Chapter 37

Igape at the archangel as one thing fills my mind.

How does she know our names?

And just what am I thinking? This is the freaking archangel of knowledge, basically. She probably knows everything there is to know in the universe. What matters here is this “walk with me” part.

What can she possibly want with us in specific?

Did her “brothers” tell her about me? And she’s—what? Curious? If so, why include Sarah in her curiosity? Why do I feel she’s its main target?

My own curiosity has to wait as I catch Sarah before she collapses beside me. Jinny rushes to support her on the other side, trying to pull her away from me. It’s really getting old, her fighting me for my spot as Sarah’s best friend.

I bare my teeth at her over Sarah’s head, then almost smack hers when she simpers up at Jophiel, “Can I come with?”

Jophiel gives her a courteous nod. “I’ll be happy to walk with you, Jinny, at a later date. Now, I would like to have a private word with your friends.”

“She’s no friend of mine…”

“I’m only Sarah’s friend…”

My and Jinny’s objections falter under Jophiel’s tranquil gaze. Her expression hasn’t changed, but I bet Jinny felt her disapproval smack her over the mouth, too. As for the others, the gaze she transfers to them seems like a dismissal of archangelic proportions. This celestial lady might be benevolent, but she just let us know it’s not wise to test her forbearance. Rather than fear, it’s the threat of losing her regard that motivates us to obey her wishes.

Aela and Cara slink away without a moment’s delay. Jinny relinquishes Sarah’s support to me, but her visual skewer blames me for Jophiel’s exclusion. Of course. Though she does glower at Jophiel, too. That’s one demon who isn’t afraid to cross any angelic entity.

Must be nice being an archdemon that even archangels consider an equal.

But Jophiel doesn’t acknowledge her this time. It’s as if she no longer registers anything on the mortal plane as she walks away. Sarah stumbles after her, almost tearing out of my hold, as if with the pull of an invisible leash.

I rush to resume supporting her, glancing at Jophiel sourly. “Take it easy on Sarah, will you?”

Jophiel slows her stride, looking back in surprise. “I apologize. I didn’t realize I was going too fast.”

“You’re not. You’re just…” I toss my free hand to encompass her. “…you.” Then I nod down at Sarah who’s still blinking mutely up at Jophiel. It’s as if she’s no longer aware I’m there. “I’ve never seen anything hit Sarah harder.”

Jophiel’s incredible lilac gaze grows thoughtful as she looks down into Sarah’s dazed eyes, before she raises them to me. “But I’m not having the same effect on you, hmm?”

I shrug. “I’ve seen enough archangels up close, I guess. It’s no longer a novelty.”

Her gaze becomes knowing. “But you weren’t affected from your first exposure to my kin.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “Ugh. I hope your brothers didn’t go into too much detail about that—incident.”

“You mean when you called them names?”

“I only called Azrael a….” I stop, almost swallowing my tongue.

“…a pompous ass,” Jophiel completes for me.

“Holy shi—I mean—ugh,” I groan. “I can’t believe they told you that! I can’t believe I said that.”

“But you said it, and to Azrael of all archangels. Not even we have ever dreamed of disputing him, let alone disrespecting him.”

Sarah’s dazed gaze transfers to me. It dismays her when I insult lesser angelic entities. Now Jophiel shared this little gem from my first meeting with Death Himself. Yep, there’s always worse with me.

I wince into her shocked eyes as I mumble, “Yeah, I got the impression I set a precedent there. But he was very—uh, lenient. Probably because he didn’t realize I was disrespecting him. He doesn’t seem versed in modern lingo.”

Jophiel’s amazing eyes flare a more intense violet before she murmurs, “Azrael knows far more than he lets on.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “How do you know that if he doesn’t let on? From the experience of millennia as his sister?”

“It has nothing to do with experience. I don’t believe my other brothers, who had much closer interactions with him throughout the eons, know that about him.”

“So it’s female intuition? Yours must be a superpower in its own right, after said eons of being the only female in such a family of all-powerful males.”

She gives a slow blink that multiples her allure and forces me to sigh, before she looks away. “I suppose.”

“So you mean he got my insults, and let them go?”

Her unfathomable gaze returns to me. “Probably because they were unprecedented. When you’ve existed for as long as we have, unprecedented is an unimaginable concept. We’ve witnessed and experienced everything, too many times.”

“So you’re saying he found my insolence—what? A refreshing jolt in a desensitized eternity?”

She nods. “In our world, anything novel, or inexplicable, warrants as unique a response.”

Inexplicable, huh? So she knows why her “kin” dragged me here?

I somehow doubt that. There must have been a reason only five archangels attended my arraignment. Telling her I pompous-assed Azrael doesn’t mean they told her everything.

But whatever they told her, one thing’s for sure. I’m not telling her anything. If she already knows what they do, more info and her fathomless insight can work out what they don’t know. The secrets Godric would kill to keep hidden. The archangels must be exempt from that threat, but exposure would instigate conflict with his folks. And it’s not in my best interests to be in the middle of a celestial family feud.

Jophiel regards me as if she’s following my every thought. Which must be all in my guilty imagination, since archangels have this free-will clause tattooed on their frontal lobes.

But I’m not taking my chances. I need to lower the volume of my thoughts, so they don’t trip her mental wires. Especially since she’s taking this walk with us, clearly for answers she can’t get anywhere else.

A serene smile touches her lips, as if acknowledging my worry, and assuring me I can let it go.

I’m debating if I can trust her when she says, “Not that Azrael would have punished or even berated you, regardless. It’s not his temper or his ego that make him the force all beings fear.”

“Who needs temper or ego when you’re Death incarnate?” I scoff.

“He’s not exactly that.”

I blink at the quieter timber of Jophiel’s voice. It’s as if what he truly is disturbs her.

Does she fear Azrael? Can even immortal beings be afraid of the Archangel of Death? Why?

And if he disturbs his supposed sibling, how come I had such kindred feelings toward him?

My rationalization, that Death’s texture is familiar to me on a genetic level, no longer holds water. Not after I saw how other mortals were terrified of him, down to those very genes.

So why doesn’t he terrify me like he does everyone else, even her?

I would have asked if I thought it prudent to. But that might be among the info she needs to work out the stuff I don’t want exposed. I’ll have to rely on Godric, and my own investigations, to work out my Abomination status.

Out loud, I ask different questions. “So what is he? Come to think of it, I never gave much thought to his job description. I mean, how does he reap a hundred thousand souls a day? You know, those who die of different causes every day globally? What’s the logistics of that? Where does he send or keep them?”

Jophiel doesn’t say anything for long moments. Just as I think she won’t comment, she says, “Valid questions all. No one but him knows their answers for certain.”

Wow. So even the archangels don’t know such fundamental stuff about Azrael?

This validates my idea that he came first. And he’s been keeping his cards so close to his chest, his so-called siblings only have theories about what he is and what he does.

But what about Godric? Does he know more about his father?

She inclines her head at me. “Maybe when you see him next, and can refrain from disrespecting him, directly or through disparaging his firstborn, you can ask him for all of us.”

“Can’t promise that…” My laugh chokes in my chest at Sarah’s whimper.

But what really stuns me into silence is realizing Jophiel means it.

She wants to know, and seemingly can’t ask. Yet she thinks I can, and that Azrael might answer me, about something so ultimate as how Death actually works.

Whoa.

We walk in silence as I try to digest this, until I decide to resume our earlier subject. “I do get that Azrael is above the petty reactions to be expected from any other being. But if he got my insults, and they were the first in his history, I don’t get why he was actually courteous. He must really be the opposite of his Godawful son…” Sarah’s fingers dig in my supporting forearm, and I grimace at Jophiel. “Why don’t you talk and I’ll shut up? The more I say the worse I make it.”

Jophiel waves my chagrin away. “Like I told Raphaela, I appreciate candor and sincerity above all else.”

She lets my gaze go as she turns a corner. I realize we’re in a place I’ve never seen, since I’ve only been where I have classes. But this area seems so extensive, I feel I can walk for a day and not cover it all. I don’t even know if we’re still in her namesake building.

But as we enter another section, I just know we are. Maybe even her private wing. It resonates with her presence, as if its building materials were mixed with it. They probably were.

She leads us into a corridor that makes the one leading to our dorm room look tiny. The whole left side is a floor-to-ceiling worked-silver vitrine. It’s teeming with artworks and artifacts that gleam and luminesce as if with some internal light.

Midway, Jophiel stops before a panel centered by a life-size statue of an angel. It’s emitting that same sourceless glow, but it intensifies as I approach with Sarah, until it’s almost as bright as that blazing angel.

But while that statue had brutal feet planted on the remains of his sacrifices, and was overpoweringly male, this one is floating in place, and androgynous. Or it is, until its form starts morphing. When it stops, it has become voluptuously female.

So is it responding to Jophiel’s proximity, and would turn male in the presence of one of her brothers? Why?

Not that this is important. Only one thing is. Jophiel. And the way she’s looking at Sarah. It fills me with the urge to push Sarah behind me, to insulate her against the unsettling interest in the archangel’s eyes.

But since I can’t do that, I resort to recapturing the archangel’s focus with my own super power, the ability to ask endless questions.

“So, Jophiel, what else did your brothers tell you about me?”

Yeah, I know I said I’m not telling her anything. But I have to keep her away from Sarah, even at the cost of possible exposure.

But this lady has interacted with humans for millennia, and must know all their tricks. Without the need to read my mind, I feel certain she sees through my pathetic efforts to distract her.

“They told me enough,” she finally says.

If that isn’t a conversation ender, I don’t know what is.

Before I can think of something else to say, she reaches out a hand to Sarah. “May I?”

Sarah’s arm jerks out of my grip as, like a marionette yanked by its string. I don’t let go of her as she places her shaking hand in Jophiel’s palm, more worried now.

The moment their hands touch, that pervasive light that emanated from Jophiel during her lecture flares. It merges with that of the statue behind her, the combination blanking out everything.

It’s not only the world that seems to disappear. I can no longer feel Sarah’s arm under my hand, or my hand itself. Or my whole body.

For suspended moments that could be a couple of heartbeats or a short eternity, I transcend my physical form. It’s different from the way it happens in the Mindscape. Yet both experiences have something in common. They gnaw at me with—elusiveness. With so many things I can’t fathom. Things I feel I should know. Should remember.

When the celestial flare dies down, I find myself alone, facing the now-dimming angel statue.

The moment I can move, I whirl around, heart in my throat. My gaze first slams into Jophiel, who’s standing two feet away, staring down. Then I follow her focus, and find Sarah.

She’s on the ground, convulsing!

Crying out in fright, I crash to my knees beside her. But before I reach for her, something barrels into me, knocking me aside.

Jinny!

My first impulse is to pounce on her, come what may. But in the last wisps of my fleeing rationality, I realize she’s turning Sarah to her side, opening her mouth gently and shoving a crimson handkerchief there. So Sarah won’t swallow her tongue or bite it off, or choke if she vomits.

Vaguely wondering why a demon would know mortal first-aid, I still want to pummel her away, take care of Sarah myself. But I know I won’t be able to budge her, and I grudgingly admit she’s doing a perfect job. While I have something as important to do. Stopping whatever is happening to Sarah at the source.

Heaving up to my feet, I yell at the archangel, “Whatever the hell you’re doing to her, stop it—now!”

Seemingly unaware of me, Jophiel continues to stare down at Sarah, a rapt expression coating her heavenly face. I’m about to blast her again when I register what I’m seeing. Her Angel Essence, swarming all around her like a solar storm.

It’s on a whole different level from the usual fare. The dragon to the angels’ falcon like I once thought. Nowhere as amazing to me as Godric’s, but it is stunning.

More stunning is that I’m seeing it at all. I thought archangels didn’t experience any strong emotions. But there’s no doubt here. Jophiel is experiencing a potent one as she gazes down at my convulsing friend.

And it incenses me.

Self-preservation and every other caution disintegrating, I launch myself at her, grabbing her by the arms. It’s like sinking my fingers into supple steel. Electrified supple steel. But the jolt only makes me angrier. Hungrier.

And it happens again. Hurtling into that out-of-body state while fully aware. But this time it’s not that sudden expansion that engulfs me, it’s more like an explosion.

Caught in the shockwave, I no longer see the entranced archangel, just her Essence. My mind empties of everything but need. To take it all. To hurt her…

“Wen, stop!”

Sarah.

Her plea blows away the vicious haze, and tears my hands off the archangel. I swing around so hard, I almost trip over my legs when I see her sitting up with Jinny’s help.

Crashing down beside her, my hands flit over her head. She might have hit it when she fell. This might be why she had this seizure. She might have a concussion—or a cranial bleed!

But I find no bumps. And her stricken expression is fading as she gazes up at Jophiel, a blissed-out one replacing it.

I exchange a worried glance with Jinny of all demons.

“Are you okay, Sar?” I ask, shivering with unspent fright and aggression.

“I’m more than okay.” She continues staring up at Jophiel, lips spreading in an exquisite smile. “Thank you.”

“What the hell are you thanking her for?” I exclaim.

Jinny frowns up at Jophiel. “I hate to agree with anything Wen says, but she’s right here. Your archangel lady crush just gave you a seizure!”

Sarah pulls away from both of us and gets up to her feet, reprimanding gaze pinning both of us. “What’s wrong with you, guys? Of course she didn’t do anything to me!”

I jump to my feet, too, already discounting her objection. Sarah has been under the archangel’s influence even before she laid eyes on her. “Why else did you have an epileptic fit? Right after she took your hand, and put on that light show? Too much of a coincidence if you ask me.”

Jinny rises, too, glower deepening. “Yeah, and I don’t believe in coincidences. Put your heroine-worship aside for a sec, Sar. None of us knows what happened after she started glowing. She somehow blanked even my senses. And while we were all out of commission, she did something to you!”

Hating to agree with Jinny again, I add, “And it was premeditated.”

“You bet it was,” Jinny growls in that hair-raising polyphonic way of hers. “That must be why she insisted on leaving me behind. It’s a good thing I followed you!” She glares up at Jophiel, her eyes starting to glow like hot coals. “Out with it, archangel. Why did you single Sarah out, and lure her to this deserted mausoleum? And what did you do to her? ”

I square off with Jophiel, too. “And we’ll need proof you didn’t damage her, and she won’t drop into a seizure out of the blue again.”

Sarah steps between us and Jophiel, wincing up at her. “I’m sorry they’re being this way. I don’t remember having a seizure, but it must have rattled them.” She looks back at us, eyes filling with a warning to let this go.

Jinny raises a defiant chin, unwilling to back down. Just like I wouldn’t, with Sarah’s wellbeing at stake. Damn her.

“If you don’t remember,” Jinny drawls, still glaring at Jophiel. “How are you so sure she didn’t do something to you?”

Sarah bites her lip. “Nobody who has a seizure ever remembers it. But I do remember how Jophiel’s light felt, and it was anything but damaging! It was as if it illuminated every dark corner in my mind.”

I swing my gaze back to Jophiel. “So that was you flooding her with the light of—what? Insight? Inspiration? Why? Why her? What for? And did you overload her brain, and that’s why she convulsed?”

Jinny sticks her fists at her sides. “Yeah, what she said.”

But I’m not done, continue my bombardment of the archangel. “Shouldn’t you know the limits of the human mind after millennia of poking and prodding our collective consciousness? If you don’t know when to stop before you drive one of us to convulsions, maybe instead of presuming to teach us about each other, you should be updating your own knowledge!”

Jophiel blinks at me as if unable to credit that anyone would dare question her, let alone this insolently. It must be that unimaginable concept she mentioned earlier. I’ve gone and given her a disrespectful anecdote she can share with her deadly brother.

She’s welcome.

Instead of answering me, she looks at Sarah, a troubled tinge entering her eyes. “I didn’t intend for my light to affect you this way, and indeed, that effect was another unprecedented occurrence. I was the one seeking enlightenment.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” I exclaim. “Isn’t that your gig? Aren’t you the archangel of enlightenment itself? And what does anything you seek have anything to do with Sarah?”

“Yeah, all that again,” Jinny hisses. “Stop stalling and answer us!”

Jophiel inclines her head in our direction, as if really registering us again. I think I see the tiniest crack in her composure when she finally says, “It was an effort to accommodate Gabriel’s request. He enlisted my help in determining Sarah’s nature, what he’s uncertain of, but which necessitated inducting her into the Academy.”

I snatch a worried glance at Jinny. Jophiel more or less said Sarah isn’t Angel-Graced, that there’s another reason she’s here, one big and baffling enough to stump an archangel.

But if anything, Jinny looks worried, too. Seems that’s one area where I don’t need to fear her. She’s not only rivaling me for the position of Sarah’s best friend, but of her protector as well.

I grit my teeth as I resume interrogating Jophiel. “So you probed her? Without her consent? What happened to absolute free will?”

Jophiel seems genuinely taken aback. “I did obtain her consent.”

“You mean when you said, ‘May I?’” I scoff. “You consider that asking for consent? And when she gave you her hand—because what else could a human do when an archangel asks for it—you considered she granted it? I must have missed the part where you said, ‘May I flood your brain with archangelic radiation that may fry it?’”

Jinny takes another aggression-laden step into Jophiel’s personal space. “I bet you omitted mentioning any of that on purpose, so don’t play dumb, archangel.”

I nod. “I also bet you realized she’d give you far more than her hand if you asked for it, without asking why. You manipulated her, put her at risk, and now we don’t know…”

“That’s enough, both of you!”

Jinny and I jerk at the sharpness in Sarah’s voice. We turn to find her usually soft expression harsh enough to give us abrasions.

She divides her frown between us equally. “I am right here, and I can speak for myself. You both make me sound like some helpless lemming.”

We both grumble defenses, and Sarah raises an adamant hand. “But what I don’t accept is you accusing Jophiel of being callous and devious, when she was actually doing me a favor. I’ve been worrying about what Lorcan saw in me, that made him bring me here. If she said she’d attempt to find out, I would have jumped at the offer. She probably sensed that. I fully believe she didn’t expect or can explain that seizure, but I am perfectly fine now. Better than fine. I know it must have been scary for both of you, but that’s no excuse for being so rude, and to Jophiel of all beings! So drop it—and apologize!”

Sarah’s displeasure is so unknown, it’s mortifying. It clearly has the same effect on Jinny since she fidgets on her high-heeled feet and mumbles a sheepish apology to the archangel. Before I can manage one. It makes me hate her even more.

But after I issue the required apology, I have another question for the archangel. “So, was that scan worth the seizure? Did your brand of archangelic MRI reveal any answers?”

After a moment too long, Jophiel says, “It was inconclusive.”

“What do you mean inconclusive?” Jinny growls, the spiked collar of Sarah’s disapproval forgotten. “You gave her a seizure mucking about her brain for nothing?”

I huff. “Don’t bother. It’s their favorite answer around here.”

But Jophiel seems to have considered the episode over, and is already walking back where we came from. Before we can pursue her with more questions, Sarah’s glance of disappointment is enough to deter us both.

On the way back, I find myself walking beside Jophiel, with Jinny keeping Sarah beside her. Blood boiling at her petty tactics, I still consider this an opportunity to ask one more thing of Jophiel. It isn’t the best idea, but I really want to know.

Not knowing how to draw her attention when she’s gazing into infinity, probably for real, I pipe up, “If you wanted to scan Sarah, why have me along? What did you want with me?”

She doesn’t answer until we’re back to the main auditorium building, then she gazes down at me. “Why do you assume I wanted anything? I could have asked you to come as Sarah’s best friend, so that your company would make her more comfortable.”

“You could have, but you didn’t. So why?”

Her eyes simmer purple, until I feel I might tumble into the depths of their endless history.

Then they fill with something I can only describe as melancholy. “Evil wasn’t created, Wen White, it was chosen. With the most solid of convictions. While good stands on shakier ground, is made of more friable fabric. And as they feud, the victor has never been either, but what lurks in the end, and at the beginning.”

Huh? Where did that come from? And why does it squeeze my heart dry even when I don’t understand any of it?

I shake my head, as if to tear down the creepy cobwebs her words spun inside it. “Is this your way of getting out of answering, or did you scramble your own brains back there?”

Her gaze grows grim even as a mystifying smile touches her exquisite lips. “Remember that, Wen White, when the time comes. Convictions can reverse, when existence stretches long enough. Good and evil no longer exist, only choice. Choice, and chaos.”

Before I can say anything to that lofty-sounding word-salad, her light intensifies again, then she’s gone.

I gape after her, before realizing that Jinny has overtaken me by a hundred feet, dragging Sarah with her toward our dorm. This time I don’t rush to catch up, weighed down by a thousand new questions.

By now, I’m getting good at waiting for answers, or not expecting any at all. Okay, okay, so I’m being forced into both virtues.

This world of immortals will only give up its secrets when it wishes. Or not at all.

There’s nothing I can do about it but go with the flow of its tempestuous current. And hope it will eventually satisfy my curiosity.

At least, before it kills me.