Sid considered as he slid into the backseat beside Alyce. Sera’s archive notes had bullet pointed Nanette as a friend of the league. Since she was possessed by an angelic force, would her goodwill extend to a rogue who walked with one foot in the darkness? Indecision whipsawed him as if the feralis had him in its grasp again.
No, this was worse than feralis fangs. Of course he was vulnerable to death, but to indecision?
Steeped in Bookkeeper lore, he hadn’t seen that the mysteries had left myriad hairline cracks, until Maureen had shouted at him, right before she walked away for the last time. “Your crackpot ideas won’t ever mean anything in the real world.”
His Bookkeeper heritage had been secret, of course—she’d only supposed he had the most doddering odd thesis adviser—which made her accusation undeserved, yet still so true. He would have always been a closed book to her. It was amazing that his mother had stayed with his father long enough to bear children.
She would have lived if she hadn’t. And he should have known he could never waver after the price had been paid.
“Your thoughts are louder than Archer’s key,” Alyce murmured.
He averted his face with a frown. “I don’t know what you—”
Archer started the car with a grinding rattle as the worn gears inside the wretched vehicle slipped and finally caught.
Sid pulled his seat belt into place with one swipe and winced as the strap slapped his bandaged shoulder. “I’m not that rusty. Yet.” He raised his voice, not that the talyan in the front seat needed it. “A second opinion sounds good. Call Nanette.”
Alyce watched him a moment, then pulled her belt across her lap. She sat back, her finger resting on the escape button.
If only he’d left himself such an easy out. But a Bookkeeper was in for life.
And—unlike a talya—for death.
When they parked in front of the squat concrete building, Alyce stiffened, her heart beating a painful double tempo. “It looks like a hospital,” she whispered.
Sidney took her hand and tugged her gently from her seat. “It’s a church. See the pretty doors?”
Stained glass spread across both double doors in a golden sunburst on a cobalt field. Pretty, yes. She tucked herself against him as he followed Archer and Sera toward the church.
Alyce glanced back. Their mottled car waited alone at the curb, though traffic flowed ceaselessly past on the freeway just beyond a chain-link fence. Over the monotone rumble and the thick stink of exhaust, her senses were half-deadened. She hunched her shoulders, but Sidney was pulling her onward between the doors.
“See?” He squeezed her hand. “It’s okay.”
“It is okay.” As she passed by, she trailed her free fingers along the cool lead seams of the glass. “I can break through those if we need to.”
His reassuring smile stiffened at the corners. “You won’t need to.”
She looked down at the mosaic tile set in the doorway. BE WELCOME was spelled out in the same cheery blues and golds as the stained-glass doors, but she was not well at all.
Sera glided through the open, quiet vestibule with the ease of familiarity, calling out, “Hey, Nanette!” Her voice echoed from the bigger, unlit room visible ahead of them through another set of open double doors, flanked by decorative flags in the shapes of sunflowers and empty except for row upon row of stacking chairs.
A small, redheaded woman with milkmaid hips and creamy pale skin to match stepped out of the doorway down the side hall. She smiled a welcome, but she clasped and unclasped her hands in an unsteady rhythm over the pink heart embroidered on the front of her denim jumper. “Hi, hi. Just so you know—”
A man with eyes more gold than the stained-glass sun rounded the corner of the doorway behind her. Though the corridor was dark, the light through the open door made his white shirt glow. “Just so you know, I’m here too.”
Archer and Sera stopped abruptly. Alyce grasped Sidney’s hand to keep him from walking into their stiffened spines. The surge of clashing ethers hinted she might be dragging Sidney out through that glass, after all.
The man fixed her with that gilded glare. “What aberration have you brought to this house?”
The chill that lurked in the spaces between her bones leached through her. He wasn’t talking to her; he was talking about her.
Between one heartbeat and the next, her muscles seized as if her teshuva had taken her whole body in its hand, ready to drag her away.
“Mr. Fane!” Nanette’s voice was an earnest tremor. “Cyril, please. You said you’d wait to see what they wanted.”
“Maybe I meant lie in wait.”
“Here I thought angels couldn’t lie,” Archer drawled.
“And I thought the talyan were repentant, but you’re harboring a …” Fane’s squint was as curious as Sidney’s but edged with aversion.
Alyce fought the unbearable urge to flee and tugged sharply at Sidney’s sleeve. He winced, but they had more problems than his bitten shoulder. “They are possessed,” she warned.
“Not demonically,” he said in a low voice. “Nanette is angel-touched, and Fane is a warden with the higher angelic spheres.”
“That is why they are very not okay,” she whispered back fiercely. “They might … They might …” She caught her breath on a helpless sound of uncertainty as she tried to explain. She had to go; she had to run … but only a dark void spread where her reason should have been.
Sidney pushed his spectacles higher, as if he could see what had stolen her words. “Might what? Don’t be afraid.”
Fane narrowed his golden eyes, which didn’t lessen the lethal light. “She should be afraid. The sphericanum has overlooked the league’s insurrection, but embracing this little imp is the breaking point.”
He stepped fully into the hallway, revealing the sword in his hand. Though the blade was no longer than his forearm and softly pitted on the edges, the etched sigils traced on the metal wavered as if through intense heat.
Without a twitch of her long red coat, a knife—straight and deadly—suddenly glinted in Sera’s hand. Archer bothered with no such subtlety. From beneath one blinding sweep of black leather, his battle-axe unfolded in a heavy fan of shining blades, each snick of spreading metal more decisive than the last.
He took a stance half a stride ahead of his mate. “Is the sphericanum up for waging a three-way war, Fane? If not, piss on that flaming sword of yours.”
Sidney squinted. “That’s a warden’s hallowed relic? I thought it would be … brighter.”
“Oh, it’s burning,” Alyce murmured. Her gaze felt melted to the sword, and she couldn’t look away. Each flicker sent a wave of weakness through her knees, like a fever making her sway, though her pulse raced fast enough to leave without her.
Nanette stepped to one side, patting the air as if trying to extinguish something on fire—tempers, at least, if not the sword. “Everyone, please, calm down. We’re all friends here.”
Sidney stepped between Alyce and the sword. “Actually, Nanette, only you are listed as friend in the archives.” He jerked his chin at Fane. “You have a question mark by your name.”
Fane wrinkled his lip. “A question mark? I’m hurt.”
Sera lifted one shoulder as she made her knife disappear into her sleeve. “Not a big black question mark. A penciled one.”
“Allies at least,” Nanette said hurriedly.
Fane’s sneer twisted his face into harsh, uneven lines. “Allies wouldn’t break the concord that has held us to our vows for aeons—”
“Well, you can’t execute them here tonight,” Nanette interrupted. “My husband will be here to let the chorus in for practice in less than an hour.” She flattened her palms, hand over hand over the pink heart, her gaze on Sera beseeching. “Mr. Fane came after I talked to you. I didn’t know—”