Chapter 32
I’ve seen what happens to those who take that path. Even had I not, I have Hannah. What I feel for her is far too real, far too much of this world.
—Elijah to Raphael (Once, in the Refuge, on talk of Archangels becoming Gods)
One month—and the belated appearance of a subtle but defined baby bump later—Elena poked her head into the library, where her archangel was standing at the shelves apparently searching for a book.
“Hannah just messaged asking if the two of us were free for a call with her and Eli. Shall I tell her yes?”
Raphael nodded and closed the distance between them to stroke a hand down her wing. She leaned sideways into the heat and strength of him after sending the reply, her hand on her belly. “It’s good timing. I’m ready to tell her.”
Though Hannah’s world was created of art while Elena was a hunter through and through, the two of them had long ago progressed from merely friendly consorts to true friends. It was only their geographic separation the vast majority of the time that stopped their bond from being even tighter.
Hand on her lower back, Raphael said, “Yes, I think it’s time.”
Just then, the library’s communications crystal chimed with an incoming private call.
The projected image bore the sigil of the Archangel of South America—along with a symbol that said the meeting could be viewed in a three-dimensional format should it be desired.
Since a corner of the library had been set up for such calls—complete with comfortable sofas—Elena and Raphael moved there before answering.
Elijah and Hannah appeared in front of them. Hannah’s black curls were loosely clipped at the back of her head, her ebony skin radiant with health, while a gown of flowing dark green swept over her body in a loose glide that reminded Elena of cool, falling water.
Elijah was dressed as casually in a cream-hued tunic top and black pants, his arm behind Hannah and his hand on the flare of her hip. His blond hair was wind tumbled, his smile tender as he looked at his consort—and the white of his wing spread behind her closed ones.
“I have been a bad friend,” Hannah said almost at once, her eyes shining bright. “I’ve been terrible about communication of late. But I had a good reason, so I hope you will forgive me.”
“Hannah hasn’t been feeling the best,” the Archangel of South America told them. “Until about a month ago, she was spending so much of her time throwing up that I was about to strap her to an infirmary bed.”
The affectionate, protective tone in Eli’s voice, the way he was looking at Hannah, the way she was smiling so hard that it lit her up from within, her throwing up…
Archangel! Do you think—
She hadn’t finished her startled, excited question when Hannah put her hand on her belly—revealing a bump that the drape of the gown had otherwise concealed. “Our family will soon be three.”
Elena froze before bursting out with a whoop! and “Hannah! I want to hug you!” She made hugging arms at her friend.
Who laughed and made them back.
“Our congratulations to you both.” Raphael’s cheeks creased. “This is extraordinarily good news.” He went as if to clasp Eli’s forearm in the grip of warriors even as Eli did the same, only for their arms to go right through each other.
A laughing Elijah said something to an equally amused Raphael, but Elena didn’t hear, because Hannah’s gaze altered without warning, her perceptive artist’s eyes zeroing in on Elena’s face. “Ellie, the lines of you are different.”
A glance down. “You’re wearing a loose tunic. You never wear that particular style of tunic. You told me once they made you feel like a badly designed parachute waiting to go up.”
While Elijah shot his consort a confused look, Elena pressed her teeth together in a smile that wanted to crack her face.
Hannah screamed. “NO! Ellie!” It was her turn to stamp her feet in a dance of unbridled joy. “How far?”
“Six months. You?”
“Seven. Oh my havens! Ellie! We’ll be in the Medica close to the same time!”
Only then did Elijah’s eyes widen and meet Raphael’s. “Surely not, Rafe?” It was a measure of his surprise that he slipped up and used that nickname from Raphael’s youth.
“Most surely yes, Eli,” Raphael said with a grin.
And Elena felt a tear roll down her face. “Sorry. Stupid hormones.” She dashed it away using the back of her hand. “It’s just—”
“—to share the experience with a friend?” Hannah said through her own tears. “I never, ever expected to have such an opportunity.”
Elena’s returning nod was jagged. “I didn’t even know how much I wanted that until just now.”
Hannah’s lower lip quivered. “I have seen it among my mortal maidens and coveted their shared journeys. And to have it with you, my friend.” More tears, more joyful laughter—and plans being made to meet at the Refuge.
* * *
It wasn’t until much later that night that Elena came awake on a stab of fear.
“Hbeebti?” came a sleepy question from the archangel beside her, his wing over her body.
Today, he’d actually hit the point at which he needed deep sleep, so she stroked her fingers through his hair and said, “Just the baby moving.”
He fell back asleep with his hand on her abdomen—while her mind continued to race. Two consorts pregnant at the same time in a species with a catastrophically low birth rate? How was this possible? Was it some type of portent, the sign of another rising Cascade?
“Let it go,” she mouthed to herself. “Be happy like Nisia ordered.”
But the worry continued to nag at her until she gave in and said, Cassandra? She spoke in a mental whisper, loath to disturb the Ancient unless she was already drifting in the borderlands.
No answer…until deep into the night, when even New York took a quiet breath—and Elena found herself in a dreamscape where a young woman with hair of rippling lilac and eyes of seafoam and indigo that faded into cool blue, her wings an intense, deep violet, and her gown a froth of pale pink, sat in a playground swing.
Elena sat beside her in her own swing, both of them pushing off with their feet as they soared.
“You came!” Elena yelled over the sound of the wind as it whistled past their ears. “I’m sorry I woke you!”
“I’m not awake!” Cassandra called back before using her feet to slow herself down.
“I’m in a dream. A lovely one.” She looked around at the soft green grass, at the gardenias that bloomed a creamy white at the back of Elena’s childhood home.
“This place is rich with love, and I can hear children playing.”
“Yes,” Elena said, able to smile today because their home had been full of love and the sounds of children’s laughter. “I was so happy here.”
“Your child will be happy, too.” Cassandra swung up a little, legs out, but not so hard and fast that they couldn’t speak.
Her hair trailed almost to the ground as she leaned back to look at the sky.
“But two consorts being pregnant? That’s weird.” She twisted the swing so she could face the other woman. “Angels are barely ever pregnant at the same time, much less with the children of archangels.”
Cassandra sat back up, then twisted in the swing, too, to look at Elena.
“Oh, this is fun.” She twisted again, let herself unravel while laughing, then twisted back.
“Yes, it is weird,” she said, sounding heartbreakingly young…
and Elena had the realization that this was who she’d been before her terrible gift.
“But sometimes, Elena,” she added, “a rare sometimes, the slipstreams of existence bump into each other at just the right time and place for a beautiful coincidence. It happens with such rarity that even immortals forget—but I don’t.
” She tapped the side of her nose. “This has happened before, the occurrence lost in the mists of ages past.”
“What happened to those children?” Elena whispered. “Were they safe?”
Cassandra laughed until her eyes sparkled as bright as the diamond-coated strands of Aodhan’s hair. “Well, Marduk was stomping around being his usual bad-tempered self when I was a child, so I should think so.
“As for the other who was born on the same day at almost the same time…yes, the same day, such a closeness that it is beyond yours and Hannah’s. Well, she…you have met her, have you not?” A sly smile.
“Tiamat?” Elena scowled. “No, it can’t be her. She told me Marduk was an old man when they met, that that’s why her wings were different from his.”
Cassandra threw back her head, her laughter a thing of sunshine. “Oh, that is just like the Huntress of the Ages.” Amusement danced in her expression. “She is the younger…by exactly four minutes. Both born in a time of great flux; all children born then were unique in their appearance.”
Elena thought of the looks the two had exchanged, the easy affection and teasing humor, and realized she’d been caught unwitting in the midst of a long-running joke. About to smile, she suddenly froze. “Are Hannah and I giving birth to a future pair?”
This time, Cassandra laughed so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Hey!” Elena protested.
“Sorry, sorry.” Cassandra held up her hands, and when her eyes met Elena’s, they held eons of age, a weight of experience that was crushing. “You are birthing an infant, child of mortals. The consort born of angels is doing the same. That is all.
“Who they will become? Who they will love? Who will they be in the fullness of time? That is a glorious unknown. I come to tell you only that their birth is no portent, but rather a benediction unbridled. Live it, embrace it.” Her voice changed, became old and tired.
“I hope, child of mortals, that one day, I will meet your babe.”
Owls flew overhead, one white-winged creature coming to land on top of the swing frame.
Looking up, Cassandra sighed. “I must go from this dream now, Elena. My Qin calls me.” A soft smile. “I would that I could bring him to this lovely place, but this is yours. I will meet him in the world he builds for us.”
“You’re together?” Elena asked as the dream began to fade at the edges, an old photograph curling up with age. “You’ve managed to hold on to each other in Sleep this time?”
A smile that was of the girl Cassandra had once been. “Yes, this time…” Her body turned translucent, her voice becoming an echo. “…this time I hold my Qin tight, never to let him go. We are happy, child of mortals. My Qin smiles.”