Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (17 page)

chapter
sixteen

“You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life
you can will only one definite thing.”

arthUr schopenhaUer

I was a little surprised the next morning when Phoenix buzzed the intercom. I had forgotten I’d agreed to go to the art exhibition with him, I was so blindsided by everything that had happened last night.

But now, more than ever, I realized I needed to understand this world.

Phoenix probably knew more about it than anyone, and for some

reason I trusted the things he told me. Claudia’s death had taught me that exiles clearly knew what I was, and if that could endanger innocent people, well, I needed to make sure I wasn’t responsible.
But
I’m innocent too.
I couldn’t help my next thought:
Yeah, and tied to the damned.

When I joined Phoenix in the street, it struck me how unfazed

he was. I felt puff y and stale from the night before. I was dressed in comfy clothes and had barely taken a brush to my hair. He looked fresh and minted, invigorated almost. When he looked at me, his Embrace_FinalINT.indd 136

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chocolate brown eyes stirred, and before he could mask it, a smile formed within them.

“How long have you been here? On earth, I mean?” I asked as

we walked toward the bus stop.

“Too long to count. We could take a taxi if you prefer?”

“No. Bus is good.” I preferred to take the bus to a taxi when I could. I had a habit of getting carsick in the back of taxis.

Phoenix stood aside when the bus arrived, letting me on first.

He really was on his best behavior.

I gave a huff as I took a seat and considered his earlier comment.

“What? Are we talking hundreds of years?”

“I guess,” he said as if it were no big thing.

My mouth fell open. “Do you miss the angel realm?” I wasn’t

sure if it had seemed like home to him.

“Sometimes.”

I turned to look at him. Glimmers of purple floated through the black base of his hair, and as the sun caught different angles, a few strands sparkled silver.

“Your hair is…amazing.”

He smiled and shifted in his seat. “You don’t strike me as the

hair type. I had you pegged for eyes.”

I felt exposed that he had figured me out so quickly. “Do you all have hair like that?” I said, trying to ignore his comment.

He laughed, sounding more relaxed than I had heard him before.

“Not exactly. It was more something I inherited. It resembles a natural stone. It’s— ”

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“Opal.”

“Yes.” The smile he gave me was different, genuine. I knew

instantly it was a smile not often seen, and something else was apparent too: I was smiling back.

When we arrived at the Contemporary Museum, the doors were

closed, a sign out front explaining that the exhibition didn’t open until tomorrow.

“That’s annoying,” I said.

“Not really. It’s better this way. We get the whole place to

ourselves.” Phoenix didn’t stop at the front doors. Instead, he went around the side and knocked on a smaller, more inconspicuous

door marked exit.

“Phoenix, you can’t— ”

The door opened. A short balding man stood just inside. When

he saw Phoenix, he moved aside, widening the door in invitation.

Phoenix looked at me with a sly grin. “As I said. Not so

bad.” He held his hand out toward the door and then followed

me in.

The bald man shook Phoenix’s hand and told us we had an hour

until the next shift arrived. Then he left us alone.

“Wow. This is amazing. Who was he?”

“Someone who owed me a favor,” Phoenix said, and I knew he

would tell me no more. I guess I didn’t really need to know, not when there were so many other, more pressing questions.

The exhibition was amazing. Some pieces were still in crates

waiting to be hung, but we got to see most of it.

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“So, you like contemporary art?” I asked as we moved through

the abstract sculpture section.

“To be honest, it’s not my favorite. I prefer Renaissance.” He

watched for my reaction. “But I knew you would like it. I’m sure you’ve been to a million exhibitions with your Grigori friend, but I knew there was a good chance you wouldn’t have seen these pieces.” I forced a smile but didn’t respond. I was too embarrassed to

admit I’d never been to an exhibition with Lincoln. I hadn’t really been anywhere with Lincoln. We were always training.

“Is it my turn now?” he said, as we continued to walk through

the oversized rooms.

“For what?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“To ask a question.”

I frowned. “I guess.”

He pushed up each of his sleeves. He was so casual and normal

in his movements, yet they all looked so precise. I wondered how much practice it had taken and about the transition from angel to human. Did he feel more angel or human now?

“Why are you so afraid to be more than ordinary?”

My eyes instinctively flashed down. Of all things to ask. I felt tears well up and worked furiously at holding them back and

getting control of myself. I tried to focus on other things: the twisted bicycle sculpture, the intricate cornice, the stray bits of crate stuffing scattered on the ground.

“I’m not, I just…don’t want to be singled out, on display.”

“And you think that being a Grigori will put you in that position?” 139

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“I just want
my
life. The one I’ve been working on for the last seventeen years. I have plans, plans I like, and he…they…had no right to…” I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him how much it hurt that Lincoln had lied to me, pretended to be my friend, had known my future and not told me. I didn’t add that I now included my

mother in the “had no right to” category.

“He? Lincoln, your Grigori?” Phoenix was not letting it go.

“He’s not…mine.”

“Good to know,” he said, walking on to the next sculpture of a

naked woman in flames.

I felt like slapping him. Instead, I put my foot down. “We are

not talking about him.”

On the couple of occasions I’d considered broaching the subject with Steph or Dad, about what was happening to me, I didn’t seem to be able to form words. I’d thought it was just me but Phoenix took his time inspecting the burning woman before answering.

“Look, Violet, here’s the thing. Grigori are not usually…
friends
with exiles. In a way, we’re natural enemies…Nonetheless, saying this as
your
friend, you need to stop acting like a lovesick child.

Whether you like it or not, you’re in this world now, and exiles are very good at sensing power in other exiles and in Grigori.”

“And you can sense me,” I said, choosing to rise above his other comments. For now.

“Some part of you must be able to feel how powerful you are.”

I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. “When I touch you, I’m

swamped. I can’t control it.”

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“I know. Through you, I can feel part of it too.” He gestured to a wooden bench in the middle of the room.

I remembered how the sensations had subsided when he looked

at me in the pizzeria. Somehow, when I was around him, they

seemed to stop. “You controlled it, calmed it down.”

He nodded. “I took away some of your anxiety and gave you a

little of the emotion you needed to control it.”

“You
gave
me emotion?” I said, my eyes widening.

“I’m an empath. It’s something some angels…exiles can do. One of the reasons we are dangerous to humans. We can read and influence emotions— intensify some, eradicate others. It’s one of my strengths.” I immediately thought back, replaying the time I had spent with him, trying to think about what emotions I’d had.

He seemed to know— or
read
— how I was feeling.

“Violet, I only did it to try to help you find control. You’ll learn to do it yourself in time. I meant you no harm.”

I looked at him suspiciously. “The other day, at my apartment…” He looked down. “I
might
have given you a little of my own emotion. In my defense, I didn’t take advantage of the situation, no matter how much I wanted…” He didn’t finish.

“And last night?” I pushed, increasingly agitated by this invasion.

“I just tried to help you get through what happened to the girl, take the edge off.”

My eyebrows shot sky high. Now that I thought about it, I had

been coping better than I would have expected considering what

I had seen. “Is that all?” I asked, my voice filling with accusation.

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“I’ve been a little…clumsy. I apologize.” He shrugged through a smile. “It can be very difficult to contain myself around you.” I was angry at being influenced and blushing at his words. I held on to my anger. “What about today? Now?”

“Hardly anything,” he said, waving a hand through the air as if we were talking about whether he had taken an extra cookie from the cookie jar. “Now that you know, don’t think you can use it as an excuse to deny the very real emotions you feel for me.” And presto, he was back to being his usual arrogant self. “Everything you felt last night and today has come from you. I should know. I’ve felt it.” His smile widened.

Even though I wanted to die, knowing that he had been able to

feel every one of my emotions, he wasn’t going to deter me. “How will I ever know if what I feel when I’m around you is real or not?” His smile faltered and he looked worried. He leaned toward me

a little. “You’ll be more aware of it now. If you ever caught me doing it, I know you’d never trust me again. I wouldn’t risk that.” He was right: I wouldn’t. But would he?

My eyes subconsciously found the exit door. Force of habit. But I got the feeling that if I ditched Phoenix right now, he’d only be waiting at my doorstep again when I got home. I ran my hands

through my hair. The fact was, I was running low on allies. If I pushed him away as well, where would that leave me?

“Okay, but don’t…” I warned, trying to quash my flight instinct and muster as much threatening emotion as I could to reinforce

my words.

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“I won’t,” he promised, hands in the air in mock surrender.

————

The next day, I went back to the alley where Claudia had been

killed and left a bunch of sunflowers at the entrance. There were already piles of wilted flowers she would never see and cards she would never read from her friends and family.

“I’m sorry, Claudia,” I whispered.

Now that I knew Phoenix had been altering my emotions, it

seemed easier to look within and find the sadness and— most of

all— the guilt. The sound of her neck…the very last look on her face when she knew what was about to happen. I had seen her blue eyes before they were whipped to the side under a blanket of red hair. I had seen the pure fear.

Before I left, I turned back to look down the empty alley.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” I said through the awful

lump in my throat and the terrible realization that this might only be the beginning.

————

Phoenix called as I was walking home and talked me into having

lunch with him. I was tempted to refuse when he told me we were going to “our café,” which turned out to be Dough to Bread, but he promised to behave after I explained to him that
we
didn’t have an
our
anything.

Surprisingly, spending time with him was becoming increas-

ingly easy. Even the senses were less intrusive. They still came and went, but sometimes I seemed to notice them more than others.

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I wished I could say being with Phoenix filled the void left by Lincoln, but the closeness, the completeness I felt when I was

around Lincoln could not be replicated. It was disheartening to consider that the connection I’d felt so strongly may have just been a result of our angel components and, even worse, that I

may never feel it again. At least with Phoenix it was honest…to a point.

We still hadn’t talked much about what had happened to

Claudia. I got the feeling I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable

about it. I hadn’t even told Steph everything, just the same story we’d given to the police. There was no way to tell her more without having to explain the whole thing, and I still didn’t seem able to do that.

On the couple of occasions I’d considered broaching the subject with Steph or Dad, about what was happening to me, I didn’t seem to be able to form words. I’d thought it was just me but Phoenix explained that angels in their realm could compel people to say or not say certain things. This level of interference was generally against the rules for normal humans, but it seemed I was no longer in that category. He figured this was probably the reason I wasn’t able to share more with Steph or my dad. Apparently, it was standard procedure for a still- undecided Grigori.

“Why are you different?” I asked Phoenix when our food arrived.

I thought back to how he’d told me he wasn’t like an ordinary exile.

“Just lucky, I guess.” His sarcastic tone didn’t exactly sound

convincing.

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