It was merely the first test.

Heart, lungs, muscles, bones, Nisia ran Elena through the gamut.

“Can I fly safely?” Elena asked that question in a calm tone, but Raphael could feel her need to fly as a second heartbeat.

“Your wings are in perfect condition and your bones no longer have the tunnels,” Nisia said. “I see no reason to ground you.”

Leaving Nisia to continue her work, Raphael’s hunter walked with him to the privacy of the balcony outside the infirmary. “Do you have more archangel business today?”

He couldn’t smile at her reference to their earlier play. “Partway through your tests, Dmitri informed me of a kiss of vampires in an area some distance from here who appear to believe they are out of the Tower’s sights.” He could send Illium or Dmitri to remind the vampires of the fallacy of their thinking, but an archangelic reminder would undulate through the entire territory, nipping any other such erroneous thoughts in the bud.

“Go,” Elena whispered.

“Elena.”

“I know. I’ll land if I feel the merest twinge.” Elena placed her hands on his chest, her expression strong and her words a promise. “I would never make you watch me fall out of the sky.”

Closing his hand over her wrist, Raphael bent his head so their foreheads touched. There they stood for long minutes even as the snow began to fall and the Legion landed all around them.

32

Elena watched Raphael soar into the sky, the snow melting against her skin. She knew exactly how hard it had been for him to leave her; she fought the urge to fly to him, stick close. Never, as an adult, had she been so deeply afraid. Not even when she fell the first time.

Then, she hadn’t understood what she and Raphael could be together, hadn’t tasted the full glory of a love that was her breath and the reason for her being. Hadn’t lived with an archangel who loved her more than eternity.

Her eyes burned.

A flutter of snow and silence, vast numbers of the Legion rising from this balcony and from rooftops across the city to fly in the same direction as Raphael, an eerie gray wave whose voices no longer whispered in her head. The Primary, however, still waited for her—and she wasn’t so arrogant as to shrug off the escort. “I have to check on my brother-in-law, then I’ll be out and we’ll fly.”

No movement, the living gargoyle waiting patiently.

She checked her phone as she made her way quickly to Harrison’s bed in the infirmary and saw a message from Ashwini. The hunter and Janvier were in the Quarter, running down the exact depth of the relationship between Lee and Kumar, Blakely and Acosta. We’re also taking another stab at the drug angle, talking to people in the gangs to see if there are rumors of a hit.

The pragmatic nature of it all, the banal predictability of evil, was an antidote to the mystery of her transition. I’m going to chase down Jade, she wrote back, then made herself add, Dig about Harrison, too, in connection with the others. It made her sick to her stomach to consider that Beth’s husband might’ve been a party to rape, drugs, death, but the questions couldn’t be left unasked.

Her brother-in-law himself could tell her nothing; he remained unconscious.

Your sister was here earlier today, Laric shared in the silent tongue, his hands flowing with subtle grace. She said she told their little girl that her father had gone away for a while for business.

“Good on Beth. No point in Maggie seeing him like this.” Elena placed her hands on her hips. “She’ll be mad at him for leaving without saying good-bye, but she won’t be afraid.” And Maggie was secure enough in her father’s love that she wouldn’t consider it an abandonment.

I think so, too, Laric said. I know little of children, but I believe, once he wakes, it will not be a hard thing for him to mend the small anger. To root out fear is sometimes impossible.

“You’re certain he’s going to recover?” Harrison’s skin was bloodless.

Laric touched her gently on the arm to get her attention on his hands. Jason’s blood has had enough time to bond with Harrison’s own, and it has restarted that which stopped in Harrison. He will heal.

Switching to the silent tongue herself, because she needed the practice, she said, How long before I can talk to him?

She thought Laric might’ve smiled at her awkward movements. It was one thing to be fluent at “listening” to the language, another to speak it. The gestures were subtle, small, the curve of a little finger able to alter the entire meaning of a sentence.

He is no longer in an imposed coma but in a more natural unconscious state. The healer made sure the blanket over Harrison’s body was neat and tidy. Nisia says we cannot predict when he might wake—it will depend on his own body’s healing capacity.

Nodding thanks at Laric for the information, Elena stepped out to check in with Vivek. “Any news on Jade?”

“I was just about to call you.” Vivek’s voice hummed with the thrill of the hunt, his hunter-born instincts riding him hard. “Your man Jade’s shed his old skin and set himself up under his two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old real name, Jadchenko Simnek, and yes, that was a bitch to track down.”

Elena’s own instincts hummed. “Damn, you’re good, V.”

“Never forget it,” Vivek said in smug pleasure. “Anyway, he’s got an apartment on the Upper West Side. I’m messaging you the address. Looks like he’s living large off the income generated from a gaming website. Got himself a view of Central Park.”

“A gaming website?” It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that’d interest a vampire from the tail end of the eighteenth century.

“He has a track record in the share market under both his old and new names. Nothing big, but the man’s invested in tech companies before—he’s smart enough to keep up with the world. Be careful.” A pause. “And hey, Ellie? Thanks for pulling me into the hunt.”

“You’re the best partner I could imagine.” He’d be a lethal danger once he could hunt on the ground as well as via his byzantine network of computers. “I’ll let you know what I find at Jade’s.”

The sun had gone behind the clouds when she flew off with the Primary her silent shadow, and the city looked metallic and gray. Snow was falling, but it wasn’t heavy, nothing she couldn’t handle. Once airborne and despite the healthy condition of her wings, she flew with a sedateness that wasn’t her natural state, trying to glide as much as possible.

Below her, New Yorkers moved in a chaotic dance of pedestrians and cars and trucks that somehow wasn’t a total mess. More than one pedestrian looked up and waved before carrying on their way. A taxi driver stopped at a red light hung out his window to grin and wave at her.

Her city was proud of having produced the only mortal turned angel in the world.

Elena waved back before the winds carried her away.

Hundreds of the Legion had left with Raphael, but she saw scattered groupings of them throughout the city as she flew. A couple of new gargoyles appeared on the tony building that housed Jade’s apartment just before she landed in the entrance courtyard. The Primary joined his brethren. She looked up at them without smiling, never forgetting why the escort was essential.

“Consort.” The vampiric doorman bowed and held open the door for her.

Irritated at the deference but gripping it in a steely fist because her inability to handle this consequence of being Raphael’s consort wasn’t the poor doorvamp’s fault, she entered the building. One of these days, she’d have Raphael issue a proclamation that everyone was to treat her as just Elena.

Inside, she took in the thick carpet, the glossily painted walls, and the equally glossy people behind the counter. Both humans rose to their feet at Elena’s approach. “How may we assist you?” the female of the pair asked, her voice smooth but her hands clasped so tightly in front of her that she had to be cutting off circulation to her fingers.

“I’m here to visit one of your residents,” Elena said through her discomfort. “Jadchenko Simnek. Apartment 7C.”

The male receptionist gulped. “Do you have an appointment?”

Elena smiled, suddenly feeling a lot more centered. This was reality and normality, not the silver disappearing from her eyes and not the loss of Raphael’s voice in her head. God, she missed it. “No appointment,” she said, “but I’ll wait while you call him.”

Eyes huge, the woman picked up the phone and spoke to Jade. It took only a moment for her to hang up and say, “Mr. Simnek will be most delighted to welcome you.” Her smile no longer a plastic caricature, she added, “You can take the elevator directly up to the seventh floor. I’ve cleared it.”

Elena was striding to the elevator when she heard, “Consort! Elena!”

Shifting on her heel, ready to drop a knife into her palm, she found the male receptionist jogging toward her. He held something in his hands. “They fell,” he whispered after coming to a breathless halt. “I wasn’t sure . . .”

One feather gleamed darkest midnight shading to deepest blue. The other was nearly pink, one of the odd feathers hidden in among the gradient that flowed across her wings. Throat dry, she dug up a smile. “Must be shedding season. If you have a use for them, go ahead.”

“Oh!” His fingers curled covetously over the edges. “I collect angel feathers,” he blurted out, a soft madness in his eyes that told her he walked a line very close to the angelstruck. “I’ve never found one on the ground this beautiful and undamaged.” A glance over at his partner at reception. “I’ll give Rose one, too. Her little girl will go wild.”

Elena thought of Zoe, with her collection of feathers that she treated like jewels. Even her adored daddy had to ask permission to touch them. Elena wondered if she’d soon have far too many feathers to give her goddaughter. The feathers rescued by the receptionist hadn’t been loose or damaged. Raphael had checked her wings with intense care while they lay in bed, then Nisia had done a secondary inspection.