Page 14 of Camael
Her gaze moved around the organized chaos. The spacewould give Martha Stewart an aneurysm but it made perfect sense to her nana and her. She trailed fingers over the massive oak desk where she'd spent countless hours learning her craft from her nana. Its surface was a roadmap of magical mishaps. There were burn marks from spells that had backfired. There were also crystal-shaped impressions from failed levitation attempts. The rings from the thousands of cups of tea her nana drank created a lump in her throat.
"Like you're erasing her," Camael finished when it was clear she wasn’t going to. His voice was gentler than a male his size had any right to manage.
"Yeah." Amelia turned to face him. She found understanding in those ancient eyes. "Stupid, right? She's been gone for over a year, but I still feel like she's going to walk in and start critiquing my spell technique."
"Not stupid." He moved closer. He was close enough that she had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact. His heat seeped into her bones. "But she'd want you to make this place your own. To build on what she taught you. Not just preserve it."
Well, shit. Who knew an archangel could do therapy? Though standing this close to him was definitely not helping her think clearly about interior decoration or anything else. She nodded without responding as she continued across the room.
The attic stairs were hidden behind a bookcase that only opened if you knew the right spell. She’d watched her nana countless times but had never been told how to get in. Going on instinct, Amelia's hands moved through the familiar gestures. She infused the magic with both light and shadow. The response was immediate and dramatic.
The bookcase practically leaped aside as ancient wards recognized her awakened power. The stairwell beyond was dark, although she could still see the protective sigils thatlined its walls. They were written in magic and carved into the wood.
"Well, that's new," she muttered as she studied the symbols.
"Those markings are like the ones in the Archives," Camael observed.
Her fingers hovered over symbols that predated written history. "How many generations of my family knew about this? How long have we been guarding these secrets?"
“They’ve been guarding them since the beginning,” Camael responded as she continued up the stairs.
The attic was thick with dust and old magic. Afternoon light filtered through a single round window. It painted the space in shades of amber. Boxes and trunks were stacked up carefully. Amelia cocked her head and scanned the room. She recognized they were arranged in magical arrays. The whole room was one giant ward designed to hide something important.
She was drawn to a particular corner. Magical energies were concentrated there. Walking over, she discovered a wooden trunk. It was covered in dust and humming with power. The lock was a complex piece of spellwork that would have given most witches fits. For Amelia, it practically sang to her blood.
Excited, she unlocked it and flipped the lid. There were numerous things inside. But only one that she instinctively reached for. It was an ornate box covered in symbols that moved like quicksilver. Power radiated from it in waves that made her magical core vibrate in recognition.
"I’ve never seen this, yet it feels familiar," she muttered as she traced the intricate patterns. The box wasn't alone. Nearby lay a crystal that seemed to contain actual starlight and there was a dagger displaying many runes. There wasalso a book bound in some sort of material that defied description.
From his position by the attic window, Camael watched her with those ice-blue eyes. They saw straight through her bullshit. His massive wings had appeared at some point and were half-spread. Their shadows danced across the dusty floorboards. The archangel hadn't said a word since she'd started examining her finds. His presence filled the space like a storm about to break.
"You gonna hover there all night? Or help me figure out what we're dealing with?" She went back to her examination of the smaller box's magical lock.
His boots made no sound as he crossed to her. "Those symbols," he rumbled as he leaned close to her. "They're from before the First War. Given what we know, my guess is that they’re from when light and shadow still danced together."
"Like what we saw in the Archives." The memory of that celestial library still gave her chills. The kind that came with discovering you were part of something bigger than yourself. "My family has been guarding these for generations. The wards on them are..." she trailed off as power surged through the room.
The crystal had begun to glow when he got close to her. Light spilled from its faceted surface in waves that painted the walls with moving symbols. "Oh, pretty." Amelia reached for it instinctively.
Camael's hand caught her wrist. "Careful. Artifacts that old tend to have minds of their own."
The crystal was singing to something in her blood, and she couldn’t stop herself. Something in her recognized its call. Power surged through her, making her gasp as new awareness bloomed in her mind. Suddenly, she could see the threads of energy that connected everything in the room. They were beautiful… and terrifying.
"Shit," she breathed as the crystal's light wrapped around her like a lover's embrace. "Is this what you see all the time?"
Camael's grip on her wrist gentled. "You're seeing the true nature of things. I bet it’s awakening even more of what has been dormant in your blood."
Knowledge poured into her mind like water from a broken dam. She saw how energy flowed through the world. It felt like centuries of magical theory were downloaded straight into her consciousness. Her knees buckled as the information overload hit. Camael caught her against his chest. One arm wrapped around her waist while the other still held her wrist. The contact sent sparks of awareness through her that had nothing to do with magical awakening and everything to do with the way his body felt against hers.
"Easy," he murmured. His breath stirred her hair. "Let it settle. Don't fight it."
"Easy for you to say." Her voice came out shakier than she liked. "You're not the one getting PowerPoint presentations beamed directly into your brain."
His chest rumbled with what might have been a laugh. "No, but I remember what it's like when power first truly awakens. When you realize the universe is bigger and stranger than you ever had imagined."
"And here I thought finding out about my family was the weird part of my week." She managed to steady herself. However, she didn't step away from his support. The warmth of his body was too comforting to give up just yet.
The crystal's light faded while the knowledge it had gifted remained. Amelia’s mind raced with possibilities. "These artifacts," she said slowly. "They're the keys to accessing the original power. The stuff that existed before light and shadow split. I’m not actually the key."
