Aodhan nodded. “Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” Soft eyes on Illium. “Poor baby. But he is loved, so loved. I see that, I do.”
She left the door half-open when she went out, but Aodhan got out of bed after and quietly nudged it all the way shut. Illium wouldn’t want anyone to see him crying if he wanted to cry some more. Raphael was different. Raphael was part of their family. Then, his tired wings dragging on the floor, he walked across the carpet and climbed back onto the bed.
Illium stirred.
Seated beside him, Aodhan patted his shoulder so he’d know he wasn’t alone. Rubbing his eyes, Illium sat up. He had marks on one side of his face, and his hair was all mussed up and his eyes were big.
“Want a snack?” Aodhan picked a small pie thing he thought his friend would like.
Nodding, Illium took it, and they sat side by side, eating snacks from the tray until Illium spoke. “My papa went to Sleep.”
“You’re sad.”
Illium nodded. “How come he went to Sleep? Papas don’t go to Sleep.”
Aodhan remembered what Raphael had said and he didn’t say anything about Aegaeon being a bad papa. He just said, “I’m sorry. But Eh-ma is here, and Raphael is here. And I’m here.”
Illium put his head on Aodhan’s shoulder. “Do you think he didn’t like me? Was I bad?”
“No,” Aodhan said at once. “Even Brutus said he’d be proud to have you for his son, and he doesn’t like any kids.” Aodhan was careful to shape the words as the old warrior had said them, with a kind of half smile in his voice. “He yells at any other little angels who land in his garden, but he doesn’t yell at you.”
“My papa didn’t stay. He didn’t want me.”
Aodhan couldn’t stand that tone in his friend’s voice. Illium was always laughing, always playing jokes—never nasty ones, just funny ones. He wasn’t sad like this. “Your papa is old,” he said. “Maybe he was just so tired he couldn’t stay awake anymore.”
Illium chewed on a piece of dried fruit. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes,” Aodhan said, and it was a lie he didn’t mind telling—not when it made some of the sadness fade from Illium. “He played with you all the time when he came to the Refuge. My mama says that sometimes, angels just get old and tired. That’s what happened to my grandma. Remember? I told you.”
“My papa is old,” Illium murmured, but he was frowning. “Mama is old, too, and she’s not Sleeping.”
Aodhan shrugged. “Eh-ma is different. Special.”
No hesitation from Illium. “Yes, she’s special.” He sighed. “Do you think my papa will wake up soon and not be tired anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Aodhan replied. “But I know he’ll come to see you when he wakes up.”
The faintest hint of a smile on Illium’s face. “He will, won’t he? Because I’m his boy.”
19
Today
Illium. An archangel’s voice in his head. Vetra is here. She will meet you and Aodhan in the stronghold.
Yes, Archangel Suyin.
Switching direction, he landed on the cobblestones of the main courtyard, then made his way inside to the large gathering room with huge windows where they’d had dinner. Aodhan was already there, pouring Vetra a drink as she ate.
She was as he remembered from Titus’s court: a tall, leggy woman with a tumbled cap of mahogany-dark hair streaked with bronze, her skin the kind of white that tanned to a pale gold, and her wings as rich a brown as her eyes. She had the type of mobile face that seemed to mark spymasters—distinctive and vivid when she was with friends, she could turn it bland and forgettable while she was working.
It was a trick he’d seen Jason pull to great effect, and he had no idea how either did it. Jason had a tattoo that covered half his face and people still didn’t see or remember him when he didn’t want to be seen or remembered.
When Vetra lifted a hand in a silent apology aimed at Illium, he said, “Eat. You must be exhausted.” He grabbed a seat on the other side and took the tumbler of mead Aodhan passed across.
Their fingers brushed for a second.
He jerked back without meaning to, the mead sloshed—and Aodhan went motionless. Shit. It was just that he hadn’t expected it . . . and that Aodhan meant too much to him.
Vetra spoke before he could attempt to say something. What, he didn’t know.
“I didn’t find much else on my second glance,” she said. “Just the abandoned hamlet, everything neat, no rotting food in the fridges, no signs of people having packed up and left, no blood, no bodies.”