31. Zariel
Chapter thirty-one
Zariel
“ W ho is my new neighbor?” a scraggly female voice hissed from the cell next to mine. “Must be someone important, considering your visitor. Another angel, perhaps? Oh, that would be delightful. I haven’t had an angel next to me in years, not since he—”
“Silence,” I snapped. I stared at the ceiling, not that there was much of anything else to stare at in the perpetual darkness. How much time had passed? Not long. Maybe a couple hours. I didn’t even have dripping water to help me count the time—the only cue I had was my hunger, which wasn’t as intense as it should’ve been. Prison tended to stifle the appetite.
How much time did I have before the High Artist attempted the ritual? Probably not long. My imprisonment would raise questions, unimportant as I was, and the High Artist wasn’t being so secretive for nothing. If Gadriel’s ranting was any indication, he couldn’t afford to have everyone know his true plan until it was too late. Too many variables, too many angels who may protest. Too many who could stop him while he was still vulnerable. Would Cael try? He was probably trying already, but the High Artist didn’t fully trust him where I was concerned, and he was likely too watched to do anything.
Who was I trying to fool? No one who had access to the High Artist cared what happened to me, other than Cael. I was a traitor’s brother. I was nobody. And I had brought a human into our home, right when our situation was at its most precarious. Maybe some would think my fate harsh, but we weren’t known for indulging the whims of those who upset things. And I had upset things. Today it was a human—what new horrors would I bestow tomorrow?
But the High Artist and my father were friends. Old friends. Right? He wouldn’t do something to me, not when he had already punished Aniela.
… Unless his ambition made him want to get rid of all challengers. Or maybe Gadriel lied to him about something.
Or he maybe just didn’t like me. That was always a possibility too.
Or … there was something about the situation that I didn’t know. Despite how long I knew the High Artist, we were never friends. And as Aniela showed me, there were layers I was just di scovering.
I wasn’t going to calmly go to my death. That wasn’t going to happen—I wouldn’t just lay there as a dagger sliced across my neck, my blood the payment for the High Artist’s power.
But what could I do?
“Little angel … lovely creature … we’re going to be such good friends,” the unknown creature said with a hiss. “You have no one else but me who can hear you. Won’t you tell me your name?”
“If you tell me what you are,” I said, flicking gravel off my fingers. Ignoring the creature was doing no good. She had been prodding me periodically since Gadriel left, and after hours of settling and seething, I was ready to talk. It was that or continue to sulk.
“What am I …” the creature said absentmindedly, “what if I told you that I deserve to be here? That I plucked the flesh off children’s bones, that I made beds from angel wings? That I regret none of it, even as they talk to me in my dreams, singing their sweet little songs in my ear. Each one with me. Forever.”
“A nezhit?” I ventured.
“No. I do not bring sickness. I bring death .” There was a rustling of feathers, and an odd clang with them.
“Ah—a harpy.”
“Correct.” More rustling, more clanging. That was what happened when one had metal wings. “I think you’re going to die, angel,” she said. “I hear the guards—several of us are going to die. Maybe they’ll feed me your corpse afterward. ”
“You don’t have to sound quite so pleased about it.”
“I’m pleased about anything that brings change here, especially if it means I get dinner after.”
The harpy would eat me, gladly, even after speaking to me and getting to know me. The half-woman half-bird creatures thrived on carnage, and bathed in the viscera of rotten corpses before they consumed them. But they were also like us angels, and despised anything that kept them from the skies. It was only the prison’s foul smell and thick walls that kept me from smelling the harpy’s rot now, a remnant from meals long gone. My memory jolted with a little anecdote regarding the craven creatures.
That was right—they had metal feathers. Not ashen-tipped like mine—solid metal. By all rights they shouldn’t have been able to fly, but they did.
“What if I told you that I can give you an Artist to eat?” I said, sitting upright. This was reckless. Even if my plan worked, I’d have to send an angel’s— Artist’s —corpse to be feasted on, and the harpy would probably make me swear an unbreakable vow that I would do so. But … it might be worth it. With this harpy, I had a chance to escape being sacrificed, or, at the very least, I would take Gadriel with me. I eyed the door, the small gaps near the floor where if one was very careful—or willing to use their unnaturally long limbs, a small item could be pa ssed between us.
A pause from the other side of the wall. “I’m intrigued. Artists are not something I have tasted. Do their egos affect their flavor?”
I grinned. “Only one way to find out.”