She nodded. “Lord Morningstar is ill?”
“He needs his sister’s aid,” Yarl replied, keeping Gavriel’s condition deliberately vague. “But she will be grateful. What is your name?”
“Captain Von Hahn.”
“I will tell her.”
Once they reached the other side and passed the rook standard, some of the tension leached from Cathrynne’s shoulders. “A cypher named Mercy Blackthorn is following behind us,” she said to Captain Von Hahn. “Will you see that she is allowed across the border?”
“I can do that.” She eyed them all with reserved curiosity, as though she wanted to ask more questions—but might be better off not knowing the answers. “Shall I send word ahead to Angel Tower?”
“Yes, please,” Yarl replied. “Ask them to have healers ready.”
The captain gave a brief salute and waved them past the checkpoint. Cathrynne sat back. Mercy would come to Arjevica. And if she didn’t . . . Well, Cathrynne would hunt those White Foxes to the ends of the earth.
They paused once to rest the caracals and wolf down a quick meal at a roadside inn. Gavriel’s condition remained unchanged, but he didn’t seem worse. It was dark again by the time they reached the Angel Tower. Cathrynne Rowan stared up at the golden cupola. In twenty years as a cypher, she had never set foot inside one.
“Here we are,” Lucio Tavora said, his good humor returned now that they had reached their destination.
The man had not uttered a word of complaint, even after the harrowing attack on the road. Now he jumped down from his perch and opened the door with a bow.
Yarl untied his purse and took out a stack of dragha bills. “The remainder of your payment. And additional for the hazards you and your cats faced.”
Tavora waved it away. “The agreed upon fare is sufficient, Master Yarl. There are always passengers looking for transport back to Kota Gelangi. I am sure to fill the seats.”
“You’re certain?”
“Quite.” Tavora glanced at Gavriel’s still form, his expression growing serious. “It was an honor to serve the Morningstar. Should you require my services again, you need only seek me out.”
Together, the three of them eased Gavriel from the carriage. His wings dragged on the wet pavement, the onyx feathers dull. Before they’d taken a step toward the gate, it swung open. Four seraphim emerged, brusquely taking charge of Gavriel. In the moonlight, their faces were like living statues, devoid of compassion or any emotion at all.
“Wait,” Cathrynne said, a flutter of panic rising in her chest. “I should?—”
“Let them,” Yarl murmured, as Tavora clucked his tongue and drove off.
She lowered her voice to a bare whisper, remembering Mercy’s warning about angelic hearing. “I don’t trust anyone but you, Edvin.”
He squeezed her hand. “The feeling is mutual. But only his own kind can save him now.”
They followed the seraphim into the tower. It had pearly walls that seemed to glow from within. The central chamber soared upward, a dizzying spiral that made her head swim. The seraphim carrying Gavriel flew upward. Cathrynne and Yarl followed along a stairway that hugged the curving inner walls.
“Suriel is the oldest archangel living,” he said softly. “She wields great authority. Haniel would not dare to cross her, and she certainly would not set foot within this tower uninvited.”
Cathrynne nodded distractedly, trying to ignore the seraphim who had stopped to stare at the human and cypher invading their inner sanctum. For the sake of Gavriel’s elderly secretary, she hoped they would not have to climb to the top. But at the third landing, a tall, golden-winged figure awaited them.
Suriel, the archangel of Kievad Rus, was as beautiful as her brother was handsome, like a statue cast from burnished dark bronze. She wore a simple white turban and gown of pale ivory cut to expose her smooth brown shoulders. Her shrewd eyes fixed on Gavriel, who dangled limply from the arms of the seraphim.
“What has happened?” she demanded.
The timbre of her voice made Cathrynne think of spiced rum and woodland mosses, with a seductive swirl of opium smoke.
Yarl bowed. “He has been poisoned, my lady.”
“Poisoned?” Suriel’s delicate brows knit. “With what?”
“A stone called kaldurite. It repels the ley.”
The archangel’s face hardened, but she did not seem shocked. “Come,” she said.
