“Master Mikhail said—”
He cut her off with a sharp motion. “The sheets are right inside the door. What were you doing back here?” He scanned the shelves, his gaze falling on the harps. Had I left a fingerprint?
A movement distracted me from his stupidly perfect face. Sunny was fiddling with the kazoo in her pocket.Crapola.
I stepped toward him, flinging greasy hair away from my face. “I was asking what happened to stop the music in Sanctuary.” His eyes cut to me, and I shrugged. “I love music. Any kind at all.” His eyebrows lowered, like he was confused. I kept going, distracting him from Sunny’s obvious guilt. “Did you play one of these harps?”
Righteous stopped and lifted a harp from the shelf, holding it across his chest. When his fingers touched the instrument, his expression changed. I watched as longing and regret flickered there… and then he played a few notes.
My heart squeezed. It was glorious, everything I had always dreamed an angel’s harp would sound like. He played a glissando, notes spiraling upward that turned into a sweet melody, wrapping us in a cocoon of silvery sound, until Sunny sniffled.
Then he cleared his throat and tied the harp back in its bag. “I loved playing more than anything,” he said softly.
I swallowed, wondering which one was the real Righteous: the condescending jerk or the sensitive musician. “Sunny said the music stopped after Arabella was… made?”
He nodded, his dark hair gleaming in the soft light. “It was only a few years afterward when the Guides locked up the harps, and all the rest.” His features were bleak. “We needed to focus on more important things.” His finger twitched at his side as he darted a glance at the harp again, like he wanted to steal it. Or free it.
“Were you there?” I asked. “When Arabella got hurt? Did the Apprentice Sunny told me about kill her?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, folding his wings tightly behind him and scanning the shelves as he answered. “I saw it all, but no one knows exactly what happened. Gavriel ignited their bond and brought her out of the Maker Hall to introduce her to Sanctuary. From the very beginning, I could tell something was wrong. She couldn’t speak almost at all; she was distant. While we were trying to communicate, introduce ourselves, the Apprentice…” He clenched his teeth. “He threw himself into the Well of Souls, where the material for new Constructs came from. It killed him almost instantly, but not before he had sealed up the Well.”
“Sealed it up? Why?”
“No one knows. But now, since the only entrance to the Well was blocked off, no new Angeli can be constructed.” Behind me, Sunny gasped. I wasn’t sure why, but Righteous’s features had gone stone cold.
I didn’t understand. “How did the Apprentice block it off?” I had a feeling it wasn’t superglue.
“He was pure, not a hint of stain on him,” Righteous replied, spitting out the words. “He had to be, to work in the Maker Hall. When the Maker left, he melted himself down and forced his own soul into the seal.”
“He unmade himself?” Sunny squeaked.
As if her question had shocked him back to his previous ashhole self, Righteous’s lip curled. “Storytime’s over, and I have someplace to be. Get out. Both of you.” He did an amazing impression of a hot mall security officer as we grabbed our plates and scurried out. Then he snarled, “Return the Novice to her room now, Sunny. And report to me tomorrow to discuss this.” He followed us out of the storage room, muttering a word as he closed the door that made a patch of it glow, as if locking.
Sunny hustled me back to my room so fast, I almost dropped all the food off our plates. Once the door was safely closed behind us, she shoved the new sheets under the bed and then climbed up next to me. She flung herself on top of the mattress, making a small whimpering sound. “I’m so screwed.”
“Why?” I asked, eating as fast as I could while still talking. I was starving. “What can he do?”
Sunny moaned. “He knows I’m guilty of something, I can tell. And if he asks me if I stole anything—”
“He won’t,” I said soothingly. “You didn’t steal it. Youborrowedit. Hide it under my bed if you like.”
She got up and did just that, muttering something about losing it all for a kazoo. She started pacing around my bed as I ate, until I finally ordered her back on the bed.
“No one’s going to find out, or even care, Sunny. Now focus. You promised you’d tell me about the gate.” Ugh, it was so weird; I felt like I was asking about my crush.
She groaned and held up a hand, ticking off numbers on her fingers. “Okay, so there are three ways out of Sanctuary: the small Earth Gate that baby Novices go through for their first earthly missions—it’s accessed through the Maker Hall—the Flight Hall, and the Great Gate.”
I didn’t care about the others right now. “The Great Gate. What’s so great about it? Is it better than the others?” It probably was; how could any other gate be that sexy? And so strong, and tall, reaching all the way up to the—
“No.” Sunny interrupted my inappropriate thoughts, although it sounded like she wasn’t certain. “Maybe more important. It’s the gate that separates this realm from both the Abyss and the Celestial Realm.”
“Wait.” I swallowed a mouthful of cheese cube. “On the other side of that gate is Hell? It’s a darned Hell Gate?” Shizz, I was crushing on a Hell Gate.
Sunny rolled her eyes. “No, on the other side are two pathways, and one leads to the Abyss. According to Gavriel, that path grows wider and shorter every year, and the one to the Celestial Realm longer, as the balance shifts.”
“So that’s a yes, Hell is on the other side of that gate, and getting effing closer?” I screeched. “Why would they even make it a gate? Why not make it… I don’t know, a wall? The Great Wall, with absolutely no way of opening up and letting Hell take over. Or like The Hell No Not A Gate, This is An Impermeable Barricade? Oh, crap, I heard itscreaming. Were those tortured souls in Hell? I wanted to touch it, like it drew me in. Was that Hell reaching out for me? Why did I find Hell attractive? Is Hell even single?”
She tossed a pillow at my head. “Calm down, Feather! It’s not a Hell Gate. It’s the Great Gate, and the Abyss is safely on the other side. The Angeli and Protectors who sacrificed themselves made certain of that.”
