Angels of Darkness (35 page)

Before the evening ended, I was thinking it was lucky I
did
know such a wide range of songs, because he stayed out more than an hour. I never entirely lost sight of him against the overcast sky, but more than once I was certain he had gone too high or ranged too far to be able to hear me. I guessed that the distance was deliberate. He wanted to prove to himself that he could slip the tether of my voice but still make it back to safety. I hoped he was right. I couldn't imagine what I would do if he disappeared in the night and I had no idea where he had come to ground.

But no such disaster occurred. Just as I was beginning to think my voice would give out completely, I saw his silhouette pass directly over the imperfect circle of the moon and then drop rapidly toward the ground. Too rapidly, it seemed to me—when he was within hailing distance, I abruptly stopped singing and started shouting.

“Corban, slow down! You're too close! You'll crash!” I heard him laugh right before he did something that caused his descent to slow dramatically. Now he was hovering a yard or two above the roof, and the night air was windy with the sweep and drag of his wings.

I took a deep breath. “All right. You're about five feet up. Come down
slowly
. I'm putting up my hands—reach out for me—just a little nearer—”

And
there.
His fingers closed around mine; his body was still so inclined toward flight that he lifted me to my toes, like a boat tugging against its mooring and almost pulling it loose from the pier. Then all at once his feet were solidly on the roof and the sudden cessation of motion caused us to stagger, almost into each other's arms. There was a hectic moment of feathers and body heat and dizziness, and then we both straightened and I stepped away. He let go of my hands.

“That was even better than last night!” he exclaimed. “I
remembered
things—how to bank into a turn, how to slip into a downdraft. It all seems so—so effortless. I can't believe I was afraid before.”

I couldn't help laughing. He hardly seemed like the same person I had met a few nights earlier. Maybe it was the moonlight, so enchanted by the sculpture of his wings that it could not resist gilding them with radiance, but he seemed to glow with energy or excitement or hope. Even his skin seemed to hold a faint light. By contrast, I seemed to be hidden in shadows. Even if Corban hadn't lost his sight, I doubted he would have been able to see me.

“Excellent,” I said. “The more you practice, the more familiar it will become.”

But some of his buoyancy faded as his face showed dissatisfaction. “Well, I can't learn much by flying in circles over the school,” he said. “I have to go farther. I have to fly for longer periods.”

“Maybe you need to establish routes that you can take from the house to specific destinations,” I said. “Routes that have markers that let you know where you are.”

He was listening closely. “Yes. For instance, when I fly about ten minutes in that direction”—he pointed straight north—“there's a distinct noise that I catch whenever the wind blows. It sounds like—clattering.”

Oddly, I knew exactly the spot he was talking about. I had passed it on my journey to the Gabriel School, and I had convinced the driver to pull over so I could investigate. “It's an abandoned mine,” I said. “There are four or five collapsed buildings, and an old windmill that once must have pumped water to the surface. Half of the blades are missing, but when the wind blows, they spin enough to hit one of the old buildings.”

“So I know where I am when I'm over
that
,” he said. “Then if I can find a landmark that's nearby, I can go out another few miles—”

“And eventually you can fly from point to point to anyplace in Samaria.”

But that was going too fast for him. He shook his head. “It just doesn't seem possible,” he said. “So many factors would have to be considered. The effect of the wind—the possibility of being blown off course—the fact that any man-made structure could be destroyed at any time and I would lose my point of reference. I could fly for miles in the wrong direction and be completely lost.”

I flung my hands in the air. My fingers were practically icicles by now. “Fine! Find reasons it
won't
work instead of trying to find ways it will,” I said. “I'm going inside before I freeze to death.”

“It's just that there are obstacles,” Corban argued, following me to the trapdoor and down the stairs. “I want to fly again, but I have to be careful.”

I went straight to the table where our scraps of dinner remained and gulped down a glass of water. The singing and the arguing had left me parched. “Fine,” I said again. “I think you're right to take it slowly. But I don't think you should give up.”

“I'm not giving up,” he said. “I just need more help. You have to come with me.”

I almost choked on my last sip of water. “Come with you where?”

“The next time I fly.”

I stared at him, unable to answer.

Oh, I'd been carried in an angel's arms before. But not far, and not lately, and not of my own free will. I had no desire to repeat the experience. “No,” I said shortly. “But that's the right idea. You can go anywhere you want if you bring someone with you to tell you where you are.”

My words had roused his curiosity; he cocked his head. “You're afraid to fly with an angel?” he asked. “You? You're not afraid of anything. And you don't think anyone else should be, either.”

“I'm not afraid,” I said stiffly. “Just not interested.”

“You
sound
afraid.”

“Perhaps you're not as good at reading emotions as you like to think.”

“Is it the height? Some people are too petrified to even stand on top of a tall building.”

“I don't mind reasonable heights. Corban—”

“Have you ever flown before? It's utterly magical. It's not just being in the air, so high above everything, it's the speed and the motion and the sense of—of—limitlessness. It seems like exactly the sort of thing you would love.”

I was silent.

He knew precisely where I was, though, because he came a step closer to where I stood by the table. “You
have
flown,” he decided. “And you didn't like it. Why not? Some angels are careless about the comfort of their human companions, I know. They go too high—they forget how cold it is for mortal flesh.”

“And certainly
you
were never one of those thoughtless angels,” I said, hoping my sneering tone would make him drop the topic. “You've always been so considerate.”

But he came closer still, brushing aside my words. “That can't be it. I can't see you suffering in silence, even to please an angel. You would have spoken up if the issue was merely discomfort.”

I set down my water glass, turned away, and began stacking the dirty dishes on the tray. “I'm going to take these down to the kitchen—”

He caught my arm and turned me back to face him. His darkened eyes were half closed, as if to aid his other senses in picking up information I didn't want to impart. “So you were in an angel's arms, but you didn't want to be,” he mused. “Maybe you were embroiled in some kind of legal dispute. Perhaps—were you being brought to an angel hold for a trial? Or even a sentencing?”

Again I refused to answer, but I knew he could feel me trembling. I didn't even bother trying to pull away; his grip was too tight, and I already knew how strong he was.

“An adjudication,” he decided. “Your word against someone else's. What was the accusation? And who was your accuser?”

“I'll tell you if you let me go.”

He smiled, genuinely amused. “If I let you go, you'll run from the room.”

“Corban, this is an old story.”

“But one that still haunts you,” he said. “I want to hear it.” When I still didn't answer, he prompted, “At least tell me where the trial occurred. If an angel was transporting you, you must have gone to one of the holds.”

“The Eyrie,” I said reluctantly.

His eyebrows rose. “And your case was put before the Archangel?”

“Yes.”

“Impressive! Who was your accuser?”

“My employer. A Manadavvi lord who owned property up by Monteverde.”

“And what was the crime?”

I took a deep breath. “Attempted murder.”

That surprised him so much he actually released me. I almost bolted for the door, but I knew it was pointless. Even if I made good my escape, he would just insist on hearing the tale some other day. He would give me no peace until he knew the details—or until I left him, and the Gabriel School, behind.

I was so tired of running.

“I tried to kill a man,” I said in an even voice. “And my only regret is that I was unsuccessful.”

Corban nodded and, to my surprise, pulled out one of the narrowbacked chairs. “I think this is a story I have to hear straight through,” he said, dropping down and arranging his wings behind him. “So why don't you sit and tell it from the beginning?”

I slowly took a seat across from him. He poured more water, first for himself, then for me, not spilling a drop. It was the first time I'd wished that Alma had included wine with the angel's dinner.

“A few years ago, I got a job working in a Manadavvi household—”

“From the beginning,” he interrupted. “Farther back than that.”

Sweet Jovah singing, he wanted to trace the entire route of my life. I grimaced, though he couldn't see me, and began speaking with exaggerated patience. “I told you. I was an angel-seeker's daughter, and for years I ran wild on the streets of Monteverde. One day I was begging for bread at a bakery when the owner said she needed extra hands in the kitchen, and if I'd work for my keep she'd train me in a profession. I was smart enough to say yes, and I stayed with her for thirteen years.”

I shrugged. Dorothea had been practical, honest, exhausted, and not particularly warm; I'd never come to love her, and she'd never loved me. But I respected her, and I learned a lot from her, and I explored every building and byway in Monteverde when I was making deliveries for her business.

“When she got old enough to retire, she sold the bakery to her nephew and helped me look for another situation. The nephew and I had never gotten along,” I added. Not since I'd kneed him in the groin after he tried to slip a hand under my shirt. “I ended up taking a position in the household of a Manadavvi lord—a good job, anyone would have thought.”

“But it didn't turn out that way.”

“It started out pretty well,” I said. “The pay was good, the work was no harder than I was used to, and I got along with most of the other servants.” I had become particularly friendly with a woman about my age with antecedents even fuzzier than my own. I always assumed Olive was the bastard child of a Manadavvi landowner and one of his housemaids. She had that Manadavvi look to her, all high cheekbones and flawless skin. All the grooms and footmen were wild for her, but she was good at holding them off. It was going to be marriage or nothing for Olive. She didn't want to go her mother's route, that was plain; she talked about saving enough money to start her own business in Monteverde or one of the river towns. Actually, we talked about pooling our resources and going into business together. It was the first time I could remember having a dream.

“I can guess what happened,” Corban said quietly. “The lord took an interest in you, rather forcefully, and you protested.”

I made a small snorting sound. “Oh, no, I wasn't built to catch an aristocrat's eye,” I said. “And I knew how to dress and how to behave so I didn't get the kind of attention I didn't want. But another girl—Olive.
She
was the one the lord couldn't stop thinking about.”

We developed the habit of working in pairs, and I at least always kept a knife concealed under my skirts. But Olive wasn't afraid of him; she didn't seem to realize he was dangerous. She avoided him when she could, but she didn't lie awake at night and worry what he might do to her.

As she should have.

She also didn't spend her free hours sneaking around the ancient, labyrinthine mansion, exploring which stairways led where and which servants' doors opened onto private suites. As I did. There was a day I could have navigated that entire fifty-room house if I had been as blind as Corban. I knew passageways that I swear no one but me remembered. Even the mice had forgotten them.

“What happened to Olive?” Corban prompted when I had been quiet too long.

I didn't want to say the words, didn't want to remember the scene, didn't want in my mind, again, those images of horror. So I spoke as quickly as I could. “He brought her to his room one night against her will. She struggled, he reacted, and by the time I found them, she was no longer breathing.” I took a deep breath, because I had somehow run out of air. “By the time I left them, he was bleeding so much that I thought he would surely die.”

For a moment, the silence between us was absolute.
Well, there's the worst of it,
I thought.
There's the truth that defines me.
Try to hurt me and I will hurt you back. No matter who you are, no matter how much it costs. And I'm always on guard, waiting for the next blow to fall.

I waited in some defiance for Corban's expressions of disgust and outrage. I realized—much to my fury—that my attitude was tinged with regret.
Now he will order you from the room. Now he will never wish to see you again.
Who cared? He was an angel, self-absorbed and self-righteous and allying himself with power, like all the rest of them. My story would shock him, I was certain, but not because a Manadavvi lord had committed murder in the name of lust. He would be shocked because a servant girl had thought she had the right to fight back.