Archon(70)

Nina stood up, more anguished than Angela. “Vevaliah,” she said sorrowfully.

Tileaf regarded her with agony, gasping. Then she noticed Nina’s red eyes and stiffened with dawning comprehension. “Who are you?”

“Mikel. One of Raziel and Lucifel’s chicks.”

There was a long and strange silence.

“That . . .” The Fae whitened in her face, seeming afraid. “. . . that cannot be.”

Mikel lowered her head, shaking it. “What have they done to you? Were you not Israfel’s favored one? Why did you defect?”

“That heaven was a hell,” Tileaf whispered shakily. “You of all angels should know that . . .”

“More than here?”

The Fae shut her eyes. Her mouth twisted with anger. “If you can’t kill me, then leave. I have so little time left. So little of everything. They’re gone. All of my children. I am the last.”

Mikel stepped forward, her hands uplifted in supplication. “Then, please, show them! Show them what you remember of the Supernals. There must be others to remember for you, Vevaliah, when you have passed on. The moment is a crucial one, you know this.”

Tileaf closed her eyes again, behaving like the merest mention of the past crushed her. When she reopened them, she gazed intently at Angela, almost hopeful. “Are you Her?”

Her tone left hardly any room for a no.

“The Ruin . . .” Angela turned aside, growing more and more upset by the sight of the shattered faerie standing in front of her. “I—I don’t know. But I have memories of these Supernals . . . Two of them. And”—she lifted the Grail into the open—“this—”

Troy cursed under her breath. The stone was not for the curiosity of others.

“—whatever it is.”

The Fae’s eyes widened, reflecting the green of the more watchful Eye in all its terrible beauty. It spun in front of her, glinting and almost intelligent. “Lucifel’s Grail.” Her words were heavy things, escaping her with a visible effort. “She gave it to Raziel as a gift, shortly before the Celestial Revolution in Heaven. It is a dreaded object . . . cursed from spilling the blood of countless angels. Put it away, now. It should never be out in the open for long.”

Angela tucked the Eye under her shirt, troubled. “Spilling blood?”

Tileaf nodded and leaned her head back against the tree trunk. “Using the Grail, Lucifel would conjure the Glaive. Her most terrible weapon, though she probably had no need of it. It was rumored to have the power of cutting through anything . . . anything in the universe, even substances that could not otherwise be cut.” The Fae’s expression became more distant and haunted. “Why she gave such an object to Raziel was beyond our understanding, though many said it was a lover’s gift. He then handed it to the Jinn shortly before his . . . death. It can only be used by those who carry the spirit of the Supernals—”

Making Angela’s strangeness all the more discouraging—as there were only three.

“Raziel,” Tileaf continued, “Israfel, and Lucifel.”

“What is it though? A stone?”

Tileaf shivered all over. “Perhaps. But I am glad it is no longer before me.”

Angela stood with Kim, her face bland, but her stance firm. “Show me. I need to see them for myself. The Supernals.” She edged nearer to Tileaf, fascinated by her beauty, but with all the foolishness of any other human, her fingers aching to touch or stroke. “I’m sorry about what happened to you here. I am—”

Tileaf swallowed, pained. She could barely disguise her disgust. Angela was human, a member of the race responsible for more than half of the Fae’s earthly torments, and she had less than little to offer for this kind of service. But the spirit inside of Nina was right. This was also Tileaf’s last chance to pass on memories that few angels had survived to record, and perhaps to the person who could help her most. So she eventually looked at Angela again, making it clear that Angela and Angela alone had a place in her consideration. “You will not understand all that you see.” Her words were like a dire warning. “You will be entering my memories and thoughts, and because I am not human . . . this experience will be very unlike what you’re probably expecting. It might affect you for quite a while.”

“That’s fine,” Angela said.

“Yet, before we continue,” Tileaf said as her fine brow creased, “you must promise me something in exchange.”

“All right.”

“If you are truly the Archon, as soon as you are granted the opportunity—you must kill me without any hesitation.”