Then I felt something strange. A tug, deep inside my chest, from the faint birthmark on my breast I’d had in every life on Earth, pulling me toward her.
Like we were connected. Related. Like I’d felt with Dina.
The quiet shush of the door opening sent me scrambling around the bed to the opposite side and scooting under the draped cloth that puddled around the sides of the bed. I held my breath as footsteps approached.
“Hello, Beautiful One,” someone rasped out. “I’ve missed you.” I recognized the deep voice at once. Gavriel. “It’s getting worse.”
His whisper was full of pain and despair. I’d felt that way more than a few times on Earth. My heart ached, hearing Gavriel’s pain so exposed in just a few words.
“I have nothing left, Arabella. I fight to keep the balance, but I’m not even sure why. We’re losing. The Abyss takes more of Earth every year. The gate is falling, may fall any day. And I’m tired.” A shudder of indrawn breath. “All I ever wanted was to be with you in the Celestial Realm. To be together. But now, I’d settle for dying alongside you.” Was Gavriel going to kill himself?
I couldn’t let that happen. Carefully, I poked my head up to see. My blood went cold. Gavriel had the hooded robe on so I couldn’t see his face, though the front of the fabric gaped open, partially revealing his chest. The tops of his golden wings were visible over his shoulders, shining so brightly that I had to squint to focus on him… and then the light glinted on a strange knife in his hand, a type I recognized. I’d been whittling myself with one like it for weeks now.
This one had a gleaming golden handle, though, and he held it under his breastbone, the smoky blade hissing on his exposed skin. The sight made me feel sick. Was he actually planning to make his wish—to die alongside Arabella—a reality? I had to stop him, but I knew if I said something now, I was signing my own death warrant. Gavriel already thought I was a spy from Hell. If he caught me in here with Arabella, I had a feeling he’d unmake me without asking questions.
I had to do it anyway. I took a breath, prepared to scream, to jump out at him and scare him into dropping it, or climb up him and pull it away—just do something,anything—when someone knocked at the door, then opened it without waiting for an answer. “High Angelus?” It was a Guide. “It’s the Great Gate. It’s urgent.”
In seconds, Gavriel was gone, and I was alone in the room again. I exhaled heavily, the adrenaline coursing through my system making me feel slightly light-headed and weak-kneed. Half of me wanted to go see what was going on at the gate, but I knew that was a terrible idea. Even more terrible than the thing I was planning to do. I crept up onto the bed next to Arabella and lay down, making sure my toga and hood kept the still-filthy parts of me covered, away from her.
It should have creeped me out to be lying next to what was essentially a corpse. But for some reason, it didn’t. It felt like I had so long ago, with Dina. Like I was home.
Like I wasn’t alone, for the first time in so long.
For some reason, I started speaking into the comfortable silence. “So, Arabella, huh? Nice name. It means Beautiful One, right? They got that right. Someone must have thought you were pretty amazing to give you a name like that. Must admit, I’m jealous. I’m Feather, but my real name is Inutilia.” The silence seemed accepting. Like when Rumple spoke into my dreams.
For some reason, for a flash, I had a sensation of… breathing, somehow. But it wasn’t Arabella. Maybe it wasn’t even in this world, but in my thoughts. Was Rumple listening in? “Hello?” I whispered. “Are you there, Rumple?”
The invisible pulse stilled, then settled back into a quiet, steady thrum of not-sound. I must have imagined it. “I wonder if we grow into our names, Arabella. Like, you were named Beautiful One, and so you became beautiful. Because you are, obviously. I mean, look at you. You’re everything I’ll never be, no matter how much muck I carve off. See, I don’t think we grow into our names. I know what I am deep down. I’m Useless. Apparently, a useless scrap.” I snorted. “Whoever gave me my true name must have hated me.”
It might have been my imagination, but the soundless breathing stuttered, hiccupped. I lifted myself up, peering at Arabella’s face. Had her brow crinkled?
“You disagree? That’s the thing, Arabella. Beautiful people can’t understand what it’s like for people like me. To know that every time someone looks at you, they’re judging you, finding you lacking. On Earth, it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t expect anyone to think I was special. I mean, I never had any choice how I looked, I was just dropped into my life. But here, I thought… I thought angels would see more clearly.” I lifted one arm, examining the muck.
“They think I did enough terrible stuff to earn all this imbalance. Not a single one of them has even questioned how I could have gotten all this smut on me in a single life.” I snorted. “They really think a soul could get this ruined in one lifetime, can you imagine? Stupid Protectors. Even Mikhail! This kind of sin takes a hell of a lot longer than eighteen years to accumulate.”
After a few more seconds, I slipped off the bed. “Thanks for letting me hide here. I bet Righteous has given up looking by now. Good talk, Arabella.” I paused, fixing her hair and dress so it looked just as it had. None of my muck had rubbed off. That was lucky; she still appeared as pristine as ever. “I get why Gavriel is so gone on you. If I could have even a little bit of what you have, if I could be someone’s Beautiful One for just an hour, I probably wouldn’t even mind being unmade.”
The room pulsed once more with an invisible presence. Maybe it was her, her consciousness hovering over us.
I pressed a soft kiss to her hand. “It would be worth almost anything, if someone would look at me the way he looks at you. What would that be like?”
I left the silent, still woman alone and crept back to my own lonely room, knowing I would never experience the love she might never even know she had.
CHAPTER18
Mikhail
This kind of sin takes a hell of a lot longer than eighteen years to accumulate.
The words I’d overheard in Arabella’s chambers the evening before repeated in an endless loop in my mind as I watched Feather carving away at the muck on her feet. She wept silently, occasionally cursing in her strange way, with made-up words.
Every time I’d so much as glanced at her this past week, I’d been filled with rage and helplessness. But today, I felt something new. Suspicion.
“Farking shizz grits!” she shouted.
“Why don’t you curse?” I found myself asking. Her eyes met mine, and a smile spread quickly over her features.
“Oh, so Growlycantalk today. I wondered if you were in one of your moods.”
