Archangel's Heart(101)

In front of them, the elderly man’s age-spotted hand held a tremor as he tried to pay for the food he’d purchased. It was the tremor of a life long lived, not fear, and when the money slipped from his grasp to flutter to the ground, Elena thought nothing of bending down and picking it up.

Turning, the man went to smile . . . and caught sight of her wings, of Raphael. His face turned sheet white under the sun-dark brown of his skin. Scared he’d have a heart attack, Elena smiled as gently as she could, touched him on the upper arm in silent reassurance, then placed the money on the counter.

By this time, the man’s wife was staring at them, too.

Eyes a little bleary, the elderly woman suddenly smiled a smile so dazzling it was breathtaking and stepped toward Elena. Tears rolled down her cheek, her water-logged but joyous outpouring incomprehensible to Elena but for a single word: “Majda.”

I’m asking Tasha to translate, Raphael said, while the woman went as if to throw her arms around Elena.

Jerking to life, her husband started to pull her back, but Elena was having none of that. She closed her arms and her wings around the woman’s fragile body with care, the elder’s bones like a bird’s under her touch. The woman cried and continued to talk, and her hands, they patted at Elena as if she was a daughter long lost come home.

When Elena drew back after a long moment, folding her wings once more to her back, the woman’s face was incandescent with joy and wet with tears. Elena wiped those tears away with gentle fingers.

Tasha says this woman is calling you Majda’s blood. Madja was her friend’s child, and when she was lost, it broke her parents’ hearts. They died far too young. Raphael paused as the woman spoke again. She is so happy the child survived.

She has to be talking about my mother. Elena knew she’d been reaching from the start when it came to Majda, but it simply didn’t make sense to her that the two of them would share such similarities without being related. And now, another piece that fit. A child. “I want to tell her the child was my mother, that her name was Marguerite.”

Tasha came through, giving Raphael the words Elena needed to say. When she spoke them, the elderly woman sobbed again and hugged her, while repeating Marguerite’s name over and over. It was at least a minute later when she drew back and began to speak to her husband.

Patting Elena’s hand afterward, she beamed and stepped back.

Elena wanted so much to ask her more questions, but the fear in the husband’s eyes stopped her. She wouldn’t hurt this sweet couple, wouldn’t repay the woman’s affectionate welcome by terrorizing her husband.

Letting the white-haired pair take a seat at a nearby table with their food in front of them, Elena and Raphael placed an order of their own. When the food came, she glanced at the couple and felt relief kiss her skin like a cool rain. The man no longer appeared full of terror. Instead, he was looking at her with thoughtful eyes, as if seeing what his wife already had.

Lighting up as she caught Elena’s gaze, the man’s wife waved her and Raphael to the two spare chairs at the table.

“Elena!”

She’d just taken a seat, glanced over her shoulder at the call to see Riad . . . whose eyes bugged out of his head at seeing Raphael in the chair beside her. But when she angled her head in welcome, he came over nonetheless.

The elderly woman chattered at him, making hand motions.

“My great-grandmother says I am to sit and speak English to you.” It came out a squeak.

Elena noticed every hair on his arm was standing up. “Grab something to eat first.” She put some money into his hand. “Get what you want, then come join us. I want to talk to your great-grandmother and I need a translator.”

The teenager nodded jerkily before running back toward the bun seller.

“This family has courage,” Raphael murmured, his eyes on Riad’s great-grandmother. “And I think it comes from this woman.”

“Yes,” Elena said, “I think so, too.” She wasn’t really interested in the food but she ate a few bites to make everything appear normal while waiting for Riad to return.

The teenager returned within minutes, his chest heaving.

Dragging over another chair, those hairs on his arms still up and his hair starting to crackle, too, he gulped from a bottle of water. His great-grandmother seemed to chide him for his manners.

Raphael, all their hair is beginning to crackle.

I’m afraid my power is surging. A Cascade effect, I believe. It has an impact on mortals in close proximity, but it should do them no harm.

Having been speaking to his great-grandmother between bites of his first bun, Riad now told them what Tasha had already translated about Majda having been the daughter of a cherished friend. “She says Majda’s baby had the same hair but lighter skin. Like the other lady said to you, my great-grandmother also says light hair was very strong in the girls in the family, but still it was . . . I don’t know the word.” He bit down on his lower lip.