This was more than spite.
The bitch had also taken Lucifel’s Grail.
It had been a miracle more heartstopping than surviving Troy’s attack. But it also left unsettling questions lingering in its wake. If Angela wasn’t the Archon, then why could she stare into the Eye without disaster? Troy wanted answers now as badly as Sariel and the angel who’d possessed that frazzled human, Nina Willis. Troy now remembered hunting her once, but turning away in disgust when she saw how broken her prey was inside. Depression was the worst seasoning for any meal.
“Done,” she snapped, lifting off from the ground to recline on a nearby tree limb. She settled her wings back into place, ruffling them slightly beneath the cool rain.
Sariel stood beneath her tree, gazing up at Troy and her hand dangling over the bark. Her left leg had bent beneath her a little—a cushion.
She couldn’t stand the sight of him. “Now what do you want?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Whatever do you mean? I don’t quite follow,” she said. His danger would be obvious from her tone of voice.
“The sigils mean nothing without blood, Troy.”
The muscles in her ears and wings tensed. “Then tell Angela to use her own. She seems competent to me. Full of shit and water. So, likely full of blood.”
His teeth set. “You and your foul mouth.”
“Oh, I have plenty of reasons to curse.” She bounded from the branch, landing beside him, spraying leaves in every direction. How empty she felt without the Grail around her neck. For the Jinn it was a privilege even to look upon it, and yet despite their race’s legendary toughness, there were few who could tolerate its watchful presence. Troy had been one of those few. Her sister, the other. “If I had known you’d brought that meat sack to Bind me, I would have killed you both the moment you entered the room.”
“I didn’t bring her to Bind you. I brought her to look at the Grail, Troy.”
“Yes,” she spat back at him, “and now she’s stolen it.”
“Taken it.”
“She’s not the Archon.”
“We don’t know what in hell she is right now, and if you don’t awaken Tileaf before Naamah weeds this garden, we might never know. That Circle would bleed us dry. So why can’t you just cooperate and slit your damned wrist, and then, by all means crawl back beneath the rock you slid out of.” His smile was intended to infuriate her. “Back to your real Hell.”
“And yet,” she clicked her teeth at him, “mine is only temporary.”
Now Sariel’s smile wavered.
Troy shoved him out of the way, stomping over to the Circle and the carefully arranged patterns in the dirt. Once she was standing in their center, she reached for the obsidian dagger strapped to her thigh, slid it from its sheath of rags, and cut a long but clean wound up to her elbow. Her blood dribbled into the circle, outlining her furrows with a red that bordered on black.
She cleaned the injury, licking her teeth for Angela’s sake.
“. . . why the blood?” Angela whispered to Sariel, doing her best to avoid eye contact with Troy, probably hoping she couldn’t hear.
Oh, but she could hear.
“You have to think of the Fae as carnivorous plants . . .”
Nina closed her eyes, coughing like the smell of the blood stifled her. More likely it stifled the angel.
“Blood provides nutrients they must otherwise live without . . .”
It began.
Twigs snapped, scratching against rough bark. Wood creaked. The trees were coming to life under a strong, supernatural breeze, waving and dancing, and Troy raced up the nearest trunk for a safer view, clinging to a thick branch while it groaned beneath her. A dim green glow flashed throughout the great clearing around Tileaf’s tree, highlighting every crumpled leaf.
Shortly afterward, the Fae materialized. She was a ravaged mess with a leash of light wrapped around her slender neck, her spring green wings and voluminous hair disheveled from constant pain. Like all angels she had been imposing once, perfect as only they could be perfect. But now, blood streaked her spider-silk train, most of it her own, and her feathers either drifted into the dirt like her leaves or quivered pitifully, twisted from the priests’ ritualistic cruelty.
“You,” she said, her words thick with hatred.
She’d spotted Sariel almost immediately.
“You have your leaves, priest. What do you want from me now?” She swayed, dizzy from awakening, but energy snapped around her body nevertheless.
Miniature lightning bolts rocketed in his direction.
They crackled against the barrier Troy had set up, dissipating into harmless tendrils, the force behind them fanning Sariel’s longer hair behind his neck. Troy opened her eyes wider, no longer pained by the light, happily gloating at the sight of Angela, aghast. This was not the type of faerie she’d obviously expected. Not a bird with its wings broken by her cage, lashing out at them desperately. Tileaf groaned, as if the barrier had wounded her more than Sariel’s survival, and she slumped against the trunk of her tree, heaving for breath.