“You will,” he said quietly, his eyes on the gate, his head tilted as if he heard music that we could not. “It may be a very long time. But I imagine it won’t be forev—Wait.” He held still for a long moment, his eyes unfocused.
At last, he blinked. Then, with a curious, bemused smile, he reached out to the belt I wore that held one of the strange knives. Mik had the other one in his workshop. Without a word, I handed it over.
“I want you each to have one of these.” Before I could stop him, Rafe had cut away two feathers from the tip of one wing. His face twisted in pain as he held them out to me and Mik.
“What in all Sanctuary did you do that for, Rafe?” Mik shouted, grabbing hold of the excised feathers as Rafe panted through the pain. “Those won’t grow back!”
Rafe shrugged. “I had a feeling.”
“A feeling?” I knew what he meant. A vision. Rafe’s “feelings” were usually gloomy premonitions. Many of them had been dire warnings of events on Earth. Wars, genocides, terrible natural disasters, and they would plague him for months.
But this time, his expression was almost wistful. “I don’t know precisely what it means. Looking at the gate just now, I had a vision of a feather being sacrificed. So I’m sacrificing one to each of you.”
In a flash, I took back the knife and cut a feather from my own wing, handing it to Rafe while the sharp agony coursed through my entire being. “Just in case it’s my feather that needed sacrificing,” I panted.
“Didn’t know we were doing souvenirs,” Mik grumbled. “I would have brought some fucking gift wrap.” He handed Rafe one of his own bronze feathers. “You need us, you try to send a message through. Get one of these to the gate, and we’ll find a way to help you.”
“We’ll storm the Abyss if you need us,” I agreed, tears coursing down my face now. I didn’t bother to wipe them away as Rafe embraced me.
“Don’t forget.” His eyes met mine with a flash of intensity. A command. “Don’t forget, Gavriel.” Then he pressed his hands to the gate, softly sang his name, and walked into it, his form shimmering into pure soul energy before he vanished.
I’d thought about his final words for a long time. Had he meant don’t forget my promise to storm the Abyss if he needed us, or to sing to the gate? Or his premonition? Or something unspoken? He’d had a vision of a feather being sacrificed.He might have meant this young woman.
My eyes opened when the woman in question screeched like a banshee, making my ears ring. “Fark! Shizz fark, mother of donkey dung!” Somehow, she had dropped the soul knife onto her lap trying to hand it to Righteous, and it had sliced her leg. I peered at the spot, but relaxed when I saw the thick coating of smut there had kept it from penetrating too deeply. It still had to hurt like fire. “Monkey butts and coconuts, that was un-farking-expected!”
I forced myself not to smile as she wriggled around on top of the table, still cursing in that strange way. She couldn’t be from the Celestial Realm. I couldn’t imagine any of the Higher Angeli acting in such an undignified manner.
“What is she doing?” Righteous sneered.
His tone raised my hackles. “She told you. The only way to cleanse an otherwise permanent stain on one’s soul is with that knife.”
“Why… Why have I never heard of this before?” he asked.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Mik and I were planning to talk to you about it soon enough. It’s very much a last resort. In fact, some Protectors choose unmaking and sacrifice rather than suffer the pain of this knife. Are you willing to attempt the feat?”
He scoffed. “Feat? If the filthy little scrap can do it, I’m sure I can.”
“Stop calling me that!” Feather shouted from the table. “And I bet you start crying in less than a minute.”
“A bet?” Righteous retorted. “You’d lose. You’re an insignificant flea in Sanctuary. You need to learn your place.”
I had to force myself not to strike him. Over the years, Righteous had become cocky and arrogant, like most of the higher-level Protectors I tried my utmost to avoid. This young rooster had no idea what he had just witnessed, how unique Feather was. I felt compelled to help him on his spiritual journey by providing a teachable moment in humility.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s not call it a bet, then. Call it a promise. If you begin weeping within one minute, you promise on your wings to do a favor for the Novice. If you can keep from weeping, as Feather did, she will make the same promise.”
“Any favor?” Feather snorted. “He could ask me to kill myself. That would be a favor he’d like.”
“Anything short of unmaking, then.” I tried not to smile as Righteous held his hand out imperiously for the knife.
Feather picked it up and handed it over. “Be careful, Ry. The first time you cut especially, you need to do a small, shallow stroke—”
“I don’t need your help, Scrap.” He lifted one leg, positioning the knife where the oily smut had grown especially thick along his inner ankle. “Start timing, please, High Angelus Gavriel.”
I began counting down while pacing around the table, trying to peek at Feather’s newly exposed skin without being obvious. Was it as soft as it looked? “Sixty seconds, fifty-nine—"
Righteous’s scream interrupted me. “Ah, stars and suns, this can’t be… This can’t be what she just did!”
I faked a look of concern. “Should I start the count over?”
