Chapter 2
N ariel is faster, and he catches me, scooping me up in his arms.
Safe at last.
I black out for a few seconds.
When I come to, I am seated on... not a bed. Looks like a giant bean bag, feels like it's filled with feathers.
I am trying to focus on these details, so I don't turn into a blubbering mess feeling Nariel's arms still around me with him kneeling in front, his face inches away from mine.
He's fine. We're fine. He doesn't hate me. I have done something right.
It's fine.
"That," Nariel whispers, "was forty-seven minutes ."
Wow. No wonder I'm tired. I don't think I have ever sustained a steady power transfer that long. "Sorry you had to wait so long."
Nariel stares at me, then his lips curl in a smile as he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.
When he looks back at me, though, his gaze is fierce .
"Sierra," he says, "I expected to be trapped in that spell for centuries . And you've freed me from it in less than an hour , after only weeks ."
Oh.
I'm not sure how to respond to that, so I explain, "You won't be able to take that jacket out of the tower, or else they'll know you've left. It's like a decoy." I smile crookedly. "So I guess we can't be a matched set anymore."
Nariel's arms tighten around me, and he leans closer in, so close he could kiss me, and I would let him.
My sluggish heart rate leaps into overdrive.
"Is there anything else you don't want me to touch?" Nariel asks in a low voice.
What? "No, the jacket was it. And it's okay now—"
Nariel crushes me to him.
It's not even a kiss, and my heart still about explodes.
Then I'm clutching the front of his shirt, burying my face in his chest, breathing him and his magic in, like shadows and bitter honey.
Nariel's breath is warm against my ear. "You brilliant, insane wonder."
I thump him on the chest with one fist. "No more sacrificing yourself for the greater good."
He snorts. "Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black—"
I pull back enough to glare at him. "I'm serious. You deserve to be free as much as anyone. "
Nariel leans forward and growls, "So do you."
And at that, I look away.
Only for a second, but it's enough. Nariel is watching me too closely to miss it.
He sits back, and I grit my teeth against the urge to reach for him again.
I am not going to drag him down with me.
"There will be repercussions for freeing me," he says quietly. "The angels will punish you."
It's my turn to snort. That is far down my list of worries at this point. Like yes, obviously it would be catastrophic, but I have enough real problems now without hypothetical ones.
"To get to me they'd have to go through High Earth, which they've just pissed off, or Dark Earth, where everyone hates them."
"That doesn't mean they won't," Nariel cautions. "They will make deals if they have to, even if they break them later."
"Well, I'm not willing for you to be imprisoned forever, so I'll have to deal with it one way or another, but I am punting that to Future Sierra. Bright Earth is not my biggest problem right now."
Nariel raises his eyebrows. "You've had time for other problems in between inventing a new method for traveling across dimensions and devising a way to undermine angel magic you have nearly no experience with?"
All at once, my shoulders droop again with exhaustion. "You could say that. "
"Do tell."
I sigh. "Give me a minute to catch my breath? Oh, you probably want to confirm the spell worked, don't you? If you're okay leaving me here unsupervised for a minute—"
"I can wait to possibly invite more trouble until you're not keeling over," Nariel says tightly.
Does he not trust me alone in his space?
I close my eyes, taking a minute to get my thoughts in order.
I need food. I need sleep. I need magic.
I don't get any of those things.
I need Nariel , a voice inside me adds, and I shove that one away.
Then I feel one clawed finger under my chin and open my eyes to see Nariel's fierce gaze right in front of my face again.
My breath catches as he tilts my head up.
"Thanks to you," Nariel says softly, "I have all the time in the world to explore my newfound freedom."
"It's thanks to me you lost it in the first place," I whisper back.
Nariel narrows his eyes, and the pressure from his claw increases before it vanishes abruptly. "I made my own decisions, Sierra. And that I was forced into limited choices is on Koshiel and Bright Earth, not you."
"And yet, here you sit, when the whole world is out there." I wave my hand vaguely .
He frowns for a moment, like he's trying to work out a puzzle, before shrugging and moving to sit next to me, his warmth against my side. I breathe through how much I crave more of it. "It's perhaps best strategically if I am not seen for a little while longer, until I can arrange the appropriate moment to reveal myself. For dramatic effect."
My brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
Nariel leans back on the pouf thing, with one arm propped behind his head. The movement pulls his shirt up, exposing the defined muscles of his stomach.
I tear my gaze back to his to see him smirking.
I roll my eyes. "Give me a break, I'm half dead over here."
His smile widens and he purrs, "Not that dead."
I scoot farther into the pouf, getting some distance from him and sinking further into a hole because of how soft it is.
"Go ahead, make yourself at home in my pillow," Nariel teases.
"Thank you, I will," I say primly. "Do you not have beds here?"
"I don't sleep," he reminds me.
That's right. Just meditates. It's a meditation pouf.
But at least once he lay with me as if he were sleeping, to keep me company.
Another thought hits me. "You don't pee either, do you? I don't suppose there's like. A bucket I could use?"
Nariel's eyebrows lift. "Is this an imminent concern?"
"It is now that I've thought of it. "
Brains. The worst.
"Then perhaps we should relocate to Low Earth," Nariel says. "Are you strong enough?"
Faced with the alternative of peeing on his meditation pouf, I will be.
I dig into my pack again and withdraw a bag.
Nariel's mouth curves in another smile as he recognizes it as the matching bag given to me in Japan.
Okay, so maybe I'm a little sentimental.
From inside, I withdraw a handful of beads, sorting them. "Are you good to go, or do you need a snack?"
"A snack?" His eyes sharpen. "These are all filled with magic."
"Gaspar told me not to worry, but he was very vague on the details and I wasn't sure how you were doing here. If we're going back to Low Earth I can recharge there, so I can leave these for you."
"You talked to Gaspar?"
I pause in my sorting. "Should I not have?"
Nariel rolls his eyes. "I've spoken to Gaspar personally—he's monitoring spirit activity in Low Earth in my absence. He didn't tell me you were working on anything regarding my imprisonment."
"Oh." I swallow. "That's my fault. I asked him not to say anything in case, so I wouldn't... so you wouldn't have expectations of me I couldn't meet."
Nariel ripples, and an instant later he is with me in this hole in the pouf, holding my chin in his hands.
"Impossible," he tells me flatly. "You have only ever exceeded any expectations I have been silly enough to harbor when it comes to you."
The warmth from his touch turns to acid in my chest.
"So I haven't gotten Gaspar in trouble?"
Nariel searches my gaze and releases my chin, eyes narrowed. "No. Gaspar is perfectly capable of getting himself in trouble." He holds up a hand to forestall my objection. "And in this case, he is being too clever by half."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Nariel says with some amusement, "that Gaspar knew exactly what he was doing when he ceded to your request without informing his prince."
Now my eyes narrow. "Which was?"
Nariel flashes a grin. "Ready to go?"
Is that how it is, then.
"You can go wherever you want in Low Earth, right?" I ask. "Since Dark Earth is connected?"
"Essentially. If no one has traveled the route before, it takes more magic."
"Oh, that's interesting. So for spirits with less magic, do they take more, like, metaphysically well-trodden paths? Is that why there are more spirits in some areas?"
"Do all these questions mean you don't need to pee anymore? "
I huff and absorb the magic I've infused into a few of the beads, leave a pile on his pouf, put the rest away in the bag, and hand Nariel one other.
He pinches it between two fingers and regards it. "This is an arcane symbol."
"Yeah, Brook suggested ordering a bunch of beads off Etsy, and I etch them with magic to keep them straight. The unmarked ones hold unformed magic you can eat. Airline security doesn't care about beads, and they're easily portable. Can you portal to somewhere on Low Earth and leave that bead? I can use it as an anchor to follow you."
Nariel tilts his head, looking at the bead, then at me, as if something has just occurred to him.
I wait for him to tell me what it is.
Instead, he just smiles and says, "Don't leave me hanging."
And then he vanishes.
Leaving me alone in his space after all.
But I don't need the encouragement. Curious as I am, I don't care about this space if Nariel's not in it.
As soon as I feel the kernel of magic in the bead, I latch onto it and pull myself through the universe.
Into midair.
I fall for maybe two seconds and am already casting a spell when Nariel's arms wrap around me and he settles us onto something solid.
A branch of a tree.
A tree I know well, if not from this angle, because we're in Bear Creek Grove.
In my grove.
I glare up at Nariel, willing my heart rate to return to normal. "What the fuck was that for?"
His eyes are bright and lips twitching, like he's trying very hard not to laugh in my face. "So much of your magic is here, I thought you would be able to tell where I'd gone."
I pound a fist onto his chest. "I was looking for you , jackass."
The smile erupts. "So you were."
Because I transported into midair instead of sensibly onto the ground.
I push off him with a sound of disgust.
"Where are you going?"
"To pee , asshole! I needed a toilet and you brought me to a forest." The goddamn nerve.
A minute later, I'm back from the large mall bathroom I've stashed a magically hidden bead in. (No one ever goes into the stall except to clean. This is not the first bead I placed, but since I don't have an apartment, it was up there.)
Nariel is still laughing as I reappear on the branch next to him, shrugging my pack off .
I thought dudes were annoying about going to the bathroom in the woods, but demons are worse.
But even though I'm not falling this time, Nariel pulls me back into his arms, and I lightly smack his shaking shoulder but don't otherwise protest.
His laughter does things to me, even if in this case it's at my expense.
And I'm too happy to have him back—waiting for me, and now, again, with me.
I feel his magic take hold of my pack and balance it for me, before wrapping me securely in his shadows too.
My grip on my wand relaxes, and Nariel squeezes me gently.
Perched twenty feet in the air on a too-thin tree branch, I'm safe with him, and I know it in my bones.
"May I take some of the magic from your grove?" Nariel asks in my ear.
"Of course," I say, surprised. "I thought you'd be doing that already."
He smiles. "I'm glad I'm welcome."
"I just broke an angelic spell to free you from hell, so yes," I say tartly. "I'm not going to begrudge you a meal. My grove is your grove."
Nariel stills. "Those are not the same thing."
I meet his gaze. "I know."
Something passes between us in that moment .
His hand comes up to cup my cheek, and I would swear he is now, finally going to kiss me.
Instead, he starts to open his mouth to say something, and pauses, searching my face.
My heart is galloping so fast it could leap out of my chest.
The anticipation stretches.
Nariel closes his mouth, and smiles devastatingly at me.
Then he leans forward and whispers, "I'll only take what you don't need. You get started first."
I narrow my eyes at him, and he grins wickedly.
Then I heave a sigh, because he's right. I don't have time to play with him now.
Lack of bathroom aside, he brought me here for me, which was very sweet and I can't waste it.
Back to duty. The moment shatters.
I turn my back on him and close my eyes, feeling for the magic in the grove. Nariel leans back against the trunk of the tree with me in his arms.
Then again, the moment isn't totally lost after all. Maybe this is what Nariel wanted me to feel first, to feel like a challenge:
It's the presence of his magic against my own.
Strange and familiar.
Shadows and lightning.
I want to feel them like that forever.
I can tell the difference between them, but I can also feel how deep his shadows run. He's a fallen angel, with a nearly bottomless capacity to hold magic. The amount I can hold next to him is minuscule, bolts of lightning in the dark.
I could drown in his magic, in him.
He's always holding himself back for me.
He brought me here for me, but I don't want him to feel obligated to me, or restricted by me and my limitations. I want him to feel free to go wherever he wants.
But I also want him to want to go with me.
I open my eyes and see that Nariel is watching me closely.
"So," he says in a low voice, "is your grove still my grove?"
I frown. "Wait, did you think that was going to scare me? Yes, of course you're still welcome."
He cocks his head to one side. "But you don't want me?"
I can only blink at him in total bafflement, as this is so far from what I was thinking I thought it had to be obvious. "I honestly have no idea how you could have come away with that conclusion. Your lack of telepathy is showing again."
Nariel looks thoughtful. "It's something else, then."
"I don't suppose you could just ask me whatever it is you're trying to find out?"
"Hmm. It's a big thing to ask, if you don't know how the other party is going to respond."
I'm definitely lost. "What are we talking about, demon marriage?" I pause. "Wait. Is there such a thing as demon marriage?"
"No," Nariel says, and his voice is definitely strained.
That's me, a smooth talker .
"Well, good, because if you were going to propose demon marriage I'd have expected at least a kiss first."
"But you would share your grove with me without such a guarantee?" Nariel teases, and I let out a breath.
Phew, redirected awkward conversation for the win!
"So much for your alleged selfishness," he says, and I tense all over.
I'm so close to him there's no way he can miss it.
"Sierra?"
Enough guessing games, enough feelings. "Tell me why you wanted to wait to show yourself in Dark Earth."
Nariel is silent for a breath. "Sierra, I was joking. You know I don't think you're selfish."
"I know that."
"But you do."
I am sitting here in the arms of a demon I desperately want to kiss when there are much bigger problems at hand, so yeah, I really do.
I do need power on hand to deal with those problems though, so, compromise.
When I don't elaborate, to my surprise, Nariel does.
Though his arms tighten around me as our magic swirls in and around us, and I ache with it.
"You know I'm not the only prince of hell, as it were."
Nariel says as if this is a totally normal experience we're having here and not an extremely revealing and profound revelation about what my feelings for him are and what I want.
He is the shadow to my light, the softest and securest embrace in the darkness, the smile that zings straight to my heart like a bolt.
And I can't have him.
I swallow, trying to lighten the feelings that are tightening my throat. "What, are there no princesses of hell?"
"I am not to blame for gender biases in human languages, nor the fact that you cannot communicate in a more civilized way," Nariel says dryly.
Fine. Demon princes. Implicit linguistic gender binaries suck.
Blissfully unaware of what a goddamn mess I am in his arms, Nariel continues, "There are other princes, as well as other spirits who don't hold territories who even I would think twice before crossing. But in this case, my problem is with our neighbor Keratha, ruled by Casimir. He is, to put it bluntly, an asshole."
I try to keep my voice even. Focus. "But a powerful one, I assume?"
"Correct. Think of Casimir like a crime lord. If you're not with him, you're prey. He claims his problem with me is that I'm an angel and can't be trusted, which I am theoretically sympathetic to, except that he won't honor deals. "
Something in his voice makes me narrow my eyes at him. "Angels don't all share the same characteristics any more than humans do."
Nariel looks at me seriously. "You haven't known me that long, Sierra."
"I'm aware of that," I say tartly. "But I know who you are now."
"Do you?" he asks intently. "Or do you only know who I want you to see?"
Obscurely, despite everything, this question makes me smile.
God knows I spent enough time mentally gnawing on that when we were together that it's the one thing I'm not worried about.
Well, that, and whether I can work magic like a motherfucker.
I pat him on the head. "There, there. I'm sure we can turn up someone who thinks you shit shadows if it will make you feel better. I can't be convinced at this point, I'm afraid."
"I do shit shadows," Nariel says crossly.
I burst into laughter and relax back against his chest, my tension easing. He's still perfect, even if he can't be mine, and we can still have this. "Distressing. Please, continue."
I can just make out the hint of a smile plays around his mouth as he looks back up at the sky. "Where was I?"
"Neighbor asshole prince."
"Ah, Casimir." The humor bleeds out of his voice. "The real problem with Casimir is that he hoards power rather than sharing it. He pressures spirits to join—and tithe their power to him—or die. Then he does the bare minimum to protect them against each other while also not helping them, and once they've sworn loyalty to him, they're not permitted to leave. He doesn't impose rules, so he claims that letting spirits make their own choices makes him a beacon of freedom as the more powerful ones prey on the less."
I whistle. "Wow. It's like demon libertarianism." Nariel snorts. "So Casimir is taking advantage of your apparent absence to try to encroach on Makora's borders?"
"Yes. From my tower I've been arming my people with—what's that?"
He breaks off as a red light flares from inside my pack.
"Emergency flare." I sit up, shrugging off his arms. "Time for me to go."
No rest for the wicked. But I really could use someone to magically punch in a nice and straightforward fashion after the confusion of verbally fencing with Nariel.
I feel like we started on the same page and now the more we talk we aren't even having the same conversation, and I don't like it.
As if he can see the resolve settling in my shoulders like a weight, Nariel asks, "Are you back to full strength?"
"Eh, close enough. There's enough magic where I'm going. "
"Where—"
"Can't you feel the power flare?" That's how he found me in the first place.
Nariel scowls. "Which of course you're teleporting straight to. I'm going with you."
I don't have time—yet—to argue that this isn't his problem. "Fine. Race you, old man."
Nariel swears.
I'm already gone.