Angels of Darkness (34 page)

“I wouldn't have blamed you,” he said, still in that serious manner.

“Are you joking? You'd never have
stopped
blaming me!” I exclaimed. “You'd have spent the rest of your life in some attic, sitting in the dark and cursing my name, hating me even more than that angel who wouldn't help you fly when you first lost your sight.”

He took just enough affront to step back a pace; the last feathers of his wing slipped silkily from my shoulder, leaving me even colder than before. “But unlike that old friend,
you
were exceptionally helpful,” he said, and his voice had the slightest edge. “I had counted on you to keep calling, but I hadn't expected songs. And such songs! ‘The Shy Angel-Seeker of Sweet Semorrah'? The last time I heard
that
piece sung, I was keeping very questionable company.”

“You're keeping questionable company now. You just didn't realize it before.”

“Oh, I realized it,” he replied. “I just haven't had much latitude in my choice of companions.”

I snorted in amusement. “Well, I don't mind if you make fun of my song selection,” I said. “Just don't make fun of my voice. You can't expect a mortal to sound like an angel.”

He looked surprised. “In fact, I was impressed with the quality of your voice,” he said. “Am I wrong, or are you an angel's daughter?”

And then I did the stupidest thing. Instead of answering, I caught my breath, as if he had offered me the gravest insult, then turned around and practically ran for the stairwell. I had closed the trapdoor, not wanting the blind angel to put a foot wrong as he tried to land, and now my frozen hands couldn't pry it up fast enough. With a pouncing motion and a swirl of feathers, Corban caught my arm and hauled me to my feet before I could escape.

“Moriah—I'm sorry—I didn't mean to offend you,” he said.

“I'm not offended,” I grated out through chattering teeth. I tried to jerk free but his hand tightened automatically. High body heat and exceptional strength—oh, angels had far more than their share of advantages. “I'm tired of the conversation.”

“You're cold,” he said in a wondering voice, suddenly registering the temperature of my skin. He lifted his free hand to wrap around my other arm. “Why didn't you say so before?”

“Well, first, I was watching you fly. Then I was hearing you talk about how much fun it was to fly. Then I was arguing with you. So there hasn't been time.”

Unexpectedly, he released me and then drew me against his chest once more. His wings overlapped behind me, a plush cocoon. “We need to get you warmed up.”

“We could do that inside,” I suggested. It was hard to make that sound convincing when I was snuggled up against him, luxuriating in the heat of his body.

“In a minute,” he said. “Why don't you like to talk about the fact that you're an angel's child?”

I had braced myself for the question, and this time I had my armor on. “Why might that be?” I said in a scathing voice. “Oh, maybe because my mother was an angel-seeker.
That's
not something to be proud of. Maybe because I was one of the hundreds of children abandoned every year by women who don't want to be burdened with the care of a mortal child. Maybe because I don't want your pity or your disdain.”

He was silent a moment. “And how did you come to be at the Gabriel School?” he asked finally.

I laughed and tugged myself free. Jovah's bones, but it was cold up here once a person stepped outside the protection of an angel's wings. “Only the latest stop in a highly adventurous life,” I said. “I'm going downstairs. Your dinner's probably cold by now, but I'd think you'd have built up an appetite.”

This time the recalcitrant door opened without a hitch, and I was quickly down the curving staircase into the blessed warmth of the attic. Corban, who had clearly learned to navigate the steps without being able to see them, was right behind me.

“Are you going to stay and eat with me?” he asked.

“No. I've been gone too long as it is.”

“Are you coming back tomorrow?”

I wanted to and I didn't want to, and the fact that I wanted to
really
made me not want to. But I hated the idea that someone else might come to the Great House and discover the blind angel. “I suppose,” I said ungraciously. “Someone has to look after you.”

“Can you come back earlier or stay longer? The more I fly, the more I can build up my strength.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “I'm just sneaking over here now.”

“Sneaking? Why?” he asked.

“Because no one knows there's an injured angel hiding in the Great House,” I said tartly. “I thought that was on
your
command. We've all been warned away. People think the place is haunted, so everyone's afraid of the house anyway.”

“So why did
you
start coming over?”

I let out my breath on a gusty sigh and offered a partial truth. “Because I'm the kind of person who always goes where I'm not allowed,” I said. “I thought you'd have figured that out by now.”

He was smiling slightly. “I have. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

I made an infuriated sound at the back of my throat. If I was as irksome to others as the angel was to me, I finally understood why some people despised me. “So, yes, I suppose I'll be back,” I said as I made my way toward the door.

“And we can practice flying again?” he said.

He sounded so excited, so hopeful, that I couldn't bear to give an equivocal reply. “Yes,” I said. “You can practice flying again.”

W
hen I entered the kitchen the next evening to help clean up after dinner, everyone fell silent to stare at me. I hid my instinctive apprehension behind a curious expression. “What's wrong?” I asked.

“The housekeeper at the Great House wants to see you,” Deborah said, her eyes speculative.

I relaxed a little. Alma must have found a way to signal for help. “She does? Why?”

“She says she knows you,” Elon piped up. “You worked together at some shop in Luminaux. She spotted you in the yard the other day and she recognized you.”

“Alma's
here
?” I exclaimed. She had made it very easy for me to follow her cues. “I didn't know that! I lost track of her a long time ago.”

Deborah said, “She asked if I could spare you for the next few days, since she's had an accident and can't move around too well.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“Fell and twisted her ankle,” Elon said. “And she's all alone in the house, what with the headmistress being gone.”

“She hobbled out to the porch and waved a red cloth till someone noticed her,” Judith added.

“Everyone was afraid to go up and see what was wrong, of course,” Rhesa said. “I mean—the house is haunted! But we sent one of the boys, and she asked for you.”

“She wants you to come up every evening and help her make her dinner and keep the house tidy,” Deborah said. “You'll have to stay a few hours, I suppose, but you won't need to spend the night.”

The words froze me to the spot. Alma probably didn't need me for more than half an hour a day; in fact, as long as she had food in the house, she probably didn't need me at all. Alma was not the one who had requested my presence....

“No, I'd hate to spend the night there,” I agreed. “The place is so—spooky.” I managed a convincing shiver.

Judith spoke up, her voice deceptively mild. “I suppose someone will have to take over your shift in the kitchen at night,” she said. “I don't see how you can do it all.”

“Yes, Rhesa will have to go back to night duty for the time being,” Deborah agreed.

Judith grinned at me behind Deborah's back—we both hated Rhesa—and Rhesa started whining. “But I
hate
the overnight shift! Isn't it somebody else's turn?”

“Stop complaining!” Deborah said briskly. “It's just for a few days, I'm sure.”

I was less sure, but I wasn't about to say so. I was both unnerved and a little excited to think that Corban had gone to such effort to secure my help on a protracted basis. Of course, he really had no one else to ask. It wasn't particularly a compliment to
me
that I was the only one he knew in the entire Gabriel School.

“When should I go up to the Great House? Now? It's so late already.”

“She said you should come no matter what time it was, so just head on over.”

“It's not fair,” Rhesa muttered under her breath, but Deborah gave her a minatory look, and she subsided.

No, it's not fair,
I wanted to tell her.
Angels are selfish and high-handed. They don't care who else is inconvenienced as long as their own needs are met. You can't gainsay them, so your only choices are to do what they want or to run away.

But I found that I didn't want to run away from this particular angel.

 

 

N
ow that I didn't have to creep to the Great House unobserved, I was able to bring fresh supplies to Alma when I climbed up to the house a few minutes later. She was sitting in the kitchen, sipping tea, and I complimented her on her ruse as I put potatoes in the pantry and a crock of butter on the table.

“So what's the name of this place we both worked in Luminaux?” I said. “In case anyone asks me.”

“I actually managed a dress shop there, so we might as well claim that,” she said. “Have you ever even been to Luminaux?”

I put my hands against my chest in a mock swoon. “The Blue City! The most wonderful place in all of Samaria, as far as I'm concerned.” It was an artisans' town, full of musicians and potters and jewelers and painters, and I would live there again in a heartbeat. If I thought I'd be safe.

“So you've moved around a little,” she said.

I nodded. “At various times, I've lived in Semorrah and Castelana and Velora. But I was in Monteverde longer than I was anywhere else.”

I could tell that caught her attention—most mortal women who spend much time near the holds turn out to be angel-seekers—but she didn't ask any questions.

“Just so you know,” she said, “it was the angelo who requested your assistance. I could have gotten along perfectly well on my own.”

That made me grin, but I said, “So what did he do? Shout down the stairwell at you?”

She shook her head. She still looked a little unnerved. “He came downstairs, bringing the dinner dishes with him. That's the first time he's been down here since—maybe since he arrived. I was worried he'd bang his head on a door frame or snag one of his wings on a nail, but he managed very well.”

“Yes, he's not nearly as helpless as he's let himself believe,” I said.

I read agreement in her expression, but she couldn't bring herself to criticize an angel. “Anyway, he said he'd learned you were pulling double duty and he wanted that to stop—but he wanted
you
to keep bringing him his meals.” She gave me a shrewd look. “He doesn't like strangers, but I suppose he's gotten used to you.”

I suppose he likes your company. What exactly have you been doing to charm the angel out of his misery?
“I guess I'd better take him his dinner, then,” I said, loading up the tray.

Alma gestured. “I made enough for both of you. I think it makes him more cheerful if he has company while he eats.”

Oh, her sharp eyes didn't miss a thing. But all I said was, “Glad to hear it. I'm hungry.”

 

 

C
orban was waiting for me when I made it to the top story—not sitting, as before, but on his feet, as if he had been pacing impatiently until I arrived. “Good, you're here,” he said. “Did you remember to bring a coat? It's cold again tonight.”

His eagerness made me laugh. “Yes, and a sweater underneath it,” I said. “But if you're planning to be outside for a long time, could we eat first? I don't want to starve any more than I want to freeze.”

He hesitated, then said, “All right,” and moved to the central table. I could almost read the thought in his head. He didn't want to waste the time it would take to consume the meal, but he didn't want to seem indifferent to my needs; he was trying to be considerate of someone else.
Probably for the first time in his life,
I thought as I joined him at the table.

We ate quickly and were back on the roof within twenty minutes. The moon was just past full tonight, and the clouds were thicker; there was a little less light than the night before.

That didn't matter to Corban, of course. He strode straight for the wall on the northern corner and placed his hand on its rough surface. “Just like yesterday,” he said and propelled himself up to pose for a moment on its narrow shelf. He shook out his wings as if to shake off water or dust, then pumped them twice.

And then he was flying.

Again, for the first moment or two, I was so enthralled by the sheer impossible gorgeousness of flight that I forgot my own role. I ran to the wall just to watch him swoop and caracole through the air. He didn't seem troubled by the previous night's shakiness; the launch was smooth, the arabesques confident. More quickly than he had the night before, he climbed upward and spiraled outward, and I was seized with fear that he would drift beyond the reach of my voice before I even remembered I was supposed to be singing.

So I drew a hasty breath and offered the first melody I could think of, which happened to be a Manadavvi ballad. I didn't even realize what it was until I was through the first verse, and then I was disgusted with myself. It was sure to elicit even more questions from him than the tavern song, if he recognized it. But maybe he wouldn't. I made myself finish all three verses, just to prove I would, and then picked something as different as I could think of. An Edori love song. Let him comment on my eclectic tastes. That was better than having him ask why I was familiar with Manadavvi customs.