“If I leave you behind?”
“You know the answer.” She would simply follow.
Brushing back her hair with one hand, he curved his lips in the faintest of smiles. “Are you sure you do not wish to be more like Hannah?”
“If you ask nicely, I might be up for learning some calligraphy.” But the laughter faded all too soon. “Will the others in the Cadre help you against her?”
“Elijah and Favashi, yes, but as to the others—uncertain. Astaad’s behavior has remained erratic, Michaela is no longer answering anyone, and I’ve just had word that Titus and Charisemnon are both showing violent outbursts of temper. Favashi says Neha is stable, but the Queen of Poisons has the ability to strike without warning.” His next words were in her mind. My mother is the monster that scares other monsters.
29
The storm continued to be a wild squall the next morning but was forecast to pass within two hours. “I need to go speak to Evelyn,” Elena said as they landed on the Tower roof, the rain driving their clothing into their skin. Raphael could’ve protected them using his abilities, but she’d argued for him to conserve as much of his strength as possible for the battle that might well await.
“Your sister lives at the family home,” he said, raising his wings to shelter her from the needlelike stabs of rain. “It is inevitable you’ll meet your father.”
“I know,” she said, pitching her voice so it would carry above the pounding sound of the water hitting the metal and concrete of Manhattan.
“You will not go alone.”
“I need to.” Her father would try to crush and demoralize her, and she didn’t want her archangel to see her hurt and broken.
Raphael caught the pain in his consort’s eyes before she could hide it, felt his anger turn into an unsheathed blade. “No.”
Shaking her head, Elena pressed her hand against his chest. “You’ll hurt him when he hurts me,” she said with blunt honesty, blinking the rain from her lashes. “You won’t be able to stop yourself. And no matter everything else, he’s still my father.”
Raphael closed his hand around the side of her head, tangling his fingers in the wet silk of her hair. “He doesn’t deserve your protection.” Jeffrey deserved nothing from his oldest living daughter but her contempt.
“Maybe not.” Elena acknowledged, leaning into his touch. “But he’s also Beth, Evelyn, and Amethyst’s father—and they seem to love him.”
“You ask the impossible.”
“No, I ask for what I need.” She held her ground where even other angels would’ve backed down. “What I need, Archangel.”
He had allowed her freedom beyond anything he might’ve imagined, but this he would not do. “I will come with you.” He gripped her chin when she would’ve argued. “I will not land. That is the only concession I’m willing to make.”
She folded her arms, her eyes silver in the storm-light. “It’s not much of a concession, but we don’t have time to argue.”
He spoke into her mind as they flew out into the tempest of wind and rain once more. Hear this, Elena—if he crosses the line, I will break him. I do not have that much patience.
Less than fifteen minutes later, and very aware of Raphael sweeping across the sky above, Elena turned and walked up the steps to her father’s house. Again, it wasn’t a maid who opened the door. “Gwendolyn,” she said, shaking off the rain from her wings. “I just came to have a chat with Eve before I head out of the city.” She didn’t want her youngest sister to believe she’d been forgotten. It was a hurt she’d never inflict on anyone of her own.
“Come inside,” Gwendolyn said, concern on that discreetly made-up face. “You must be so cold.”
Elena stood dripping in the hallway. “I’m sorry, I’m wet.”
“Give me a moment.” Gwendolyn disappeared and returned with a towel, handing it to her.
Elena wiped off her face and did the best she could to squeeze the water out of her ponytail. “I’ll stay in the hallway—don’t want to ruin your carpet.”
“It can be cleaned.”
Somewhere in the midst of patting down the parts of her wings she could reach, Elena became aware that Gwendolyn was staring at her. “I must look a sight,” she said with a laugh, expecting a polite response.
What she got was nothing she could’ve predicted.
“I always wondered,” the other woman said in a husky voice, “what was so wonderful about her that he couldn’t let go, that he had to keep a mistress who reminded him of her.”
Elena felt the ground open up beneath her feet. She did not want to be having this conversation with her father’s second wife. “Gw—”
“I see it now,” Gwendolyn continued, deep white grooves around her mouth. “There’s something in you, something she must’ve given you—and it’s something I’ll never have. That’s why he married me.”
Acutely uncomfortable, Elena nonetheless couldn’t just stand by in the face of such raw pain. “You know how he reacted when I wanted to attend Guild Academy.” It was her enrolling at the Academy without his permission, permission he’d never have given, that had led to the fight in which he’d called her an “abomination” before throwning her out of his life. “Yet he allows Eve to go. That’s because of you—he listens to you.”
Gwendolyn hugged herself, tiny lines flaring out at the corners of her eyes. “The worst thing is—I love him. I always have.” Turning, she began to walk down the hallway. “He’s in the study.”