Page 84 of Archangel’s Lineage

All members of staff would now leave the premises until summoned back by Raphael. None lived in the home—most lived nearby, while Sivya and Montgomery had their own cottage in a private little grove on the far end of the property.

“Or, if you’d both like, we can fly to see Aodhan’s mural,” she suggested. “I already asked and he said you’d be welcome.” It wasn’t his top secret project but a large-scale painting that he was working on inside a warehouse, far from prying eyes.

“I would enjoy that very much.” Sharine’s eyes lit up. “I should not talk of favored protégés, but truly, he is my favorite.”

Hannah, who’d tucked her arm through Sharine’s, laughed as Elena shut the doors to the core behind them. Montgomery had already shut those on the opposite end.

“I have had no protégé yet,” Hannah was saying. “I don’t feel old enough—but I think if I had one so brilliant as Aodhan, I, too, would favor him.”

Good luck, Archangel, Elena said as she joined the other two women. I hope Marduk has some answers for us.

A rush of ocean waves in her mind, the salt-laced sea on her tongue, before Raphael retreated.

The Cadre was now in session.

***

Marduk sat directly opposite Raphael, Caliane on one side of him, Alexander on the other. Next to Alexander was Zanaya, beside her Suyin. The Queen of the Nile and the Archangel of China were two very different angels in personality and styles of rule, but at this moment, they had their heads bent together, murmuring to one another.

Titus sat beside Suyin, which put him to Raphael’s right. To his left was Elijah, beside him Aegaeon. Raphael had made sure not to end up next to Illium’s father, and the other archangel had worked to the same goal. Nonetheless, this Cadre held far more friends to Raphael than enemies.

Elijah had never been an enemy, even if it’d taken Raphael time to understand that. He’d once been Caliane’s general, had protected that which was most precious to her. It was a loyalty he’d carried into and beyond ascension.

Caliane, of course, would fight to the death to defend Raphael, a fact with which Raphael still occasionally struggled. To trust her after the horrors of her madness... those scars would take a long time to fade.

Titus, too, was a friend, a good-natured archangel who liked Elena far better than he did Raphael. It made Raphael smile.

Suyin was an open ally. Raphael had helped her when she’d been at her weakest, and Suyin had been clear that, come what may, she’d never forget his assistance. Furthermore, one of his people was part of the pair who’d rescued her from Lijuan’s clutches. Naasir and Andromeda remained among her favorite people in all the world.

Zanaya was neither ally nor enemy. She had come too recently out of Sleep to be either. What he did know was that she was far more interested in building up her own territory than in making war on others.

Alexander fell in the same boat. He’d been warlike once upon a time, but he was... older these days, in ways both good and bad. The loss of his son had broken his heart, and it would never again be the same. But his grandson had tempered that agony, made him focus on family rather than conquest.

And, of course, he was now consort to Zanaya, as she was to him. Whatever had occurred between the two archangels seemed to have brought him a peace that Raphael had never before seen in the Ancient.

That left Aegaeon alone as the one person he would call a true enemy. Raphael was quite content to leave that a forever state of affairs—for he would never forget how Illium, so bright and quick and happy as a boy, had cried after his father’s abandonment.

A man who caused such pain to a child who adored him was no one Raphael wanted in his corner.

Then there was Marduk.

Blood of my line.

No enemy, then, but his motives remained murky.

“We meet due to the most exigent circumstances.” Caliane sat with her hands curled loosely over the ends of the chair arms. “The Mantle falls, and with it, our world. This connection, I think we all agree, holds true.”

No one decried her taking charge of the meeting. It had somehow become natural that Caliane would open and close their meetings. Whatever madness had once infected his mother, it had long since passed, leaving her with a wisdom riven with sorrow endless.

Their blood will ever coat my hands.

Words she’d spoken to him as they stood on soil that had once held a thriving city, then later, only the graves of the soul-shattered children of those she’d sung into the sea. Today, it was an open field, the graves long since lost to time—but it remained a place sad and haunted, land on which no one wished to live.

“Marduk,” she said now in that flawless voice that could be a weapon terrible. “You are older than any other archangel in this room. Do you know the answer to the question of why the Mantle is failing when it has held for all eternity?”

“Raphael has told me of events that have occurred within his lifetime.” Marduk’s grating voice filled the room. “The madness of two archangels, the loss of one, and the near loss of the other.”

Caliane didn’t flinch, but Raphael knew that within, his mother mourned. She always would. She had fallen in love only once in her immortal lifetime, would never fall again.

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