“He is a cruel bastard,” Elena admitted grimly, well aware of Dahariel’s penchant for torture. “I wouldn’t trust him with my baby, either—if I had a baby. Which won’t be for many, many, many, many moons.”
The white gold of his wings shimmering in the sunshine, Raphael opened the greenhouse door for her. “Your body is not yet strong enough to bear an immortal child. In our terms, you are a baby and I am robbing the cradle.”
Elena stepped into the humid warmth of one of her favorite places on the earth. “Rob away, Archangel.” She was painfully glad she couldn’t physically have a child for decades at least—according to Keir, it was more apt to be a hundred years. Terror gripped her when she thought of trying to keep a child safe, of protecting that vulnerable life from harm.
If she ever had to watch her child be hurt, ever had to bury a tiny innocent who’d looked to her for love and protection . . .
She swallowed.
At times like this, she understood why her father was the way he was; not only had he lost his hunter mother to violence, but he’d then had to bury two beloved daughters and an equally cherished wife. It had killed something vital in him. What had been left hadn’t been enough to love a daughter who walked into possible death every time she went to do her job. He’d been fine with her younger sister, Beth—maybe not the father he’d once been, but not awful, either.
It was only with Elena that he’d become so . . . hard. The daughter who lived with danger on a daily basis instead of staying safe, staying protected.
Yes, sometimes she understood Jeffrey.
“The memories haunt you today.”
Elena began to snip off the spent blooms on a cheerful pot of daisies that had been a gift from Illium. “I guess it’s probably because I’m thinking about Morocco.” Putting the neatly snipped off blooms in the hand her archangel held out, she showed him where to drop them so they’d return to the earth.
Only the dry, brown flowers uncurled the instant they touched his palm, gaining color and softness until he held a palmful of bright yellow daisies.
3
“Well,” he said, “this is interesting.”
Elena’s lips twitched, the ache of memory retreating under the brilliant life of today. “Give those to me and touch the dried flowers I haven’t yet cut off.”
Nothing happened.
And the next time she put dried up blooms in his hand, they stayed dry. It wasn’t a surprise—from what they’d been able to gather, all the Cascade-born abilities seemed to come and go without warning, like a signal that only transmitted in intermittent bursts. Even Elijah couldn’t always call animals, though the ones with whom he’d already bonded tended to hang around even when he couldn’t “speak” to them.
“Ah well,” she said with a sigh. “You’ll be useful again one day.”
Flexing his hand after dropping the dry blooms in a garden she’d created in one corner of the greenhouse, Raphael made a blue flame dance on his palm. “As always, I am glad to be of some use to my consort.”
Elena grinned. “Maybe while you’re meeting with the Cadre,” she said, “I can do some research on my roots.” She shrugged. “I don’t have much to go on, but there can’t be too many local families with this”—she gestured to herself—“combination of hair and skin, right?”
Her mother’s coloring had been very similar; she’d told Elena once that the near-white of her hair as well as the dark gold of Elena’s skin came from her grandmother. The memory unfurled like a film reel inside her mind . . .
“I had a photograph of my maman.” Marguerite cut up fabric for a sparkly black skirt Belle wanted. “The nun who helped me in the first days after my mother died had saved it, kept it in a secret place, only giving it to me when I was eighteen and no longer a foster child.”
A sadness to her face that made Elena reach out to her. Her mother was a butterfly, colorful and bright and happy. She smelled like flowers. She didn’t get sad, didn’t cry.
Smiling, her mother leaned in to kiss Elena’s cheek, the familiar scent of gardenias swirling around her. “Ah, chérie, you and your sisters make my life a joy.”
The tight thing inside Elena’s chest melted away. “Why did the nun keep your photo?”
“She knew that such treasures get lost when a child is passed from hand to hand.” Marguerite paused. “Sister Constance, she had kind eyes—I think she would’ve raised me as her own if only she was able. But she watched over me from a distance, and found me the day I moved into my own tiny apartment, gave me that photo and another one that she’d taken the day I saw my mother for the last time.”