Chapter 37
Aeclari.
—The Legion, to their Aeclari (Eons past, Eons lived, Eons to come)
Three weeks later—and hovering very close to the date they’d leave for the Refuge—Elena sat in a corner of Raphael’s Tower office with her feet up on another chair.
She had several throwing blades in her lap as she polished, cleaned, and checked them for damage or wear before placing them on the folding table she’d set up next to her.
“Weapons or pickles, I knew I’d find you with one of those two things.
” Raphael dropped a kiss on his consort’s unbound hair as he went to sign a number of documents waiting on the paper-thin device that sat atop his desk; he was careful to pass behind her so that his wings didn’t inadvertently disturb her deadly collection.
Elena held a shiny blade up to the light, a soft smile on her face. “Zoe made me this one last year. Deacon would’ve been one proud dad at her faultless workmanship.”
“Yes,” Raphael said from behind his desk, hit with his own memories of the quiet, dangerous hunter who’d once been the Guild’s Slayer, the hunter who hunted his own who had gone bad.
“The weapons-maker was never a big talker, but that he adored his wife and child with every part of him was as apparent to me as if it were written across his face.”
Putting the blade on the folding table, she said, “Remember how he made Zoe her own area in his workshop when she was barely beyond a toddler? She had a plastic tool set she used to ‘build’ things with while—”
She never got to finish the thought, because Dmitri—black combat pants, black tee, tumbled hair against honey-dark skin—was in the doorway, his expression grim. “Huge fucking shadow on the far horizon. Invisible to our satellites—Sam’s taken his wing out to do a reconnaissance flight.”
Raphael’s mind went from affectionate warmth to lethal focus. “No one gets within a fucking mile of the city,” he said. “I don’t care what we have to do.”
He would not permit any harm to come to his consort or child.
“I’ve already activated all our defenses to ready status.” Dmitri’s gaze was of a man who knew what it was to love a woman, a father who understood what it meant to protect a child. You’ll get Elena to the bunker?
At Raphael’s nod, Dmitri left for the Tower’s war room, which was built to provide a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view with no impediments to the sight lines. Raphael, meanwhile, turned to Elena—who’d put her knives aside and was rising to her feet using the edge of his desk.
He didn’t make the mistake of thinking her unarmed.
“He told you to hide me, didn’t he?” She scowled.
Already at her side, he took her hand. “We must, Elena.”
“Ugh,” she muttered, but kissed him. “I get it. Annoying as it is, I’m not as mobile or as able to defend myself as usual and would just be a dangerous distraction. Let’s—”
Snapping off mid-statement, she stared at his temple.
“Raphael”—quick, breathless—“the Legion mark is glittering as bright as during the Cascade.”
Aeclari.
At that long-silent whisper, both their heads jerked toward the water visible through the balcony doors. They were out on that balcony within seconds, scanning the horizon as a gust of wind swept Elena’s hair back into a pale banner.
He curved his wing around her to block the wind.
“I don’t see them,” she said, pushing back her hair as it fell around her face.
“They’re some distance out.” Dropping his wing when the wind settled as quickly as it had come, he took her hand, held her from jumping off to fly oceanward.
“No, we wait for them on the roof. They have certain patterns of behavior.” The gray beings had adapted in the years they’d been in the city, but he didn’t know which version of the Legion had returned.
“Right. Let’s go.”
It took them but a moment to fly up to the roof. Once there, Elena rubbed her belly through the vivid blue tunic top embellished with golden embroidery that Mahiya had gifted her at the “baby shower” party her sister had thrown two weeks earlier.
Raphael had thought it would be a women’s gathering, as had Dmitri, but apparently such was no longer the case as it had been during the time Dmitri’s children had been born.
Instead, Eve had talked Raphael into wearing an armband that said Father to Be, while Elena’s Mother to Be sash had crossed her body.
To see Elena so filled with sunshine and happiness…he’d even have worn a sash if Eve had thrust it at him.
The party had been organized and entirely hand-decorated by Eve with help from Elena’s women friends—and Montgomery, because apparently, Montgomery “would have a coronary if we didn’t let him join in and use all the decorations he’s saved up in his hoard”—as stated by Eve.
The day had involved colorful drinks called mocktails, tiny foods, many balloons, games that had made his consort’s eyes sparkle, and the simple, irreplaceable company of friends and family.
The latter had included five of the descendants with whom Elena was particularly close—and who she knew wouldn’t spill the secret.
Jessamy had flown in just for the event, the exquisite magenta-fading-into-cream of her wings strong and striking against the fall sky.
Of all that he’d been able to do during the Cascade, Raphael was perhaps proudest of this—getting gentle and kind Jessamy on the starting blocks when it came to flight.
She’d had to do the rest on her own, literal years of painful physical therapy, to stretch and condition wings that had never known the sky.
In the end, she’d also undergone two significant surgeries to excise internal parts of her wing that had never grown right and meant she couldn’t sustain true flight longer than a few minutes.
There’d been no way to perform the surgeries without also taking part of her external wing structure.
A decision that must have tormented Jessamy.
In the end, however, she’d decided the risk was worth it.
“I would rather be earthbound than to only get a taste of the sky,” she’d said, her thin face resolute.
“Sky or earth, not caught in purgatory.”
No one had known if the sections would grow back structurally sound after the excision, but Raphael’s interference with her wing growth pattern had held in the aftermath.
“I now see the surgeries as a gift,” Jessamy had told him, despite her continuing pain as she healed. “I’ve been so afraid that should I cause damage to a wing, it would grow back as it was when I was born.”
Her smile had been luminous. “Now I know the healing is irreversible—Keir is near certain the changes you made were at the cellular level. Should I ever lose my wings in a catastrophic accident, they will grow back as they are now.” Shining brown eyes. “Thank you, Rafe, for giving me the sky.”
A hug from arms that had given him comfort when he was a small boy—and would do the same for his own child. Jessamy’s heart was as gentle and kind as her mien.
The only remnant of her childhood wing malformation was that, unlike other angels, her wings needed continued exercise and physical therapy to maintain their flight-ready status.
“It feels like stretching any other part of my body,” she’d said during a call. “Galen and I often do the sequence together even though he doesn’t need to do so—and once a year, Nga and I have a week together where she ensures I’m maintaining correct form when I do the exercises she assigns me.”
Raphael had been delighted to see Jessamy land on the Enclave lawn the night before the party, tired from her long flight, but otherwise in excellent form.
As for the other party guests, even Greta had made an appearance.
Sidling over to Raphael, Izzy had whispered, “Greta’s wearing a dress.”
“I thought she just regenerated every night in the same black pantsuit,” Sam had added in another whisper.
Amused, Raphael had decided to terrify the two. “She’s also old enough that she has preternatural hearing.”
Both warriors had looked like they’d seen their own future ghosts.
Missing from the event had been those of their friends outside the city who couldn’t get away from their posts, and of course, Hannah and Elijah, but there would be another celebration in the Refuge in the coming months.
Hannah and Elena were even discussing a shared event for after they’d healed from their birthings.
It would most assuredly be the talk of the Refuge.
Today, however, they stood in New York, their eyes searching the horizon for the strange beings who had made their way into their hearts, and who had been gone far too long.
Legion, Raphael said, his reach far longer than Elena’s, we await you.
Aeclari. We come.
“Don’t forget to tell Sam,” Elena reminded him as seven hundred and seventy-seven voices filled their minds.
They are not the enemy, Sameon. They are our Legion. Escort them home with all honor.
Sam’s response was jubilant. The Legion! I never thought I’d get to meet them!
When Raphael alerted Dmitri about the identity of the force on the horizon, he got a mental whistle back. Well, damn. I guess it’s a good news kind of day.
“Do you think it’ll be our Legion?” Elena asked at the same time. “Like how they became?”
“I cannot tell, Elena-mine, but I would hope for it.” The otherworldly beings who had arrived as a fighting force had become part of the city, part of their world.
While the Legion had continued to act like living gargoyles in their liking for crouching in strange locations, they’d also begun to develop personalities of their own, no longer gray beings formed of the same template.
The Primary had been the most individual of them by far, but the others had slowly begun to follow his example.
“Why are they coming?” Elena’s hand clenched on his. “I love that they’re back, but the last time was because of a Cascade of Death.”
Raphael’s spine was tense with the same question. “Shall I ask them?”