Chapter 20
“River.” My name sounded uncertain on Dr. Fairmore’s tongue, like she too was rationalizing that I was there. But I wasn’t the one back from the dead.
She was.
Crushing and melting the ice had taken a lot out of me, but I didn’t think I was on the verge of hallucinating. I blinked. Once, twice, and a few more times, just to make sure.
“What—what are you doing here?” I could hardly form the sentence.
“I… After I escaped Chthonia’s henchmen, I had no choice but to flee.” Her deep brown eyes sparkled with something—shock. Hope. Incredulity. “I have to admit, when there were whispers that the Angel of Water was here in Hamarinn, I didn’t believe it.”
Tears dotted my lashes. How was she here? I’d visited her grave; her face haunted my dreams; I’d blamed myself over and over for her death. I bit the inside of my cheek. If I could hold it together in front of hundreds of people, I would not break down in this hallway.
“But it’s true.” A hint of a smile quirked her gaping mouth. “My God, it’s true.”
Shooting right past the formalities, we drew each other into a tight embrace. The threads of emotion I’d been able to keep tightly wound snapped, and I was crying into her shoulder, the hot tears burning my cheeks, slipping over my jaw.
I didn’t deserve this hug. I didn’t deserve her.
Tight black curls brushed the side of my cheek, lavender and honey and a spritz of salt infused in each strand. It was such a familiar blend of smells—reminding me of home, of those therapy sessions that changed my life, of all the reasons I had to live.
Finally letting go, I took a step back, wiping my nose on my sleeve. I glanced over my shoulder, checking for Flóki—to find the hall silent, empty, as if he’d never been there in the first place—before turning back to Dr. Fairmore.
Looking at her face… I still saw the shredded office, the dark magic, the cemetery.
She’d died. And I didn’t know by whose hand—the Night Stalker offshoot or the demon posing as my therapist—but at this point, it was all the same. I’d mourned her. I’d—
“I don’t understand,” I said with a sniffle. “You had a headstone and everything… Is this magic? Are you really here, or is this my exhaustion and my Source playing tricks?”
Her lips curved up, but sadness haunted that knowing smile. “Come.”
She walked into the courtyard, the long hem of her dress dangling in a drip of sage fabric across the stone.
I matched her idle strides, noting the shadows billowing and fluttering around her as if they were… wings.
The towering mountains loomed above the open ceiling, their jagged silhouettes cutting into the sky—no clouds, just sunlight, and the sparkling branches of the icy willow draping over our path.
She led us to the heart of the tree, the limbs forming a perfect shield from listening ears and prying eyes. “After our last therapy session, they attacked me in the parking garage.”
They. My nails dug into my palms, Ryder’s name a dry lump in my throat—but I had to ask. I had to know. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know exactly.” As she parted the foliage, her sleeve slipped down her arm.
A scar marred her skin from the top of her wrist to her elbow—that was new.
“They were wearing masks; and from the moment they captured me to the moment I escaped, they didn’t take them off.
But they bore the marks of Chthonia fanatics—inverted pentagrams, goat-headed figures—on their skin and their clothes. ”
Acid churned in my stomach. They’d taken her—tortured her, by the look of that scar and the other one I caught, a good slice along the side of her neck.
She ducked her head. “I wanted to be there for you—”
“No.” I placed my palm on the tree trunk, and the cool bark dug into my skin. “This is all my fault, Dr. Fairmore. You don’t need to explain yourself.” I don’t deserve it.
“Call me Olivia,” she said. “And I owe it you. Owe it to her.”
My pulse drummed in my ears. “Who?”
She finally glanced up, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Your mom.”
“Why?” I fought to steady myself, the ground feeling like it might slip out from under me at any second.
“Because I told her I would look out for you.”
The air turned heavy. “You… you knew my mom?”
Nodding, she continued weaving through the leaves, the ice clinking around her with the soft echoes of a windchime. “It’s not often an archangel befriends a Nephilim—but Mira always preferred the company of those of us stuck on Mortal Earth. I more than knew her. She was a dear friend.”
Shock blew through me. There had always been a spark of familiarity to her rose-tinged face, because I’d seen her—met her—before she showed up as my new therapist that fated day.
Pushing off the tree, I staggered after her. “I met you that one summer. At the beach.”
Most of the memories before my mom’s death were fuzzy, as if they’d been plucked from my head, but that sunny afternoon in the cold sea and the hot sand came rushing back to me.
“I was walking my dog.” Tossing her chin over her shoulder, she gave me a glassy smile. “You just adored him. Do you remember?”
“Yes! The fluffy white one. What was his name?”
“Henry,” we said at the same time.
The dog had kept me occupied while my mom and Olivia spoke, their words hushed and quick.
Now that I thought about it… “That happened a few times—us running into each other. It wasn’t a coincidence, was it?”
Stepping out of the branches, she waited for me on the other side, her silhouette wavering like a mirage behind the dense curtain of ice. “No, it definitely was not.”
“Why—ow.” I pulled a twig out of my hair. The limbs twisted around my own, snagging on my braid, until I stumbled out the other side. “Why the secrecy?”
“To protect you.” Turning on her heels, she headed for a vaulted corridor. “The laws for the angels are not like the ones you know. There’s no such thing as forgiveness—no room for mistakes. Mistakes are sin. Sin is treason. You commit treason, you are sentenced.”
“I mean, my mom must have known that when she decided to date my dad in the first place, right?” I asked as we approached a crumbling stone stairwell blanched with what looked like salt. “She was an archangel. That’s millennia of life and laws.”
With soft steps, Olivia descended. “Yes, but what you have to understand is most angels who serve the Court of the Creator do not feel. They exist in a realm of order, and anything that threatens to disrupt that order is chaos. Chaos cannot exist in Empyrea.”
I followed her without hesitation, light playing off the walls. “Even more reason to just walk away from him…” I grumbled. My heart cinched in my chest, as if to remind me, Easier said than done.
“That’d be the easy answer, wouldn’t it? Especially for beings that experience no human emotion. But the Watchers were created in the image of mortals. Mortals are equal part order and chaos. They’re moody and messy, beautiful and cruel. They’re complex. They’re not perfect.”
We rounded a corner, the passage abruptly pitching into shadow.
Torches guided our way downward, illuminating my former therapist’s silhouette in a warm glow.
“Despite this very big difference,” she continued, “the Watchers are still bound to the same rigid laws as the others.”
“That seems unfair.”
She tsked. “Truly.”
A faint trickling of water rippled in the distance—pipes, or maybe runoff from the glacier pooling beneath the castle floors.
“But…” My brows furrowed. “Didn’t a bunch of angels come here and, you know, fall in love? Make babies? Get corporate jobs?”
“You’re funny,” she said, a tinge of laughter coloring her words. “Being sent to a world after a lifetime of order, witnessing the intricacies of human interaction…” She shrugged. “I’d be tempted. Wouldn’t you?”
“Even if it were a death sentence?”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that. Death would be a courtesy.
” A tremor worked its way into her shoulders, and I imagined we were, in our mind’s eyes, seeing the same gruesome images of the Fall.
I’d never forget those cries of despair, the air full of decay and hopelessness in that glimpse of the past Madame Myrian had shown me in her crystal ball earlier that summer.
“But for some, experiencing the emotions that make us human, even if only for a brief moment in time, is better than an eternity of feeling nothing at all.”
She slowed, rounding a corner.
The stairway opened into a massive room—a cave—lit by flickering torchlight. A turquoise lagoon rippled in the center, winding into dark nooks and shadowed corners.
Salt stained the steps and crusted the rocks jutting out of the water.
“What is this?” I asked. “An elven spa?”
She grinned, and it loosened something in my chest. I thought I’d never see that smile again.
“Geothermal pools. Said to have healing properties.” Taking off her shoes, she strode to the edge and sat down, dangling her feet into the shimmering blue water.
“No idea if that’s true. I just find them relaxing. ”
Wasting no time, I pulled off my booties and joined her, the steam a welcome blast of heat. One toe in the water and I was melting. “This is incredible.”
“Isn’t it?” The water’s reflection shimmered in her eyes. “You lost your necklace.”
A statement so similar to ones I’d heard before, usually meant to disarm me—but when it came from her mouth it didn’t make my skin crawl like it did with Flóki or trigger an inner alarm like with Leif.
“Yeah.” I dipped my chin, my fingers curling around the empty space above my heart. “Chthonia’s cronies came after me, too. They stole it.” I forced myself to meet Olivia’s midnight stare. “Along with so many other things.”
“I’m sorry.” Remorse pinched her face. “I know that was important to you.”
“It was all I had left of her,” I said.
“Not all…”
Source pulsed through me, like a lazy cat flicking its tail.
“You mean her magic?” I snapped my gaze to the pool, leaving my hand fisted at my clavicle. “I can’t even use it without the necklace. That was my conduit.”