Rising, he continued to move around the room and soon discovered a bread roll encrusted in green mold. He tapped it. Hard as stone.
In the end, he found enough other mugs, bowls, and plates to line up with the four broken chairs that lay sprawled on their backs on the pounded dirt of the cavern. Also among his discoveries were what looked to be the remains of more than one set of ceramic chopsticks.
The most interesting item however, was a functioning battery-powered lamp. Should we use it? he asked after switching it on. My light doesn’t take much energy, but we may as well conserve it.
Can it be dimmed?
Aodhan worked the device again and the light turned from harsh to soft.
Illium nodded. It’s not much brighter than using your power.
After doing another sweep around the room, Aodhan joined Illium. Lijuan kept Suyin captive for thousands of years, but she did so in one of her strongholds. Why would she keep anyone in a place like this? Unless the inhabitant was meant to be kept in the cells beneath the stronghold, but it didn’t work for some reason.
No question in Aodhan’s voice that this was a place of captivity, this outer cavern a guardhouse of sorts. Illium didn’t argue with the assumption—he’d seen what Aodhan hadn’t, knew the other man was right. Lijuan was quite mad in her final years, he pointed out. Who knows why she did anything?
Then he shifted so Aodhan could take in the broken chains that lay by his feet. Each link in each chain was of such heavy metal that the entire thing would’ve been more than the weight of either one of them.
A gate, he said, pointing out the places where the anchors for the chains had been embedded into the stone on either side of the passage entrance. You and I could break that, but there aren’t many angels as strong as us, even fewer vampires.
There’s no blood, Aodhan pointed out. No skeletal or other remains.
Illium had been thinking about that. Could be the guards abandoned their post after Lijuan’s defeat. Either out of fear or out of self-interest. No one would look kindly on them for taking part in the captivity of another immortal.
Whether others in the Cadre had been guilty of similar outrages wasn’t the point—it was an undeniable fact that immortals could be cruel. Lijuan, however, had pushed it too far, and now all she’d touched was tainted with the odor of death, and of madness. And the latter was a quiet fear that lurked in the minds of most immortals.
I can see that, Aodhan murmured. Especially if the captive was only kept under control by others more powerful—who Lijuan likely sucked into her army. Bad planning on her part.
Illium thought of the wall of flyers that had come at New York. She had only one priority at that point. She must’ve thought this barrier would hold until her victorious return.
If she thought about it at all, Aodhan said. I think she was so obsessed by then that she wasn’t thinking of anything beyond her desire to be a goddess. He nodded toward the unknown passageway.
Illium stepped into it without further question, not wanting to drag out the experience. He hated that his friend was being subjected to this. At the same time, he was furiously proud of Aodhan’s refusal to bow down under the weight of what had been done to him. Which was why it so frustrated him that Aodhan thought the events of the past had destroyed all he’d been.
You’ve never listened!
The memory of Aodhan’s earlier response stung enough that he found himself picking at the wound. If I never listen, he said, it’s because you never talk. He wanted to kick himself even as he spoke the words. The two of them had danced around this topic for centuries; Illium had kept his silence because it was Aodhan’s pain. Aodhan was the one who needed to bring it up.
Now he had, and Illium was sniping at him. Sorry, he said on the heels of his words. I’m being an ass.
Stop it. Hard, angry words. I’m not a whimpering wounded animal to be scared off by plain speaking.
Illium wanted to pull out his hair, but they’d reached the prison cell. A much larger cavern than the one outside, it was set up like a full living space. An area with seating—not just one, two seats made for angels, with the spinal column designed so wings would fall on either side of it.
Seeing the space held no dangers to Smoke, he took the kitten out and put her on the bed to nap. That bed, too, was large enough to fit two angels, but when Illium checked the closet, he found clothing of a single size—no dresses, just tunics and pants. Going on rough average sizes, the clothing could’ve fit either an adult woman, a teenage boy, or a smaller man. Definitely a person shorter and slighter than Illium.
He looked down, frowned. There are no shoes.
Harder to escape barefoot, Aodhan said, a frigid cold in his tone.
Unable to stand it, Illium moved to brush his wing over his friend’s. Pulling him back from the ice of the past with the warmth of today. Aodhan didn’t say anything, but neither did he put distance between them. Rather, he brushed his own wing over Illium’s before they parted to check other areas of this subterranean apartment.
Illium’s soul hungered for more, but he also felt a wave of relief at this silent indication that, no matter what, Aodhan still trusted him. With that as a foundation, they could damn well sort out all the rest.
Putting that aside for now, he focused on the situation.
Angels fly, younglings. Never forget that danger can lurk above.
Words spoken by the first weapons-master who’d had a hand in Illium’s training. Naasir, with his habit of prowling the rafters, had taught him that lesson long ago—but it had been good to have it spelled out. Driven by the memories, he looked up. But there was nothing and no one up there. However . . .
Flaring his wings, he rose up and up. There are small holes in the rock. Sunlight probably lights this space up during the daytime. Press an eye to a hole and you could look outside, but there was no hope of escape. The holes weren’t close enough together to in any way weaken the fortress of stone.
Enough to read with? Aodhan asked.
I think so. Why?
Come, have a look.
Illium landed, walked over to Aodhan. Once again, he stood close enough that his wing touched Aodhan’s, and once again, Aodhan didn’t move away. Instead, he handed Illium a text, then held up the lamp so Illium could read it.
“This is a teaching text.” He frowned. “I’m sure I saw something like this on Jessamy’s desk the last time I was in the Refuge.” The angel who’d taught Illium and Aodhan as children was now the love of another member of the Seven—but to them, she’d always be the teacher who’d been exasperated by them more than once, but who’d also taught them with love and grace.
They both adored her and, back when she and Galen first got together, they’d told Galen they’d shun him forever should he hurt her. The weapons-master had threatened to beat them both bloody for daring to think he’d ever hurt his Jess.