A trio came to collect Xavier’s body from where she and Mason stood. Two lifted him and carried the dead angel away, his arms slung over their shoulders like a wayward friend who’d passed out from drinking too much.
A white-haired angel remained behind to speak to them. His eyes were sharp blue, like chips of ice.
“Do not go into my mind,” Mason said between clenched teeth.
Cari knew he was covering for her. He didn’t want them to know about Maeve, when they should know. It was the end of the world.
“I always ask,” the angel said.
Mason shook his head, disagreeing.
The angel gave him a beatific smile. “The day we scarred you?”
Mason jerked.
So this was the one who’d put the plague sores all over Mason. And here the angel looked like distilled peace.
“Mason Stray, you showed me everything you are, of your own free will. But then, you were in so much pain after leaving your son that I don’t think you realized it. Your mind is your own. I will not invade it without permission.”
“He’s going to fall over,” Cari said. And so was she. Mason was so heavy.
“Will you let us care for you?”
She didn’t know what that entailed.
“After all, you took care of our problem. Let us do what we can to finish this business.”
Please let’s. “I don’t think either of us can walk.”
The angel raised a hand and a female approached. She was slender, almost androgynous in her body’s angles, but utterly lovely. Cari reached out to her, as the white-haired angel caught Mason’s inevitable collapse.
“Xavier cut his throat,” Cari said so they’d be extra careful.
But it just made the white-haired angel look very sad as he one-shouldered Mason’s weight.
They were gentle, quiet, and organized.
She was taken to the kitchen, where she was stripped. She was washed, the blood cleaned from her body. The angel had the efficiency and detachment of a nurse. A needle found its way painlessly into a vein in her arm, and with a tingling rush, Cari didn’t feel so bad at all.
In her drugged vision, she imagined a being of great golden beauty looking on curiously. Her proportions were strange: Very tall. Taller than any person she’d ever seen. Her skin was burnished to a brilliant shine. Her lips were full and shimmered with metallic sheen. Her eyes tipped up like a cat’s, and while the concentric circles of her irises were rings of varying black, her lashes were indigo, exaggerated into a thick curl. Her black hair waved away from her forehead and licked and twisted in tendrils and spits of silky magic.
The Lovely Being sneered at the angel before she squinted her eyes to examine Cari, peering into her face. Cari squinted back into hers. It was a strange face. One Cari thought she should know, but her brain was too slippery to find and attach the name. Father would know her name. She’d ask him just as soon as she saw him.
The angel nurse didn’t seem to notice the third person in the room while she helped Cari. She was trying to dress her in big, ugly gray sweats. Cari pushed the heavy cotton away.
“They’re Mason’s,” the nurse said. “We couldn’t find anything else that would be comfortable. Your other clothes are too fitted for you to rest.”
Oh. Mason’s. That was okay. She stopped fighting. “Where is he?”
“He refused to sleep, so Laurence set him up on the sofa.”
“So-fa. That’s where I want to go, too.” Wherever he was, she wanted to be.
The Lovely Being reached out to put a finger to Cari’s lips. The touch sent a shiver over Cari’s whole body. Don’t tell them I’m here.
The white-haired angel came into the kitchen. “How is she?”
The Lovely Being hissed.
“No injuries that I can see. I think her blood loss was due to Shadow poisoning. But she’s shivering again, so I’m watching for fever.”
“‘Too much Shadow and the body weeps,’” the white-haired angel said. “There’s so much of it here.”
The Lovely Being turned toward him. She bent her beautiful neck and licked him on his jaw.
He startled and stepped back. His gaze skated around the kitchen, seeking with those keen eyes.
The nurse paused in her fiddling with the IV line. “What?”
“Fae. They’re everywhere.”
The Lovely Being poked him in the chest with a long black claw of a fingernail. She needed a mani. The white-haired angel frowned.
“Crossed. End of the world.” Wait. Cari wasn’t supposed to say anything. She covered her mouth with her hand. She’d been taught to keep secrets.
The sharp blue eyes turned to her. “The fae have been crossing for almost a decade.”
“Not like this,” Cari said. Her hand wasn’t doing a very good job. Father was going to have another long talk with her.
“No,” the angel said. “Not like this.”
Cari Dolan was beautiful. Maeve couldn’t stop admiring her. The delicate sweep of her eyelids. The gentle dimple in her upper lip. The small knob and arch of her collar bone. She was perfection. Dark royal blood seeped through her veins.
What an exquisite child.
If ever there was a vessel to hold umbra, Cari Dolan was its model. And at just the right moment, she’d tipped the pot and poured out upon the world a faery queen.
The act had harmed her though, which was the only reason to tolerate the presence of the angels. Cari needed to be well and strong, in this her final change. Without the flesh, there was no anchor to keep Dolan Shadow in the world. And Maeve wanted to stay. Now that she was back, she intended to stay forever. She and Cari would live together and celebrate this world.
Night still cloaked the sky, but Maeve could hear the growing hum that would be dawn. Sensation was at its most exquisite when it hurt just a little. She would go out onto the water—wet, limpid, cool—and wait for the cruel master that was the sun. And she would quiver under his unforgiving rays, this once again, since time forgotten.
And she would laugh in the old bastard’s face.
Late morning was moving into the glare of noon, and still the Order was crawling all over his place. Mason sat on the sofa with his arms around Cari as the angels conducted their final assessment and clean-up of his little island. She couldn’t stop shaking. She’d said she was cold though the day was coming on humid and hot. She’d dozed a bit, and he’d wanted to, but he didn’t trust the Order. Didn’t trust anyone where Cari was concerned.
She’d said that Maeve had crossed. The fae queen was in the world.
Cari had been so beautiful in her fight against Xavier, with golden light shining through her skin, eyes an unfathomable black of magic. Shadow had whipped all around her. Until that moment, he’d never considered that Night had its own brilliant illumination.
The ordeal with Xavier was almost over. How ironic that the angel himself had brought about what he’d most feared. Xavier had all but invited Maeve into the world.
The skin at Mason’s neck itched. Laurence had put something on the wound. Shadow had sealed him back together, but maybe the Order’s stuff would hurry the healing process along. He wanted the Order gone, but would endure their clean-up. He hated disposing of bodies.
There was some hammer banging, so someone was repairing something. Very considerate of them. The house itself had not taken any obvious damage, but he could sense that the structure and foundation had been infused with Shadow—the fae whispers found in the great Houses now hissed within his own.