behind the walls of forts and citadels. To a small boy with wings he could barely control, it had been a vast play area full of secrets and challenges. He’d grown under the watch of honed warriors and highly educated courtiers who’d taught him the responsibilities that came with freedom. By the time he grew strong enough to fly over the wall for the first time, Nadiel had gifted him his first sword, and Caliane had taught him how to fire a bow.
“I do not worry about the babe’s safety but its development.” Keir ran a hand through his hair in a rare restless gesture. “You attended the Refuge school for many a term, enough to make friends and to learn to be a child with other children. Jelena and Avi always took Tasha out of school at the same time Caliane did you, so the two of you could be playmates.”
Such wild games he and Tasha had played. Two small sun-brown angels left to run riot across a vast court. I wish Tasha had not been so foolish as to attempt to come between us, he said to Elena. You would be most amused at the stories we could tell together.
Give me a decade or two. Wings of storm and lightning brushed his in an electric caress. I might have calmed down by then and no longer want to fillet Ms. McHotpants.
As he fought his smile, Keir said, “Nadiel was more lax in such matters, but his citadel was home to the mortal children of his youngest vampire soldiers. You were never isolated. I fear this babe will be brought up in a pretty prison.”
“There is time yet.” Angelic babies developed very slowly; the child would need nothing but its mother for some time.
“Yes, perhaps I am borrowing trouble without need.”
After Keir signed off to go attend the infant, Raphael turned to his consort. “Would you like to fly? The skies are clear.” A welcome change after two heavily cloudy nights.
“How about Cassandra’s site?”
Raphael nodded. Squadrons of senior angels overflew the site several times a day on their way to or from other tasks, and sent through a report, but he wanted to put his own eyes on the location where Cassandra had disappeared with Favashi in her arms.
No one else was around when they landed outside the fence that had once ringed a lava sinkhole. Today, when they walked to look through one of the windows in the fence, all they saw was a sheet of unbroken white.
This early into December and Manhattan hadn’t yet seen any snow. But here, it crunched under their boots, a glittering carpet lit by starlight.
A set of snowy wings drifted into view a second later, the owl coming to a graceful landing. Its mate landed moments afterward, and the two birds looked down, their gazes intent.
“They miss her,” Elena murmured. “I can feel it the same way I can feel their minds, know they’re mine for the moment.” She pressed her hand to the glass. “I hope she’s found a semblance of peace.”
The wind swirled around them, the snow rising. The owls took off in a silent burst, while Raphael and Elena stood in watchful quiet. Elena held her breath, not sure what she wanted. The last time Cassandra had risen, it had nearly meant the end of her world. Yet when it counted, the Ancient haunted by visions of the future had come through. She’d helped Elena—and she might’ve helped Favashi.
But the wind calmed as swiftly as it had risen, leaving only flecks of snow stuck to Elena’s winter-weight leather jacket. “Nope, that wasn’t great for the blood pressure.”
“A moment, hbeebti.” Stepping back so he wouldn’t buffet her, Raphael took flight. She watched as he swept over the former lava sinkhole from high above, the owls circling with him. See anything?
Yes. Come.
She rose to join him. Her heart tightened. Drawn in the snow was the body of a huge white owl, its wings spread wide. “She’s still partially awake.” Enough to know they had come to see her. Enough to reply. “Should we increase patrols?”
“There is no need.” He nodded at the owls who’d dipped lower, closer to their mistress. “If there comes a day when her owls leave you, we will know.”
“Yes.” The beautiful creatures were borrowed treasures, lent to her by an Ancient who had seen her birth millennia ago. “It’s not good that she’s still half awake, is it?”
“We all agree that Lijuan is also partially awake, so the Cascade energies may be disrupting their Sleep.”
Cold fingers on Elena’s spine. “Let’s hope they’re the only two Sleepers affected.”
That hope was dashed two hours later, when Astaad convened an emergency session of the Cadre. Raphael had dressed quickly for the meeting, while Elena sat out of shot naked but for the blanket she’d wrapped around her body.
The Cadre responded within a matter of two minutes—surprisingly enough, Michaela’s face was among them. Her razor-sharp beauty took center stage, but Raphael saw the lack of color under the skin, the slight puffiness around the eyes. If anyone else noticed, they’d put it down to having been woken out of a sound sleep.