“Yes,” Elena had agreed, “but I got copies of the original cases. See?” She’d held up a case with a garish-looking image of a woman in faux terror, her breasts all but popping out of her skintight nightgown.
“How is that meant to be comfortable for sleeping?”
Elena, who’d been dressed in full hunting gear at the time, every part of her bristling with knives, had dropped the object back in the bag. “It’s not for sleeping. It’s for running from an axe-wielding maniac. Just go with it.”
Placing the stack of movies on the bedside table after Suyin gave everyone an hour off to rest and recharge, Illium scowled. A second later, he told himself to stop being an idiot and, grabbing the entire lot, headed across the hall. Aodhan’s door was open. “Aodhan?”
“On the balcony.”
“Elena sent you some horror flicks. I’ll leave them on this table by the door.”
“Oh, show me. I’ve got paint all over my hands.”
Of course Aodhan’s idea of taking a break was to pick up a brush. Illium’s lips kicked up for a heartbeat, but the surge of affection was no match for his discomfort and hurt. He did not want to be in Aodhan’s personal space.
But since he knew Elena would ask what Aodhan had thought of the original cases, he strode through the sunnily yellow room decorated with pictures of sunflowers and kittens wearing fancy hats. There was even a marble statue of what looked to have been someone’s prized pug. A less Aodhan room he couldn’t imagine—but for one thing: the wide balcony that spilled light into the space.
Light and more than one exit, those were the two nonnegotiables for Aodhan. He’d rather sleep under the stars than be stuck in a room that was dark. As for any room or apartment with difficult points of egress? Aodhan wouldn’t even step inside.
Illium’s chest ached under the weight of knowing why.
He also knew why Aodhan had gone straight to the balcony after Suyin mandated a rest break. The light at this time of day was coveted by artists everywhere. As a child, Illium had learned to amuse himself during those times—oh, his mother would’ve come to him at once if he called, but he’d seen such joy in her face when she painted in the evening light that he’d tried not to get into trouble then.
Later, he’d watched Aodhan fall under the same spell of light.
The sparkle of the other man’s wings threw colors against the walls, making Illium’s stomach clench. Sparkle. A name born in childhood friendship, but one Illium hadn’t used for a long time after Aodhan was hurt. The sound of it had made guilt gnaw at him—because it reminded him of all Aodhan could’ve been if Illium had been a better friend, had found him sooner, had not fought with him in the first place.
Aodhan would’ve been with him that day if the two of them hadn’t butted heads over Aodhan’s infatuation with a flight instructor Illium couldn’t stand. The asshole angel had been dangling Aodhan along on a string, while playing the same game with a female vampire and a mortal male.
Illium, furious on his friend’s behalf, had muttered that the angel in question would “fuck a goat if he could get away with it.”
Aodhan had taken that as a comment on his own intelligence and desirability when Illium had meant the opposite: that Aodhan was far too good for the likes of the instructor.
Such a fucking stupid thing.
He should’ve just shut his mouth, let the infatuation run its course.
But he hadn’t. And his Sparkle had ended up in a nightmare that had stolen his light.
“Which movies did Ellie send me?” Aodhan asked the instant Illium appeared in the doorway to the balcony. “She promised to scare off my feathers.”
Illium’s breath caught, because this man ablaze in the warm light of day’s end was full of light, of life. It glittered in his eyes, sparked in his hair, played over his skin. He sparkled once again and he was glorious.
“Here.” Illium thrust out the stack of cases, his voice gritty.
His mother would be ashamed of him, but he hated that Aodhan had had to come to China, to Suyin, to find his light. His long years of friendship with Illium, even the relationships he’d made after he came to the Tower, none of it had brought him to this level of happiness.
It was walking at Suyin’s side that had wrought this outcome—and fuck, that knowledge hurt.
Angling his body to look at the case on the very top, Aodhan held his hands to either side. Speckled with splashes of blue and green and white paint, they matched the scene taking shape on the canvas to his right. He’d always been a messy painter—and he’d never needed his subject in front of him to paint it—or them.
Aodhan’s artistic eye caught moments, held them.
Today, he’d chosen to work on a scene from the Refuge that made Illium frown. Not realizing he was doing it, he leaned in toward the canvas as Aodhan leaned in to more clearly see the image on the case . . . and the edge of Aodhan’s wing brushed his chest.
He jerked back. “Sorry.”
Aodhan scowled. “Why?”
Illium had nothing to say to that, because one thing nothing and no one would ever steal away: though Illium’s mother had held Aodhan often during his recovery, Illium was the first person whose touch Aodhan had actively sought when he emerged from his long sleep.
His fingers tingled at the memory of feeling Aodhan’s skin against his after so very long, his chest compressing. Unable to stand the deluge of memory, of emotion, he stared at the half-finished scene on the canvas instead of replying.
It could’ve been many parts of the Refuge, but it wasn’t.
That small stone house backed by jagged mountains, the flowers that bloomed outside, the path that led deeper into the Refuge. “That’s our house.” The place where Illium had grown up under the loving eye of his mother—and where Aodhan had spent as much or even more time than he did at his actual home.
At least until they both grew older. Then, they’d been assigned their own small aeries in the gorge, alongside others near their age—though they’d both visited Illium’s mother each and every day that they were in the Refuge, even staying with her during the worst times, when she forgot that they were no longer little angels.
Once they became permanent members of Raphael’s team, they’d been offered rooms within his Refuge stronghold, but had declined. For one hundred years more, they’d kept the aeries—and taken youthful delight in racing and diving in the gorge.
“Batchelor pads,” Elena had said with a laugh the last time she’d been in the Refuge. “I can definitely see the appeal.”
Not quite the right term since the aeries weren’t limited to a specific gender, but correct in tone, since no families called them home. For the most part, the aeries were favored by lone angels—with the age range skewing younger, though it did also house a complement of older angels who preferred their own company.