Chapter Four
M arguerite Ciel sat on the edge of the hospital rooftop ledge, her legs dangling off the side, her face to the sweet, ocean-flavored westerly breeze that came with the setting sun.
From here, the Pacific stretched across to the horizon, broken only by the lines of surf that marched across the ocean like soldiers and the seabirds that circled above it.
Marguerite’s dog, Enoch, sat beside her, watching the birds.
“Ahhh,” Marguerite sighed, “there is almost nothing better than this view, right here, on the whole earth. Don’t you agree?”
Connor, who was pacing across the loose-rock roof like an agitated fool, said nothing.
“It calms the mind and the heart like nothin’ else,” she went on. “I do so miss this part of life. I suppose I shall never get over missin’ it.”
Bracing his palms on the building’s ledge, Connor stared down at the people crossing the parking lot below, going back to their lives.
Leaving behind whatever had brought them to this place.
If only for a while. He’d come up here to clear his head.
Marguerite’s unexpected visit was a distraction he merely tolerated.
His thoughts were on Emma and the crisis that had just gone on in her room downstairs only minutes ago.
A flurry of doctors and nurses had swarmed around her, shoving Aubrey out of the way to do what needed doing.
Exactly what they’d done was not in his purview, but they had worked on her for a good ten minutes before stabilizing her again.
But Emma—the spirit of Emma—had not returned to him.
He couldn’t say why, as he sensed her life was still precariously on the edge.
Maybe because Marguerite had chosen now to drop in for a chat.
What if that short time with Emma was all he’d have?
She would either live or die and he would go on to a new assignment, and that would be that.
His chest tightened.
He would miss her contrariness. Her teasing voice. Blast him. Even the way she looked at him.
What business did he have allowing his feelings to get involved?
“That is not like you, Connor,” Marguerite said.
“Get out of my head, woman.”
She smiled softly at him. “You’re surprised. But me, no. Not really.”
“Will ye never stop stirrin’ the pot?”
“The pot stirring is for your own good, mon ami . Too much left undone between you two. It must be tied off once and for all. Or it will always bleed.”
“I’ve no wish to tie anything with her,” he lied.
“You mean,” she clarified, “with Violet.”
He shook his head. “Emma’s just…”
“Just what?”
Connor sat on the ledge opposite his mentor, staring out at the orange sun balancing on the horizon. “She’s nothing like her. Yet it’s as if she’s stepped right out of my history.”
“You know as well as I that the bargain she struck comin’ into this life put you together here. Put her on that dark road that night. Along with all the people she’s with here. Partly for this very purpose. To tie off that wound once and for all. If you don’t, you’ll be seeing her again someday.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Perhaps I’ll never see her again. If she lives.” He glanced at the +9 percent on the dial on his wrist.
Marguerite stood to face him. “The Council voted in your favor at the last session. I thought you might want to know.”
That got his attention. “In my favor? How is that?”
“One of the members—Esme—has chosen to leave.”
“Leave? You mean quit? No one quits.” Such a thing was unheard of. The best he could have hoped for was an expansion of the seats. The Council, of which Roland was head, was as high a rank as a guardian could go. There were higher celestials, of course, but his sights had never been set there.
“No,” she explained. “She’s decided there is important work for her here.”
Connor couldn’t quite wrap his mind around this. Of all the Council’s thirty-two members, Esme would have been the last one he could imagine giving up the prestige of the Council. “She’s falling?” Again, at that level, unheard of.
“No, she will begin anew. She had an envie for new adventure.”
Adventure. Och. That he could understand. Of late, he’d often found himself longing for some adventure after centuries of dailiness as a guardian. The sameness was wearing. Notwithstanding Emma.
The Council seat had been his answer to all that sameness, but now that the possibility had presented itself, now that he’d had his hands in the grass here, Emma’s hand in his, had found himself feeling things he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for so long, now he wondered.
Was the Council seat enough? Was he even enough for them?
Enoch trotted across the ledge to sit down beside him, putting his small, furry head beneath Connor’s hand, asking for a pat. He obliged.
“I assume you want the seat?” Marguerite said, breaking into his thoughts. “What shall I tell them?”
Finding the random pebbles on the ledge suddenly of particular interest, he said, “Of course I want it. Ye didna think I’d say otherwise, did ye? It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time.”
Even from this vantage, he could feel her slow, sly smile beside him.
She made a noise, a self-satisfied sound that hardly needed interpretation. “All the same, maybe I’ll hold off a bit before giving them your answer. No need to be hasty or to make them think you want it that badly.”
He scowled at her. Of course they knew he wanted the seat. Everyone knew he wanted it. “I willna change my mind.”
“Then there’s no rush, sha . You do what you gotta do here. When you get done, you come see me, no?”
“Ye can count on it.”
“ Ca c’est bon, ” she said, tucking the little dog under her arm. “Come, Enoch. We’ve places to be.” In the next instant, she and Enoch were gone.
Connor turned back to the sunset, dipping below the horizon.
He’d always imagined how he’d feel once he got the call to the Council.
Validated? Complete? Maybe even victorious.
But what he felt was none of those things.
Instead, he doubted—himself, his mission, and even his path.
For perhaps the first time, he questioned what he’d thought he wanted all these years.
The thought tumbled through him that what he needed might be something completely different.
*
Aubrey sat beside her aunt in the ICU, holding her hand.
It seemed impossible that this still, suddenly fragile woman beside her was the same vibrant, ambitious, loving one who’d seen her through the worst time in her life.
The last twenty-four hours felt like a nightmare that she couldn’t wake up from.
The thought of living without Emma was unbearable.
Aside from loving her like crazy and planning for their futures together like sisters, she was Aubrey’s last and only connection to her parents.
She tried not to dwell on her parents’ deaths—or most especially the way they’d died. But sitting in the ICU with Emma brought that trauma rushing back. Not even Jacob’s calm presence could soothe her.
She squeezed Emma’s hand. “They’re going to make me leave soon,” she told her.
“I want you to know I’m here, though. I wish you could hear me, Emma.
I don’t say this enough. I love you. I’ve always loved you.
You’re my favorite—my only—aunt.” That would have made Emma laugh if she’d heard it, but it only made tears form in Aubrey’s eyes.
“I’m so tired, Em. I’m so very tired of losing people.
I’m glad you’re fighting. But please, don’t scare me like that again. ”
The glass door to the room slid open, and someone entered behind her.
She didn’t bother to look because she knew it was a nurse, come to ask her to go.
But as he came around the side of Emma’s bed, she saw it was a male nurse in blue scrubs whom she’d never seen before.
His name tag read Joseph Lassiter, RN . Something about him startled her.
Maybe it was his too-long hair or the fact that he might’ve been one of the most handsome men with whom she’d crossed paths in a long time. With the exception of Jacob.
Joseph smiled at her as he reached up to check Emma’s IV drip, inspecting it but not adjusting it. “Yer her niece, then? Yer all right?”
Of course he had a Scottish accent. Of course he did. “Yes. No. Well, it’s hard to say,” she admitted with a shake of her head.
“I ken ’tis hard.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” she said, making conversation to direct it away from herself.
“Just got on shift,” he said without meeting her eye. He glanced down at his name tag. “I’m…uh, Joseph. Joseph Lassiter.”
She nodded. “Aubrey. Have you talked to her doctors, then, Joseph? Do you know anything more? What are they saying?”
“She’s a fighter, that one. Or so I hear. It’s a waitin’ game, is all.” He turned his beautiful face fully toward her now. “But ye look tired. How long have ye been here now?”
“Since last night. I should go home, shower, change my—”
“ Och , no ,” he said abruptly. “I mean, I’m verra sure we could find a spot for you to rest here. If ye want to, that is.”
“Really? I don’t know. I can’t really think straight.” She rubbed her aching forehead. It was surprising. So kind of him to offer. But she really wanted to change her clothes and eat something besides vending-machine coffee and candy bars.
“Might be best.” He shot a concerned look at her, as if convincing her of that was as important as his job taking care of Emma—his patient.
Fear punched through her brain fog. “Are you saying that because you think something bad might happen again tonight? You think I shouldn’t go?”
“No, no. I’m only sayin’ it might be easiest for you to stay close if I can find ye a bed. Send your fella, Jacob, out to your place. Pick up your things?”
“You…you’ve met Jacob?”
“He’s worried for ye,” he said, studying Emma’s face as he absently lifted the clipboard from where it hung. “Good lad. He asked me to talk ye into a rest.”