“You’ve tried all the ordinary ways to redeem yourself,” Mikhail purred. “But nothing else. You have done only what was expected.” The room filled with the sound of Righteous’s erratic breathing, and Mikhail moving something around on tables. Then Mikhail spoke again. “But today I need you to do something unexpected. An unusual task. Out of the ordinary, one might say.”
“Anything,” Righteous promised.
“Good.” I heard Mikhail stride to the door. “Then when I return, I expect to see every single speck of glitter in this room in that box. Every single one. Protect the Maker Hall and the Novice, boy.”
“G-glitter?” Righteous sputtered, but Mikhail must have been gone. Righteous cursed, “Fuckingglitter?!” and I fell back asleep, my cheeks aching from forcing myself not to smile.
I had no idea how much time had passed when I awoke to feel something moving on me. Small, short movements, like a sparrow picking at my feet. I cracked one eye open.
Righteous had a pair of golden tweezers, and was gently plucking away the specks of glitter that had fallen onto me, placing them one by one in the box. The firelight flickered on his hair.
He didn’t look at my face, although I could tell he knew I was awake. His body stiffened slightly, and his lips thinned. Should I thank him for picking the glitter off? No. He’d just get pissy. I let my eyes flutter shut again, feeling the meticulous pecking of the tweezers on the clumped muck, wondering why he was bothering.
Wondering if it was my imagination when I felt hot tears landing on my toes before he withdrew.
* * *
“So, can I ask a few questions?” I asked Mikhail the next day. Righteous had spent most of the day and the evening before collecting the glitter, so I’d had to pretend to be asleep. He’d hovered over me a few times, like he wanted to tell me something, but never did. I feigned sleep the whole time. I wasn’t ready to talk to him about… any of it.
But being in such close proximity to Mikhail made me burn with curiosity that needed to be satisfied. Along with other things. I wasn’t sure when or how, but the small crush I’d had on Growly Bear had blossomed into a borderline terrifying obsession. All I could think about were his hands on me. His lips sliding over my shoulders, my neck, down to my breasts. His feathers stretching wide over me as he lifted my hips up to meet… I slapped myself lightly, ignoring Mikhail’s quizzical glance.
Mikhail and I had slept, him on a bed along one wall, me on my cot by the fire. Then we’d shared breakfast, visited the baths—separately of course—and I’d been expecting to get started on the self-mutilation/soul knife work. But he’d muttered that his heart was too weak to bear it, whatever that meant, and he’d escorted me over to a table that was apparently mine now, announcing that it was craft time.
Sometime in the night, he had taken all the supplies I’d amassed in Sanctuary, and organized them, even supplementing them. He hadn’t given back the glitter, saying something about letting the Abyss into this realm one microscopic shard at a time, but I had my fabric scraps, sequins, rhinestones, metallic puffy paints, and my trusty hot glue guns, as well as large scraps of leather and some new fancy-looking brass rivets, along with a tool to apply them. I sort of wanted to make Mikhail a pair of assless chaps with them. Or Gavriel, I supposed. He could definitely pull them off.
“You may ask any question you like,” Mikhail told me. “As long as you agree to answer some of mine.” Oooh. That sounded tricky. I had a lot of secrets, and I had the feeling lying to a High Angelus was kind of an unmaking offense. Still, I was pretty sneaky. I could hide stuff. Or create a diversion. Fake my own death! I’d done that before, and it had worked super— “Well?” he interrupted my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It worked super well. Um, I mean, sure. But I’ll go first.”
“Fine.” He wasn’t looking at me; that made the first question easier.
“So, do you ever go to The Merge?” Some tools dropped on the floor. Unusual.
“No.” A very definitive answer. Dangit. I should have asked,Do you ever go to The Merge and if not, why not, and if so, what type of Protector or Guide or whatever would you consider merging with? And what should I wear to that merge?But it was too late.
He was already asking his first question. “What was the best thing about your time on Earth?”
Oh. That was unexpected. “The very best thing? Like, besides pie?”
“Was the best thing pie?”
I felt his dark eyes on me as I began dotting hot glue onto a piece of fabric I’d cut into a headband. “No. But pie is not to be missed.”
“I have not had pie.”
“Wait, never? They don’t have pie here?” I gasped. “I knew this was Hell…o.” He shot me what could have been a quelling glance. Ifeltquelled, anyway. “That’s a travesty,” I declared. “Those berries you gave me the other day…” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, remembering how wonderfully awkward that had been. “Anyway, they would make a great pie. I’ll bake you one sometime. Well, I’ll bake you aminipie.”
He coughed. “Why a mini pie? Do I seem like a mini pie type of Angelus?”
“Oh my stars, Growly, did you just make an actual joke?” I pretended to faint until he growled for real. “Okay, the thing is, I’m not good at… almost anything. Like, anything useful. I can’t weave, or sew, or make clay vases, or change a tire, or do laundry well. Seriously, if a skill is useful, I’m not your gal. On Earth, I thought I was just talentless.NowI know that’s because some basshole gave me the world’s worst name, which isn’t just a name. Although whoever named Righteous missed the boat. He should have been named Douchey McButtface.”
“I named him,” Mikhail muttered.
“Oh, sorry,” I said over him murmuring something that sounded like, “But you are not incorrect.” I concentrated on my glue gun work while I spoke. “Anyway, I digress. I figured out that if I tried to do something important, something that had actual value, I would fail. Every. Time. But if I did something similar that was sort of superfluous? Like with my crafts. I can’t make anything lasting or that anyone else would really want—but I can make pretty, disposable things, like those shirts I made you. By the way, do not wash those. I’m pretty sure the glue up here is purification water soluble.
“Anyway, see this headband?” I placed it over my forehead. I hoped the silver and pink sequins accented the silver my hair was underneath. “Cute, but not noteworthy. As it turns out, I’m pretty darn good at that sort of thing. So, mini pies.”
“Mini pies?” Mikhail grumbled, carving something. It was odd, he was sort of hiding whatever he was working on. And he wasn’t wearing one of my shirts today, just his loose robe and leather trousers. “I still don’t understand.”
