“Do you mind?” I hugged my legs to my chest.
He shrugged, then took a sip from his bottle of whiskey. “Well I didn’t know you were in there before I came in. How did you stay in the water that long? Were you trying to drown yourself?”
“Do you just randomly barge into Samael’s room?”
“He’s executing soldiers, and I thought you might know why. He was wearing his true face, which meant he wasn’t able to speak. Just slaughter.”
Just a mention of that face sent a flutter of nerves through me.
I frowned. “Some of them tried to kill me. I guess he does not approve.”
He crossed closer to me, then slid down against the bath, his back to the copper tub. He was close to me, but facing the doorway. Giving me some semblance of privacy.
He sighed. “Perhaps the soldiers were angry that you murdered their compatriots.”
My heart skipped a beat. They knew about that?
I reached over and grabbed the whiskey bottle from him. I drank deeply, then let the spirits roll over my tongue before I swallowed. “If you think I killed Clovian soldiers, why am I not in prison? Or being executed?”
“What would be the point of that?” he murmured. “You’ll be dead soon no matter what.”
36
Lila
Each one of my muscles went tense in the hot bath. “What did you say?”
“You’ll be dead soon.”
“Why do you say that?”
He raised his hand and snapped. “A human life is gone in a moment. To us it’s just the beat of a butterfly’s wings, then poof …”
I stared at him. “So you’re just talking about mortality. The fragility of human existence. Like, I’ll die when I’m eighty, and in angel terms it’s the blink of an eye.”
“Something like that.”
“That was a very unnerving way to phrase that point.”
A slow shrug. “Eighty, or much sooner. If you’d seen the things I saw in the Great War, and the wars before that, I wouldn’t fancy your chances of living long among mankind. You’ll live as long as Samael keeps you safe. That’s it. When you leave here, your fellow man will probably tear you to pieces.”
I pushed the disturbing idea out of my head. One thing at time. “Okay. What did you see during the Great War?”
“All the wars were bad, but that was the worst. Great arcs of fire searing the skies and the fields, clouds of toxic poisons in the air. Pits full of rotting bodies. Men staggering around, burning. Your kind can be very inventive, very creative when it comes to thinking of ways to hurt and destroy each other.”
I slid down farther in the bath. “Well, maybe the Clovians shouldn’t have threatened to invade Albia.”
He huffed a laugh. “Is that how they teach it here? Interesting.”
“It’s what happened, wasn’t it?”
“No. Your former king staged an invasion all on his own. He left this island and crossed to Clovia, hoping to reclaim ancestral homes that belonged to his forefathers—a thousand years earlier. We believe he had designs on the whole continent. But it started with Clovia. I doubt the soldiers even knew why they were fighting. Because their king told them to, and that was enough.”
Steam curled around me. I wasn’t sure what to believe at this point. Unable to do research on my own, I had to rely on what other people said. “Why are angels fighting in human wars to begin with?”
He turned, not quite looking at me, and draped one of his arms over the side of the tub. Dipping his fingers into the water by my feet, he started to trace circles in the water with his fingers. The sound was gentle, hypnotic. “I have been told that long ago, we were known as the Watchers. It was our divine task to act as guardians of mankind. We were meant to bring order to the chaos of man, to rein in the cruelty. But when we fell, our purpose stopped being clear. Sometimes, it was hard to know what was what … what was right, what was wrong.”
“Samael told me why he fell. Why did you fall?”
“Most of us lusted after mortal women, and women lusted after us. That was forbidden. But mortal women are so beautiful, so entrancing. The way you smell, the way you move. The softness of your skin, the ecstasy in your eyes when we touch you. Hard to resist.” The gentle sound of his fingers moving in the water filled the room. “Why instill us with that desire if we’re not supposed to act on it?”
Something sizzled over my skin, like the bath water was heating where Sourial was stroking his fingers. I felt entranced, watching his hand lazily moving in circles. “Oh. I see.”
“Samael fell for a different reason. I suppose he told you. Which is strange, to me. He normally doesn’t tell anyone anything.”
I reached for his whiskey and took a sip. “It was forbidden to teach mortals angelic knowledge.”
“Yes. That might have been the greater sin. We taught mortals the celestial secrets, when you were supposed to remain in ignorance. We taught magic, metalwork, how to read. I taught mankind about the cycles of the moon. But the biggest mistake we made was teaching the art of war, because mankind truly took that to disturbing new depths. So after the Great War, when we saw the cruelty mankind had wrought, we tried to fix that. We slaughtered those who started it. We began to impose order. And that’s why we are here.”
He was mesmerizing me with the seductive sound of water moving back and forth, and somehow, what he was saying started to make sense. I wondered if this was some sort of hypnotic propaganda. I took another sip of his whiskey.
“Well, the public executions are not a good way to bring peace.”
“Samael wants complete conquest.” He turned to me, his hazel eyes large. “I keep telling you more than I should, considering you’re not trustworthy. It seems to be a weakness I have. It occurs to me that I should not risk spending much time with you if I can’t keep my mouth shut.”
And with that, he rose. Without looking back at me again, he crossed through the archway, and I heard his footfalls echo off the high ceiling of the library. With a little smile, I realized he’d left the bottle of whiskey in the bath with me.
This should get me ready for the battle still to come. One more sip.
I stood in the bath, the water dripping down my body in rivulets. I dried myself off, then dressed in the little red underwear that had made Finn blush. I pulled on a short, white dress over it, the material so delicate and sheer that my crimson underwear shone through. My wet hair cascaded over the dress, dampening it, making it more transparent.
Then I draped myself on the sofa and waited.
And waited.
When a half hour had passed, I pulled out my little children’s books and started practicing reading, saying the letter sounds out loud. I lay back on the sofa, working through the small words one after another, until I could read cat and bat. Until my eyes started to drift closed.
As I slept, my mind offered up erotic images of Samael coming into the room, stroking my breasts, licking and kissing my skin. Pulling my clothes off and laying me down on his bed, spreading my thighs open. I dreamt of him touching me, toying with me until I lost my mind. I dreamt of him pinning me down, claiming me.