“I’m not sure . . .” Walking over, with Aodhan by his side, and the kitten padding along a little farther back, he saw that the piece of washing was stiff and marked by bird droppings. “Oh, it’s leather,” he said. “That explains—Fuck!”
28
Illium wrenched back his hand before his fingers could brush over the skin.
Because that’s what it was. And not an animal skin.
Not an angel, either, because there were no marks or holes where wings grew out of an angel’s back. Mortal or vampire, then. A fly buzzed over to sit on the skin. That there were no other insects on or around it told him the skin had been hanging there long enough to dry out, lose its smell. Would that happen naturally? Or had someone prepared it?
He swallowed repeatedly.
“Now we know.” Aodhan’s voice, his tone even but his face expressionless. “Something bad did happen to this settlement, and to its people.”
Having managed to get his nausea under control, Illium moved around the line to look at it from the other side. It was no less horrific from that side. “I can see why Vetra didn’t notice.” From above, she’d have seen what he originally had—an old brown shirt on the line.
Aodhan, who’d stepped toward the house, said, “There’s more here.” He shook his head when Illium went to join him. “No, Blue, you don’t want to see this.”
Blue.
A nickname so old that only Aodhan used it, and that rarely. Almost everyone else used Bluebell, a moniker he’d picked up later in life.
Illium froze, caught by the solemnity of his friend’s voice. “What is it?”
“Stacks of skins,” Aodhan told him. “Cured and neatly folded up into piles.”
Illium had seen horror, survived it. But today, his gorge rose for a second time. Swiveling away from the doorway, he breathed deeply to try to keep it contained. When Aodhan walked over to put his hand on Illium’s shoulder, he didn’t shrug it away.
“How?” he said at last. “How could someone capable of that be so calm and controlled that they left behind no chaos?”
It made no sense to him.
“How, too, did the murderer manage to do this to so many people without causing them to flee?” Aodhan said. “Why is Fei the only survivor?” Aodhan ran his hand down Illium’s spine, his fingers brushing the inner curve of his wings.
It was an intimate touch, but again, Illium didn’t shrug him away. He needed his friend at this moment, needed the connection. “We have to tell Suyin.” Illium might be jealous of Suyin, but she was the archangel of this territory, needed to know its horrors and dangers. “She has to know to keep an eye on Fei—I think the girl’s mute out of terror, but we can’t discount the possibility that she might’ve been involved.”
Aodhan pulled out a phone. “I’ll call the general—she kept up with technology while Caliane Slept, seeing it as part of her duty to be ready for the day her archangel returned to the world.”
“What about Suyin?”
“She’s working on it, but current technology is difficult for her.”
“You should push her,” Illium muttered. “If Titus can learn, so can she.”
“She’s far older than Titus, Illium.”
“She’s not older than my mother.” Illium knew he was being obdurate, but he also knew he was right. “Staying stuck in the past won’t exactly help her.”
Aodhan stilled. Yes, Illium could be militant about technology, but the particular words he’d just spoken held far more meaning than was apparent on the surface. Because Illium was the child of the Hummingbird, whose mind had been stuck in a whirlpool of the past for most of Illium’s life. He’d never blamed his mother for her fractured mind and he probably wasn’t even conscious of why, his obsession with Kaia aside, he refused to cling to the past—but Aodhan had always seen it, known it.
Reaching out, he brushed the back of his fingers over Illium’s cheek. He didn’t take it badly when Illium flinched. There were scars in both of them that hurt, and this was one of Illium’s. Which was why he didn’t put it into words, either. Illium didn’t need the connection made apparent, didn’t need the torment of history to color his present.
As he placed the call, Illium walked away to examine the closest edge of the forest, his wings spread as if to block Aodhan from following. Illium was the one who’d first taught him to use this device and the ones that came before it. No matter the origins of his fascination, Illium had always been far more in tune with the technology of any given era than Aodhan, whether it was a teletype machine, steam engines, or computers.
Once, during Aodhan’s dark years, Illium had brought him a mechanical paint-mixing apparatus. It hadn’t been anywhere near as technologically advanced as what existed in the current time, but it had been a thing strange and fascinating, and it had pulled Aodhan a little further into the light.
“Aodhan?” Arzaleya’s voice held an echo that said she was in the air.
“Hello, Arza,” he said, for though the general could be formal with juniors, she was no stickler when it came to interactions with senior staff; she also had a dry sense of humor that amused him—and that he thought would be the perfect foil for Suyin’s quiet sorrow. “I need to talk to Suyin.”
“She’s flown down to talk to the mortals and vampires. Is it urgent?”
“No, it can wait a few minutes. But call me back the instant she’s free.”
“No, wait, she’s flying up now.” A short pause.
“Aodhan, you’ve found something.” Suyin’s voice was alert, ready for another nightmare.
Aodhan told her what they’d discovered. “Right now, we have no answer for any of it.”
“I think we all knew something was coming.” There was nothing of defeat in her tone. It held only the bite of a simmering anger.
That anger had been a part of Suyin since before her ascension. According to Naasir and Andromeda, both of whom had stayed in contact with Suyin since the day they helped her escape Lijuan, her anger had woken as her body knitted itself back together.
“At first, she was a wounded bird,” Naasir had said. “Stuck on the earth, unable to fly.” His silver eyes had been bright. “But strong, not willing to bow down to pain.” A glance at the angel he loved with all his wild heart. “Wasn’t she, Andi?”
Andromeda had nodded, her thick hair a beautiful chaos of golden-brown curls, aglow in the evening sunlight. “There was always grit to her. It just took her a while to find her way back to herself.