“There is time yet.” Angelic babies developed very slowly; the child would need nothing but its mother for some time.
“Yes, perhaps I am borrowing trouble without need.”
After Keir signed off to go attend the infant, Raphael turned to his consort. “Would you like to fly? The skies are clear.” A welcome change after two heavily cloudy nights.
“How about Cassandra’s site?”
Raphael nodded. Squadrons of senior angels overflew the site several times a day on their way to or from other tasks, and sent through a report, but he wanted to put his own eyes on the location where Cassandra had disappeared with Favashi in her arms.
No one else was around when they landed outside the fence that had once ringed a lava sinkhole. Today, when they walked to look through one of the windows in the fence, all they saw was a sheet of unbroken white.
This early into December and Manhattan hadn’t yet seen any snow. But here, it crunched under their boots, a glittering carpet lit by starlight.
A set of snowy wings drifted into view a second later, the owl coming to a graceful landing. Its mate landed moments afterward, and the two birds looked down, their gazes intent.
“They miss her,” Elena murmured. “I can feel it the same way I can feel their minds, know they’re mine for the moment.” She pressed her hand to the glass. “I hope she’s found a semblance of peace.”
The wind swirled around them, the snow rising. The owls took off in a silent burst, while Raphael and Elena stood in watchful quiet. Elena held her breath, not sure what she wanted. The last time Cassandra had risen, it had nearly meant the end of her world. Yet when it counted, the Ancient haunted by visions of the future had come through. She’d helped Elena—and she might’ve helped Favashi.
But the wind calmed as swiftly as it had risen, leaving only flecks of snow stuck to Elena’s winter-weight leather jacket. “Nope, that wasn’t great for the blood pressure.”
“A moment, hbeebti.” Stepping back so he wouldn’t buffet her, Raphael took flight. She watched as he swept over the former lava sinkhole from high above, the owls circling with him. See anything?
Yes. Come.
She rose to join him. Her heart tightened. Drawn in the snow was the body of a huge white owl, its wings spread wide. “She’s still partially awake.” Enough to know they had come to see her. Enough to reply. “Should we increase patrols?”
“There is no need.” He nodded at the owls who’d dipped lower, closer to their mistress. “If there comes a day when her owls leave you, we will know.”
“Yes.” The beautiful creatures were borrowed treasures, lent to her by an Ancient who had seen her birth millennia ago. “It’s not good that she’s still half awake, is it?”
“We all agree that Lijuan is also partially awake, so the Cascade energies may be disrupting their Sleep.”
Cold fingers on Elena’s spine. “Let’s hope they’re the only two Sleepers affected.”
* * *
• • •
That hope was dashed two hours later, when Astaad convened an emergency session of the Cadre. Raphael had dressed quickly for the meeting, while Elena sat out of shot naked but for the blanket she’d wrapped around her body.
The Cadre responded within a matter of two minutes—surprisingly enough, Michaela’s face was among them. Her razor-sharp beauty took center stage, but Raphael saw the lack of color under the skin, the slight puffiness around the eyes. If anyone else noticed, they’d put it down to having been woken out of a sound sleep.
The world had forgotten that Michaela had once been a mother; no one thought of her as maternal. He hoped for the sake of her babe that continued to hold true. Not everyone was a fan of the Archangel of Budapest and attacking her while she was weak could be a temptation.
“I hope you have a good reason for this,” she muttered now, her words knife blades sinking into unguarded flesh. “Emergency calls are not to be made lightly.”
Astaad had on a rumpled tunic, his hair windswept. “You must all see this.”
His feed altered to show a turquoise blue ocean under a Pacific sun; that ocean was choppy, the water foamy. From the jerkiness of the image, one of Astaad’s people must be flying overhead with a recording and transmitting device. As they watched, the foaming of the water turned into a whirlpool so powerful that Raphael hoped the angel involved was high enough up not to get caught in its drag.
“Astaad, my desert territory is currently suffering its twentieth ice storm.” Alexander pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, his words clipped. “Such a phenomenon is not reason enough to—”
“There!”
Raphael’s entire body stopped moving. Because the water had just erupted up and outward, and Astaad had frozen the image.
Archangel, am I seeing things or is the water spout in the shape of a face?
His gut tensed as he recognized that face. You are not imagining it.
Water god?
Just an archangel of arrogance. Mortals have called him by many names over time, but he is said to prefer Aegaeon.
You sound like you know him.
He took a short sojourn from his Sleep during my lifetime. All of the Cadre here but for my mother would’ve met him at that time—and she is likely to have known him during another waking.
“How long has this been going on?” Neha, her hair unbound and held back with jeweled clips, but her body clad in warrior’s leathers as she stood in a room with rough redstone walls.
“Three or so hours, but initially, I thought it a weather phenomenon as suffered by Alexander.”
“My apologies, Astaad,” Alexander said, the edge in his tone different this time. “Aegaeon went to Sleep roughly a century before I did. I had forgotten his penchant for drama.”
Alexander’s not a fan.
Neither was Raphael. If Aegaeon woke, it would destroy the lives of two people Raphael cherished.
“He’s what, fifty thousand or so?” Charisemnon’s tone was offhand. “Not an Ancient in the same way as you or Lady Caliane then.”
Caliane raised both eyebrows. “Is that what he spread around? He did always have a strange vanity about his age. The truth is, he was born when I was a youngling. He is of an age with Alex and me.”
I did not know he claimed to be fifty thousand, Raphael said to Elena. Perhaps he never tried with me because I had one of his compatriots for a mother.
“Aegaeon’s overall level of power in comparison to the current Cadre is impossible to calculate,” Alexander muttered.