A wild blue inferno met her gaze. Such a soft heart you have, Guild Hunter. Yes, we can offer this healer a place, but he will still have a hard life. Many immortals are unforgiving of physical imperfections.
The words echoed Aodhan’s earlier ones, and they weren’t cruel, simply factual. I know, she said. But I think if we can give Laric a place where he can grow strong inside, he might do much better than he’s doing here. He’s buried himself alive.
Jaw held in a grim line as an impossibly desolate shadow passed over his face, Raphael nodded before returning his attention to where Aodhan had gone to stand by Laric. The angel’s hands moved quickly. The smaller, slighter healer moved his scarred hands in turn, their conversation apparently intense.
That was when Elena noticed that Laric’s wings were much smaller bumps beneath his robe than they should be. Her eyes burned at the realization that the fire had done catastrophic damage to his wings, too—and yet he had the heart to heal others still. That was far more luminescent, in her mind, than anything else she’d seen in this place.
Swallowing the response, she went to sit by Ibrahim, gently touching her fingers to his hair. It was tightly kinked and so soft. “Come on, Ibrahim,” she whispered. “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
The biting wind kissed her mind, touched with the salt-laced air of the sea. Aodhan asks us to come close.
When they joined Aodhan on the other side of Ibrahim’s supine body, the angel spoke in a soft voice. “Laric says there was something beneath the Gallery once.”
The silent healer nodded from where he stood beside Aodhan.
“He never went there, assumed it was for storage of unwanted things. He only has a vague memory of the trapdoor in the Gallery itself, but he remembers a door set into a wall near the Gallery entrance, which was sometimes open and from which he could see a flight of stairs.”
“The stairs would have to be impossibly steep, given the description Elena has given me of the Gallery,” Raphael said.
“Laric only caught a glimpse, so he cannot say.”
Blood pumping hot and dark under her skin, Elena looked at the healer. “Can you lead us to that door?”
He seemed to start at being addressed directly, but his hands began to move. Aodhan translated. “Laric wishes to stay with Ibrahim, in case he falls out of anshara and is in pain, as sometimes happens, but he can give us instructions.”
Raphael looked to Elena as Aodhan got those instructions. “I think we should wait until after the bell for the Luminata’s nightly contemplation. That time is sacred enough to them that Gian asked the Cadre itself not to disturb it.”
It was difficult to make herself wait when instinct was screaming at her that something monstrous lay beneath Lumia, but Elena nodded. It made sense to wait until the brothers had all scurried back into their rooms, leaving the hallways clear.
Thunder crashed outside seconds later, so loud it vibrated through Elena’s bones. Eyes locking with Raphael’s, she reached for his mind. You are not going out there.
He cradled the side of her face, just shook his head, the midnight strands of his hair framing a face of blinding power. And she knew. If that was the only choice, then Raphael would make it. Because he was an archangel. He stood a chance of survival even in the midst of the aberrant Cascade-born storm. If Lumia collapsed and the lightning hit her or Aodhan, they’d die.
Body rigid, she threw her arms around him and just held on tight.
It was twenty minutes later that Cristiano came by with a note for Elena.
The librarian insists he destroyed the book, that it was a “worthless item that should’ve never been” in the Repository of Knowledge. I don’t believe him, but I can’t call him a liar to his face without causing grave insult that the Luminata may use to stir up trouble, for we both know the world needs no more chaos right now. I will, instead, keep scouring the shelves in case they have forgotten something else.—Hannah
It wasn’t what Elena wanted to hear, but at the same time, the librarian’s caginess lent further weight to the fact that Hannah had inadvertently stumbled upon something important. Sliding the note into a pocket in an instinctive effort to keep it safe and away from prying eyes, she forced herself to leave Raphael—who was chatting to Aodhan—and went to sit next to Laric.
“Do you want to stay here?”
When the healer froze at her question, she simply waited. You didn’t push a broken, scared bird. That would just make it attempt to fly away. It was at least two minutes later that he finally lifted his hands, dropped them again to glance over at Aodhan. But the member of the Seven wasn’t looking this way, his concentration on his low-voiced discussion with Raphael.