27

“Almost white hair and this skin but more dark.” Riad pointed to his own arm, his voice penetrating the cacophony inside her skull. “The family had light hair many times in daughters, but she says Majda was first daughter with so light hair.” Pointing at Elena this time. “But her father knew Majda was his daughter. She had mark here.” Pressing his hand to the left of his abdomen. “Like father.”

Elena could barely breathe, her mind filled with a day long, long ago when she’d watched her mother dress for a night out with her father.

“Maman, why do you have a map on your skin?”

Laughter. “It is a treasure map, of course, chérie.”

A birthmark in the exact same place as that indicated by this woman. “How long ago?” she asked the woman in front of her, a woman who wasn’t that far apart from her in years. “Was Majda your grandmother’s age?”

A nod after Riad translated . . . and Elena knew Majda must’ve been her grandmother. She’d be cautious, investigate everything, but there were too many pieces that fit for it to be otherwise. Majda’s age. Her Moroccan origins. Her unusual coloring.

“What happened to her?”

The response had Riad scowling. The other woman spoke other words, her tone sharp. Rolling his eyes, the teenager said, “She says this is not for my ears.” His tone made it clear what he thought of that. “She will tell it to you and you must ask the English from a grown-up you like.”

“I understand. Go talk to Xander again. I think he’s bored with all the adults at Lumia.” She’d deliberately used the name of the Luminata stronghold and she was watching for his response—so she saw the ugly fear that choked Riad before he turned and ran back to the others.

Shifting her attention to the woman who’d confirmed Majda’s residence here, Elena nodded.

And the woman began to speak.

Thank you, Jessamy, Elena thought, as she memorized the words without understanding them. Elena’s memory had always been good, but it was the angelic Historian who’d taught her memory tricks designed to help her absorb and recall the vast amounts of political and etiquette data she was expected to know as Raphael’s consort. As if she’d gotten a damn download into the brain the instant she fell so hard for her archangel.

“Shokran,” she said afterward.

Smiling openly now, the woman turned to press a kiss to her daughter’s cheek, her tone chiding when she spoke. The little girl laughed and waved her feather with delight. It made Elena think of Zoe; affection in her heart, she hunted out a few more loose feathers.

Unexpectedly, Valerius came to join her, handed her a number of his feathers before leaving in silence. “Here,” Elena said, giving all the feathers to the woman. “For those children.” She indicated the big-eyed kids hiding behind their parents’ legs a few feet away.

Her smile impossibly deeper, the other woman moved to pass out the treasures. The adults stayed silent—at least until Elena’s back was to them. Then they began to whisper so furiously she knew they were grilling the woman who’d spoken to her.

Light shattered high in the sky the next second, so bright that Elena caught it with her peripheral vision.

Guessing what was about to happen, she quick-stepped her way to a relatively clear section near the tree. Aodhan landed two seconds later, with enough room around him that he wasn’t forced into unwanted physical contact. “A large squadron is headed this way. Uniforms are dark gray with red markings.”

Lijuan’s colors.

“Valerius! Xander!” She pointed up.

To their credit, they didn’t question her, just stepped back, opened their wings, and took off. Elena gritted her teeth and made a vertical takeoff, Aodhan right behind her. The others of their party must’ve spotted the four of them, because they rose into the air not long afterward, Magnus heading out on his stallion beneath them.

It didn’t take long for everyone to figure out why they were airborne.

Lijuan’s squadron was a growing smudge on the horizon.

Elena, I am on my way. Raphael’s voice, the sea dark and stormy.

I’m very glad to hear that, Archangel. Because if that squadron was hiding Lijuan in its midst, they were all going to be in bad, bad trouble.

*   *   *

Raphael had broken up the meeting the instant he got Aodhan’s message. For once, no one argued, the entire Cadre lifting off in a rush of violent power that had the Luminata staring up at them.

Raphael didn’t bother to tell those of the sect what was going on—if Lijuan was coming this way, everyone would know soon enough. He flew at archangelic speed, spotted Elena within minutes. She and Aodhan were in the middle of the group heading toward Lumia, Xander and Valerius leading. Get behind us.

Raphael—

I know. That she’d never let him go into war against Lijuan alone. I need you safe until I know if it’s Lijuan we’re facing. And the Archangel of Death isn’t the only threat in the air. It’d be easy for one of the other archangels to “accidentally” send Elena tumbling from the sky.

Shit, yeah, I get it. She and Aodhan dropped in preparation for passing under the Cadre.

Xander and Valerius dropped a second later, with the others following like dominoes. The two parties passed each other a minute later, going in opposite directions. But Raphael knew Elena and Aodhan would be turning to stay on the Cadre’s tail. Not only because they were stubborn and loyal, but because of a truth no one else in the Cadre could ever know: that Raphael’s power to hurt Lijuan was rooted in how Elena had made him “a little bit mortal.”

He carried a piece of his hunter in his blood. And while the wildfire was too powerful to truly live in Elena, touches of it burned through her blood nonetheless, for it was a creation of life and his hunter burned so very bright. Elena, Aodhan, tell me if the members of the Cadre behind me make any unexpected movements.

Got it.

Sire.

The Luminata’s protective squadron had risen into the air ahead of them, dropped so suddenly Raphael knew one of the other archangels had ordered them down. The leader of that squadron had a brain that he’d obeyed so quickly and efficiently; he’d taken his squadron down but kept it in battle-ready formation on a low flight path to the left of the Cadre.

Ahead of them, Lijuan’s squadron made an unanticipated move: they began to drop slowly, in a fashion that telegraphed their intention to make a landing. The Luminata squadron flew forward and landed behind them, close enough to be a threat, far enough away not to step on the Cadre’s toes.

Raphael and the other archangels waited until Lijuan’s entire squadron was down before they landed. It wasn’t planned, but they ended up in a neat, straight line all the way across. Somehow, Raphael wound up at the center of the line, face to face with the squadron leader. “Do you escort Lijuan?” he asked the square-jawed blond male with eyes of blue.

“No. I have a message from my lady.” He held out a sealed envelope with both hands, formal and practiced.

Michaela, standing next to Raphael, was the one who took the envelope. “It took an entire squadron to deliver this?”

The squadron leader didn’t react to the acid in Michaela’s voice. “We had to be certain the Luminata guard would permit us access to the Cadre. Our instructions were to hand the letter to only the archangels as a group.”

That made a certain amount of sense.

Of course, it also made sense that Lijuan was in her noncorporeal form and the squadron’s task was to distract them while the Archangel of China readied herself to strike. Then the squadron leader bowed from the waist. “My instructions are to return as soon as I have completed my task.”

“I assume none of us wish to delay him?” Neha said coolly before nodding to the squadron leader, who’d risen back to his full height. “You have performed your task as asked. Good journey.”

The blond male seemed to unbend a fraction. “I thank you, Lady Neha.”

He spoke a command in Mandarin Chinese and the squadron lifted off as one. The Luminata squadron followed them out, but Raphael knew they’d stop at the border to Lumia. Aodhan.

I have it, sire.

Alexander, Mother, can you spare your escorts to join Aodhan?

Both answered yes and Tasha and Valerius fell in with Aodhan, ready to track Lijuan’s people far enough out that they couldn’t double back in a surprise attack.

Alone on the field of golden grass but for the others of the Cadre around him, Raphael touched his consort’s mind. Any thoughts, Guild Hunter?

Lijuan is playing games, was the grim response. Or Xi is covering for her, hoping to give her enough time to finish whatever it is she’s up to.

Yes. He saw Michaela hand the letter to Caliane.

“I think of all of us,” the green-eyed archangel said, “you are the one least likely to be accused of tampering with this on the trip back to the meeting chamber.”

Caliane took the letter but didn’t spread her wings. “There’s no need for any accusations. We read it here.” With that, she broke the seal and the Cadre came together in a circle, close enough to hear but not close enough that their wings would overlap.

Raphael found himself on the opposite side of the circle from his mother.

“‘To my fellow archangels,’” she read out in her crystal-clear voice, “‘I write this knowing you meet at Lumia. There is no need. I am fully capable and in charge of my territory. As a goddess, I do not accept the authority of the Luminata to call me to order—no one holds that power over me.’”

Favashi spoke into the pause, her voice toneless but her words blade-sharp. “Well, it sounds like Zhou Lijuan in any case.”

“Xi has known her a long time,” Astaad pointed out, because for all his traditionalist views on respecting a fellow archangel’s territory even with bloodlust licking at the edges, he’d been Cadre for over two thousand years. He understood politics.

“Shall I continue?” Caliane asked. “I think we can all guess the rest.”

“She may surprise us yet.” Michaela’s acerbic tone.

“Indeed.” With that single word that said nothing while communicating a great deal, Caliane continued to read the missive. “‘I have no need to prove my existence. It lives in the strong and ordered beauty of my territory. I will emerge when I wish. Until then, you should return to your own territories. They are vulnerable without you.’”

The threat couldn’t be much clearer.

“Despite her delusions of godhood, she has signed it ‘Zhou Lijuan, Archangel of China,’” Caliane said. “I assume the Historian will be able to verify the veracity of that signature?”

“It does not matter, does it?” Elijah said with the calm for which he was known. “Nothing in that letter says it was written yesterday or a month ago or even a year ago.”

“She knows we are at Lumia,” Charisemnon pointed out, his arms folded across his chest.

It was Neha who responded. “An easy guess if she was preparing for this in advance.”

“And,” Favashi added, “we don’t know how many different letters she wrote and left with Xi. She could well have written one to be sent should the Cadre have decided to meet with no interference from the Luminata.”

“Or,” Charisemnon said, his jaw jutting forward, “the letter could be legitimate and we are wasting our time here.”

“Do you never cease repeating yourself?” Alexander sounded as pompously Ancient as anyone might expect—except those who knew him. It had been many centuries since Alexander went to Sleep, but Raphael had known the Archangel of Persia for all of his life before then. As a result, where others might hear pompous, Raphael heard aggravation and a temper close to the edge.

Charisemnon squared his shoulders, locked gazes with the Ancient. “Careful who you mock, old man.”

Alexander laughed, his amusement appearing genuine. “Ah, the arrogance of youth.” He shook his head, a handsome man with golden hair and wings of silver who would not appear in any way old for countless millennia, if ever.

In truth, Raphael had never seen any adult angel who showed signs of visible age once they’d reached their prime in terms of physical appearance. It was theorized that they did, in fact, age after a certain point, but at so very slow a rate that it was all but invisible. The other theory was that they reached their prime and stayed in that state. Raphael tended to believe more in the former than the latter—because he’d seen changes in himself. Nothing anyone else would notice . . . except an eagle-eyed consort.

Elena was dead certain he hadn’t yet hit his prime. “Alexander calls you a pup and I think he’s right, at least in terms of your immortality. You’re still maturing and becoming impossibly more beautiful with every day that passes.”

Holding back a smile at the memory of her glare as she’d said that, Raphael glanced at Titus, who’d been unusually quiet. The warrior archangel’s forehead held two deep vertical grooves, his attention on the far horizon where the squadron had vanished. But then he gave a nod as if he’d come to a decision and said, “Enough of the debating. We could be here all year.” His voice boomed. “There is only one way to decide this and that is to go to China.”

Several heads nodded, but it was Elijah who spoke. “If Lijuan is still awake and in control, she’ll be furious at our intrusion and will rise to confront us.”

“Then we can all go home.” Michaela’s curt words bristled with impatience, her wings held a little too tight to her body and her arms folded as aggressively as Charisemnon’s.

She’d been pushing for an end to this meeting from the start. Nothing unusual in that except the other archangel usually enjoyed politics and could be counted on to draw things out for her own amusement. Yet now, she wanted to get back to her territory as fast as possible.

To a child?

Or was there something more dangerous going on?

Because it was equally possible that the toxic contamination she’d suffered at Uram’s hands had gone active. Perhaps she knew she’d betray her unstable state if she stayed too close to the rest of the Cadre.

“We need to come to a unanimous decision,” Charisemnon insisted, a hard light to his eyes. “That is the law.”

“There is no written law,” Neha countered. “It is simply that we usually decide by consensus. In this case, however, with bloodlust threatening to consume China, we must act and act fast, even if that means a majority vote.”

“I’m not certain we have that right,” Astaad began.

“I have no quarrel with you, Astaad,” Neha said, “but your lands are an ocean away, while mine border Lijuan’s. I cannot and will not wait for the rest of you when my territory is at risk of a spillover of bloodlust.” Her tone was of the Queen she was, one who had held power for a millennium. “It is a question of protecting my territory.”

“Neha is right.” Alexander’s tone said he’d made up his mind and that was it. “The Cadre has no right to stay her hand. And as the outcome of any investigation will affect all of us, we must take her lead.”

“So you would leave me in my territory, close to my armies?” Charisemnon’s smile was sly. “I think not.”

“If you stay,” Titus said with a grim smile of his own, “I stay. That, I believe will even things out and allow the rest of the Cadre to head to China.”

His smile wiped out, Charisemnon looked at Titus with unhidden ill will. The two had been at odds for a long time, their morals and ethics sharply opposed. Raphael had always been on Titus’s side, seeing in him what an immortal should be, while in Charisemnon, he saw what an immortal could become if he gave in to the worst excesses of their kind.

“A vote.” Neha’s sari rustled in a rasp of silk as she spoke, the Archangel of India skilled at flying in the garment and landing as elegant as when she’d taken off. “Who does not wish to travel to China to confirm whether or not Lijuan is present in her territory?”

Everyone stared at Charisemnon.

Face going a hot red and fists bunching at his sides, he said nothing.

“So,” Neha said after a full minute, “we are decided. We will head to China.”