CHAPTER SEVEN

“Oh, quit fussing.” Noelle grabbed Jenny’s hands away from her ears and planted them at her sides. “Everything’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Jenny whispered, and cringed. “I’m nervous. Can you blame me?”

Being too nervous to eat, they’d refused breakfast and were standing in front of Lola’s cold hearth waiting for the angelic duo to get their acts together. Apparently, the quiet one needed a meal and his mouthpiece needed to check on some local disturbance before they left.

“All things considered, I think we look pretty good.” Noelle knocked a few strands of her shedding hair off her purple peplum skirt. “I slept awfully.”

“Me, too.”

“Oh? Were you having violent dreams about bludgeoning celestial beings?”

“For goodness’ sake, no. You’re having those again?”

“I can’t get away from them completely unless I get rid of Tamatsu, one way or another. They’re a side effect of the tethering.”

“Have you considered taking something for deeper sleep?”

Noelle sighed and shifted her purse’s strap to her other shoulder. “Why bother? Winter is coming and I’ll be sleeping deeply enough on those nights.”

“Are you going to put me up again this year?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t leave you on your own when not even an explosion could rouse you.”

Noelle had a deal with the witch who lived in the townhouse beside hers. During winter, if there were any threats to the area or any other reason Noelle needed to be up at night, her neighbor had a key to let herself in with. She hadn’t had to use it yet, but she knew the deal. A semi-hibernating elf could very well be a quickly dead elf should the right sort of disaster strike.

As Tarik strode into the room, Jenny fidgeted with the buttons on her violet cardigan. “I’ll have to get someone to check on Mum. I don’t think she made arrangements last year. She’s far too cavalier about that.”

“Most elves are, unfortunately, but I can’t worry about everyone if they don’t want to help themselves.”

“We’ll leave shortly,” Tarik said, looking from Jenny to Noelle.

“Can you at least tell me where she is?” Noelle asked. “I’m dead curious and wondering if she’s somewhere I’ve already looked.”

“North Carolina.”

She crinkled her nose. “I beg your pardon?”

“I believe she’s been in the area, or has at least continued to return there, for several hundred years under one identity or other.”

“Blimey, you didn’t look there,” Jenny said to her.

Noelle hadn’t. She’d looked nearly everywhere but there. “Huh. It’s almost as if the place didn’t exist on maps for me.”

“Some magic of Cinnia’s, you think?”

Noelle growled, thinking that was exactly what had blocked her. The obviousness of the ploy infuriated her, and she’d known Cinnia could muddle minds in that way. At no point had Noelle stopped and considered getting a map and making a list of all the regions she hadn’t felt compelled to journey to. “I swear, that crafty woman …” She reached up and gave Tarik’s shoulder a poke. “Never play chess with Cinnia. You’ll never win.”

“I believe at this juncture, she prefers card games,” he said loftily, or as loftily as anyone with such a low octave voice could manage. Often when he talked, her eardrums itched from the rumbling frequency of the vibration.

“Wait. You know her more than just in passing?”

He averted his gaze in the way of people who were very poor at obfuscating. Before Noelle could press him on the matter, Lola stepped into the room carrying a bottle of wine and, then that other angel crowded the doorway behind her.

Noelle quickly turned away. If she was going to look at him, she’d do so only because he’d forced her to, and she didn’t think he was egocentric enough to waste energy compelling her again.

She’d been wrong about him before, though.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and cringed.

Lola handed the bottle to Jenny. “Will you give that to Clarissa, please?”

“Clarissa, ma’am?”

“Cinnia,” Tarik gently corrected.

“Clarissa,” Noelle whispered, furrowing her brow. Of course the queen would have had a new name, too. Noelle didn’t like it. It somehow didn’t fit her, but she’d have to get used to it, just like she got used to Jenny’s new names, whenever she took them.

“Cinnia, then,” Lola continued. “As I was saying, my brother fancies himself a vintner now. He has a vineyard he’s quite proud of. I’m curious to hear what she thinks.”

“Oh, yes, of course I will.”

Lola gave the slightest bow. “Apologies for not seeing you off. I spend time with Cruz before she gets on the bus.”

“No need to apologize,” Noelle said. “Thanks for letting us use your house as a launch pad.”

“You are very welcome.”

No one moved for the longest time, or at least, the awkward stillness seemed that way to Noelle. Seconds had probably elapsed, but she was so eager that a moment felt like an eternity.

“Have you been teleported before?” Tarik asked.

“Not for a long time.” Noelle didn’t look at the perpetrator who’d managed the feat with her. They’d done so much traveling together. In the blink of an eye, he’d taken her to places that took boats months to travel to or years to walk across. She’d walked so much in the years of the elf diaspora that her soles had all but lost sensation.

“Never,” Jenny said.

“You may find the mode somewhat disorienting.” Tarik reached for her arm, but Tamatsu grabbed his wrist and shook his head brusquely.

“Of course. My apologies.” Tarik moved to Noelle’s side and took her arm instead.

The move seemed inordinately petty, and apparently that was the game they were playing.

Tarik yanked her into the slipstream that was a time portal or whatever angels called the place between here and there, and her body ceased to function for that few seconds. Had it not been for his arm bracing her, she would have fallen flat on her face upon landing.

Birds chirped, the smell of rich, wet soil hit her nose, and the sun warmed her skin. The air was moist and heavy.

Southern air.

She tried to uncross her eyes, but seemed to be having a hard time shaking the cobwebs out of her head. Tamatsu’s teleporting had always been somewhat more elegant.

A door slammed from somewhere nearby, and slightly above Noelle’s shoulder level.

“Dear lord,” came a silky-smooth, feminine voice that registered slowly as familiar, even if the language it spoke was different. Noelle wanted so badly to see her. She’d waited so long to see her, and all that stood between her and her queen was an angel who teleported like a sadist. Tarik’s body blocked her from view in the same way Tamatsu blocked Jenny.

Hurry. Please.

“What are y’all doing here this time of morning? Bill’s out in the fields on the tractor harvesting corn if you’ve got some kind of angel issue.”

“We didn’t come to see Gulielmus,” Tarik said, “though I’m gratified to learn you’re keeping him engaged.”

“I actually think he’s developing OCD. Is that normal for angels? Because he’s starting to drive me up a wall. Farming requires a bit of meticulousness, but not to his level. I don’t think there’ll be a single ear of corn left out there for the birds by the time he’s done.”

“Not normal for angels,” Tarik said. “Normal for him. He’s always been quite fastidious.”

Jenny hooked up an eyebrow at Noelle.

Noelle shrugged. If the celestial duo had a plan, they certainly hadn’t let Noelle in on it in advance.

“Gonna stay for a while?” Clarissa asked. “Stretch out your wings?”

“I believe I’ll take you up on that offer,” Tarik said. “My joint has been cramping more than usual.”

“Gods, Tarik.” Clarissa’s voice was tinged with a sort of frustration that seemed so familiar to Noelle. So maternal. No one gave a damn more than her, and she hadn’t had to be trained to be that way. Her concern for people was natural and genuine.

“You said you were going to get it looked at.”

“There’s no simple fix for what ails me, but I appreciate that you worry.”

“Well, come on in and leave your coats in the house. Most of the kids are already off to work so I didn’t do much for breakfast, but there’s coffee and a few cinnamon rolls left. I’m on nana duty today. We were going to town to get groceries and things. Hopefully you don’t mind if we dip out for a little while.”

Nana?

“Which tots?” Tarik asked.

“All of them. I’ve got both of Ariel’s, and Marion’s, too. Plus, Bill’s youngest. They’re easy kids, though, as long as you keep them in one room.”

Children?

Jenny must have been just as stunned by the discussion of children as Noelle. She had her brow furrowed and lips parted in her pondering way as she rubbed her ear. Clarissa had never had any particular interest in children, and had certainly never had any of her own. She’d been adamant about taking precautions.

Whose children was she minding?

“I’m sure they enjoy your attention, all the same,” he said.

Clarissa chuckled. “Oh, I’m already putting them to work. They may be little, but they’re not too young to learn how to pat biscuit dough. You heading back toward the woods?”

“In a bit. First, there’s a matter of some delicacy we must discuss with you.”

“If it’s about Bill, you don’t need to be coy. I’m not gonna faint at anything you have to say, and you know that. And why are you putting off so much extra energy? You usually don’t do that unless you’re hiding something.”

Tarik cleared his throat and glanced at his compatriot.

Tamatsu grimaced and looked to the sky. Another guilty countenance, and Noelle knew that look of guilt. People didn’t wear it unless they thought they’d hurt someone.

They knew Clarissa. They knew her well enough for her to give a damn about them, which meant they’d been spending time together. Noelle had been nervous before, but her mood was quickly shifting toward murderous. Tamatsu had something she should have had, and probably didn’t even know how important the friendship was.

She’d been placed into Clarissa’s retinue when they were teenagers. They’d gone through puberty together. They’d shared all their fears with each other, and Noelle had believed her when Clarissa had put her hand over her heart and said that things had a way of always working out in the end.

She was Noelle’s conscience for so long, so of course she was keenly missed.

“We had no way of knowing how you’d respond,” Tarik murmured, “but a deal is a deal.”

“Quit talking to me in riddles and spit it out.”

“We will show you instead.” He nodded to Tamatsu, who let out a long breath, and stepped to the side, leaving Jenny exposed and wide-eyed. She was staring up, likely at the woman standing on the deck, and apparently couldn’t think of a single word to say.

But then she closed her eyes, shook her head, and took a breath deep enough that she probably could have felt it down to her toes. “I guess you don’t remember me,” she said.

Another pause, but this time from Clarissa. “Of course I remember you, Caoimhe,” she said softly. Noelle could imagine that her eyes had gone glassy and cheeks went rosy. They always had whenever she was letting all her subjects unburden their hearts to her back in the realm.

Back then, Noelle couldn’t bear watching her work. Cinnia—Clarissa—was too sensitive, too tender. She had a way of absorbing people’s sadness, and she wore it around like the heaviest crown ever, but she never let her head drop.

Jenny swiped at her eyes, and then again, and shifted her weight. “My mother doesn’t even call me Caoimhe anymore, and hasn’t for centuries.”

“It’s the only name I ever knew you by. What else would I use?”

So matter-of-fact, and yet so tender.

Noelle fidgeted with the flap of her purse and tugged her gaze away from Jenny. She couldn’t watch her cry and not go to her. But she caught Tamatsu in her periphery, looking her way with something that looked like pity.

She was badly in need of some, but didn’t know if she wanted it from him.

Clarissa’s soothing voice was a welcome distraction—something for Noelle to pin her focus on that wasn’t his face or how loud her heart was beating. “You always sewed little prayers into my cuffs,” the queen said. “How did you find me? Given the mess I made ripping everyone from the realm and how angry Lorcan’s followers were in the aftermath, I still try hard not to be found. I’m not a safe party to be around.”

“We were all looking for you—all of us who’d worked for you. We missed you.”

“I missed you, too, but we were apart for a reason. Our magic needed to disperse.”

“And it did. We’ve hardly got anything left, and … you mattered, and we couldn’t stop worrying. Especially … Well.” She turned slowly toward Noelle, and nodded.

Tarik looked over his shoulder at her, a query in his expression. Are you ready? it read.

She wasn’t, but he stepped out of the way, anyway.

No one said anything.

Noelle couldn’t even look, fearing what she’d see. She worried that her queen wouldn’t be the same as she remembered. That she wouldn’t be as merciful. That she’d finally learned how to hate people. Surely, she’d hate Noelle, because she hadn’t obeyed the last thing she’d told her: “Be good, Fionnuala.”

She hadn’t been good.

Noelle stared at her shoes until Tarik nudged her arm. Even then, she looked at the second-to-last person she wanted to look at, because looking at him was still easier than at Clarissa, and the look he gave her wasn’t at all soft. Another thing Noelle had ruined. She’d been given a mate and hadn’t been able to make him stay true.

“Fionnuala,” Clarissa whispered on a gasp.

Slowly, Noelle turned, swallowing down the lump of panic in her throat. She’d wanted to reunite for a thousand years. Her soul had demanded that she piece back together the closest thing she had left to a family, but she hadn’t expected the ordeal to be so stripping.

And Clarissa’s eyes were glassy, and her face was flushed, but she was smiling. Laughing, actually, with her arms folded over her belly and shoulders shaking with mirth. “Of course it’d be you to find me. You never could stop working, could you?”

“No.” Noelle let out a strained titter and shook her head. “I never gave up the title. I’m still yours.”

She didn’t look the same, but Clarissa was Cinnia. The spirit was the same as always, even if her presentation had changed. The former queen wasn’t in her signature deep purple, or any color at all, really. Her dark hair was gathered into a low, messy ponytail. Her face was free of makeup, not that she ever fussed with much at all, but seeing her so denuded was initially disquieting. Noelle had somehow forgotten that even queens were people under their paint. She wore a gray, long-sleeved T-shirt that had the faded-out emblem of some kind of sports team on the front. Her pants were loose-fitting blue jeans no fashionable woman of the current century would be caught dead in. On her feet were brown gardening clogs.

But on her face was a smile. None of the rest mattered.

“You’re wondering what happened to me?” she asked.

Noelle cringed and looked down at her feet. She felt a little silly in her heels. They were sinking into the damp earth, forcing her to lean all her weight forward onto her toes.

“Life happened to me,” Clarissa said. “And mine has been an okay life, all things considered. Come in. Please.” She gestured toward the deck door. “Come in, if you can stand the clutter.” She looked to each angel. “You come in, too. I bet you’re hungry, Tamatsu. There’s probably some of last night’s casserole left over. Slide the pan into the microwave and hit the reheat button.”

He didn’t hesitate. With barely a glance in Noelle’s direction, he bounded up over the deck rail in a single smooth leap and disappeared into the house.

“You come in, too, Tarik,” Clarissa said. “Bill will probably sense you’re here and head over. You may as well give him a reason for a break.”

“Do you still have that stool for me?” he asked.

“Tucked under the counter.”

He mounted the deck the same as Tamatsu had and then ducked into the doorway.

Noelle watched the door for a glimpse of the angels inside, curious about how they knew the place and how they knew her queen. And feeling bruised at the reminder that the world rarely revolved around her.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Clarissa asked. “If you’re wondering how you should behave, just treat me like any other old friend. Come in and drink my coffee and steal my newspaper. That’s what everyone else does.”

“I’d never say no to coffee, ma’am,” Jenny said. “I’ve gotten so me and it have a small codependence problem.”

Clarissa chuckled. “There are worse ones to have.”

Jenny started moving toward the deck stairs. With her short legs, she was hardly going to leap onto the platform in a single bound the way the angels had.

 She stopped, turned, and backtracked. Grabbing Noelle’s arm, she started again. “Well, don’t stand there. We were invited inside. You’ll make her think you’re refusing hospitality.”

“I’m not, I’m just …”

Terrified.

She didn’t know how to negotiate this new place. She didn’t understand what their roles were in it anymore. When they’d parted centuries ago, Clarissa had said their roles didn’t matter anymore. They were all their own people—they were all equals.

Bullshit, Noelle had thought as she’d left at Clarissa’s bidding. She would never be Clarissa’s equal. No one was as good as her.

On the deck, Clarissa took Noelle’s hand from Jenny and squeezed it hard. “I told you not to come looking for me. You shouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Why, because I had to kill King Lorcan?”

Clarissa grimaced.

“Damn him. He’s where he belongs and I feel no angst over having to be the one to finish him. You knew I had to find you. You kept me focused and decent, and my job was to make sure you were safe. You don’t stop needing to do a job you’ve had for so long.”

“I did what I had to, so our people would worry less and could be here in this place without stressing about the old chaos. You were absolved.”

“Never. You don’t stop fretting about the people you love, even if you’ve been ordered to.”

Clarissa pressed her hands to Noelle’s cheeks in that way she used to.

“Don’t send me away again. I need my rock.”

“I’m not running. This is my home, and although it’s not a kingdom of ten thousand elves, I’d still like to keep it.”

“Don’t try any magic stuff to make me forget, either.”

Clarissa bumped her hip with her own. “You’re lucky. I can’t do that anymore.” Smiling, she guided Noelle through the door and into a bright, roomy combined kitchen-dining room.

Noelle’s gaze was immediately drawn to the massive table that took up the bulk of the middle of the room. It was made of dark, distressed wood, and seated twelve.

Jenny must have noticed the same. She whistled low and walked the length, skimming her fingertips along the side. “Didn’t you used to have a table like this?”

Clarissa handed her a cup of coffee and gestured toward the sugar dish and cream decanter on the table. “That one was even larger. My daughter acquired it as a joke. She saw a sketch of the old banquet hall in one of my locked away journals and had this thing built last Christmas.”

“Your daughter?” Noelle slid into the seat in front of the coffee implements and nodded at the mug Clarissa passed to her.

“Yes, she’s nearly fifty and happy she inherited enough of the magic to not look her age. I’d hoped she wouldn’t get any at all, but …” Clarissa shrugged. “I guess you can’t breed the elf out in a generation.”

 “I mean, a woman like you,” Jenny said, “you can’t help but to pass some things along.”

“Yes, but her father was human.”

Noelle dropped the sugar spoon, but fortunately for her, there were beings nearby with excellent reflexes. The silent one scooped the falling utensil out of the air before it could hit the ground. He plunked it down on the table next to her mug.

Then, he returned to the microwave and watched the casserole rotate as though he were a cat watching a fish tank.

Apparently, some things never changed. He’d been voracious when they’d been together, too, but she hadn’t thought anything of his odd appetite at the time. After all, he was an angel, and she knew nothing of angels except that that one was supposed to be hers.

She looked away from him. The compulsion to misbehave was too great, and Clarissa was watching.

“Does she know?” Jenny asked. “Well, of course she knows. You said she’d gotten into your journals.”

“If I have to be perfectly honest, I hadn’t planned on telling her, but then she turned out to be psychic and I had some explaining to do. Her father never knew, though. He died oblivious, and I’m thankful for that. He was a good man. I promise.”

“You deserved him, then, ma’am,” Jenny said. “After the way Lorcan …” She let the words trail off, but they didn’t need to be spoken.

They knew what kind of monster Clarissa’s first husband Lorcan was, and that was why Noelle had killed him.

Noelle turned her knees so they were under the table and pressed her thumbs into the muscles of her sore shoulders.

Change the subject.

“So … is your sister well? She was so confused when we all had to go.”

Clarissa’s soothing smile fell away. “She’s dead, dear.”

Noelle opened her mouth to say something—to say anything—but Clarissa put up her hands before she could.

“Very long story. I’d dare say that she’s the reason you’re in my kitchen with these angels right now.”

Tamatsu pursed his lips, seeming to think about that before shrugging and resuming his meal.

Him not rebutting was such an odd thing. He’d been a quick-witted creature who never backed down from a debate, and she’d enjoyed verbally sparring with him. Their arguments more often than not led to heated peaks that were followed by generous, genuine apologies.

She owed him back his ability to argue. She hoped to be far out of range before he spoke his first word, however.

“The angels?” Jenny asked, glancing at one, then the other. “How’s that?”

Clarissa chuckled. “Through a convoluted series of events, the man on the tractor crashed into my life and brought all sorts of trouble with him.”

“You mean that man?” Jenny pointed to the giant ducking in through the deck door.

He somehow managed to suck every bit of the air out of the room.

Or perhaps that was just how Noelle felt, given her perennial breathlessness. She also felt that way whenever she encountered a new angel. Tarik’s presence was familiar to her, and Tamatsu’s certainly had been, but she’d never seen the blond one before.

Broad, well over seven feet tall, and with hair that tickled the collar of his shirt and eyes the color the Caribbean Sea.

He was stunning, of course. But the most disorienting thing about his appearance wasn’t his size or beauty, but the fact he hadn’t concealed his wings with glamour magic. They were folded against his back, protruding from long slits he’d made in his shirt, the bottoms touching the backs of his knees.

“Blimey,” Jenny whispered. “I didn’t know they came in that color.”

“They’re that color for all Fallen ones.” Tarik shrugged off his coat and laid the garment over the back of a chair. “The black is meant to be a mark of shame, but you can’t shame the shameless, can you?” As he unstrapped his sword’s harness one-handed, he reached for Tamatsu’s coat. Tarik’s shoulder blades were spasming beneath his dark gray shirt. He’d barely gotten his harness and shirt off before one of the black wings broke free of the magic, extended with a pop, and he groaned.

Clarissa exhaled a long-suffering sigh.

“I’ve been in pain for countless centuries. What’s a bit longer?”

“Don’t be a martyr.”

Brow cocked, Tarik folded in both wings and pulled the stool up to the end of the table. “You’re one to talk.”

Tamatsu hadn’t taken his shirt off, but he hadn’t needed to. Like Bill, or Gulielmus—Noelle suspected—he’d cut slits into his shirt. His wings were the same inky black hue, and before that moment, she’d never seen them.

She held her breath and put her hand over her heart, stunned at the terrible beauty of them. They’d shared intimate parts of their bodies with each other, but apparently those had been off-limits to her.

She dropped a spoonful of sugar into her coffee mug and dragged her tongue across her parched lips. She’d willingly given her entire body over to him, and he’d held yet another part of himself back. He hadn’t given her his trust or his faithfulness.

Shameless, indeed.