26. Azrael
Ireturn to Bec’s room.
No, not her room, I remind myself. This is the one we had set up just like a hospital room in the best of Society hospitals with all the best possible equipment. We keep it separate of Bec’s actual bedroom because I want her to have some sense of normalcy. Her illness, this mysterious, tricky thing that has her by the throat, is a part of her life right now. It cannot—I will not allow it—to become the whole of her life.
To steal that life.
My brother is at my side at the bottom of the bed. He is massaging her foot, wanting to make sure she knows we’re here with her, that she’s not alone as we try to keep out of the way of the doctors and nurses.
Bec lies there motionless, her eyes closed, looking so small, so fucking fragile.
“She was better,” Emmanuel says. “I swear, last night, she was better.”
Don’t terminal patients have a last surge of energy before the end? But no, she’s not terminal. She’s too young, not quite sixteen. She is not terminal.
I squeeze Emmanuel’s shoulder and watch his face in profile, his eyes not once leaving our sister. I don’t give voice to the words my mind conjured.
One of the machines finally makes a noise that isn’t an alarm, and the doctor working on her exhales. He looks visibly relieved, his flushed face beaded with sweat. He’s in his thirties, and I’ve seen him a few times even though he’s not her main doctor.
He looks up at his team and nods. “Let’s give her some space,” he says, drawing the blanket up to Bec’s narrow shoulders. A child’s shoulders.
“What happened?” I ask the doctor as we step away from the bed. Emmanuel goes to Bec and takes her hand in his. She doesn’t move. “She was good last night.”
“Azrael,” he says, shaking his head, very clearly perplexed. “I don’t know. Very honestly, I simply do not know. I’ve ordered more tests, but the poor girl has been through them all before and the vitamins and supplements we’ve prescribed… she’s been taking them in varying dosages for more than half a year. They wouldn’t cause this.”
“Vitamins and supplements? She was complaining her medication hurt her stomach.”
His forehead furrows. “They shouldn’t have.”
“Doctor,” one of the nurse’s calls.
“Excuse me,” he says to me and turns to answer the woman’s question.
I move to the other side of my sister’s bed. I can’t help but think of the timing of this.
In two days, it will be the first anniversary of Abacus’s death.
I squeeze Bec’s small, too-cold hand, my throat closing in that way it does. I say a mental prayer, something I haven’t done in a very, very long time. I’m not even sure to whom I’m praying. But I ask whoever is listening to please spare her. Spare Bec.
Don’t make me bury two siblings only a year apart.
“Azrael,” Salomé calls from the doorway. She glances at Bec, and I recall what Willow said, that she’d been in Bec’s room.
What was she accusing our grandmother of? She may hate Salomé, and with good reason, but to suggest she was the cause of Bec’s sudden turn for the worse is inexcusable.
“Will you stay with her?” I ask Emmanuel.
His face is ashen as he glances at our grandmother and nods to me, pulling a chair closer and sitting down beside Bec’s bed.
“We need to talk,” Salomé says.
“Now isn’t a good time.”
“I think it’s exactly the right time,” she says with a glance at Bec. “I’d think you’d agree.”
I study her, see the hollows around her eyes, the shadows of a woman who rarely sleeps. She looks more gaunt than usual. The incident must be weighing on her even if she doesn’t want to show it.
“Was she up last night? Did you hear something?” I ask.
“What?”
“Willow mentioned she thought you’d gone to Bec’s room.”
Her gaze narrows on me, and she tilts her head back, cocking it to the side. “That witch was roaming free in our house? No, I shouldn’t be surprised. But do tell. What was she accusing me of exactly?”
“I’m just trying to understand, Grandmother.”
“Well, I am insulted you even bring it up, but I’ll set your mind at ease since it seems your loyalties are shifting.”
“My loyalties?—”
“Rébecca was restless, as she often is,” she says, cutting me off. “I told you all that junk food would be bad for her.”
“I don’t think popcorn and MMs caused this.”
“Like I said, the child was restless. I went to soothe her, as I often do, I might add, while you and your brother are out devil knows where doing devil knows what.” She glances over my shoulder. I guess that with her raised voice, the nurses took notice because she speaks the next part more quietly, “There is another matter we need to discuss. A private one.”
“It can’t wait?” I run my hands through my hair. I’m fucking exhausted.
“No, it can’t.”
Without needing a reply, she turns on her heel and walks toward the stairs, her long, heavy black skirt swishing behind her.
Although reluctant, I follow her down the stairs, glancing at my closed bedroom door. I know Willow cares about Bec, but accusing Salomé of doing real harm to her own granddaughter is unacceptable.
I don’t let my mind wander to those letters as I follow Grandmother down the stairs and out the French doors that will lead to the backyard. I’ll find whoever is threatening Willow and deal with them later. For now, locked in that room is the safest place for her.
The day is dark and damp, and the ground is wet and muddy beneath my feet. I don’t have to wonder where Grandmother is headed. I know. She disappears under the cover of trees and just before I follow, I turn back to glance up at the house, at my bedroom window. There, standing against the glass is Willow. She rests her hand against the window, and even from here I can see the concern on her face.
But now is not the time.
I turn away and head toward the churchyard where Shemhazai’s statue looms seemingly taller than ever. The cracked stone altar lays in two slabs at his feet, the offerings Bec made just days ago a muddy, sodden mess. I stop a few feet from Salomé, who bows her head, puts her hands together and mutters a prayer declaring her undying and unquestioning loyalty to this demon-angel. This dark guardian who supposedly shields us from the Wildblood curse, but not for nothing and not out of any goodwill.
No, Shemhazai is not a benevolent being. He demands a high price for his blessings, a word Salomé uses. For centuries, we’ve paid what he has required, and we’ve prospered. Our fortunes grew, our line continued healthy and strong, and our family remains powerful.
But Shemhazai’s Tithe is paid in blood. Mine and Willow’s. Delacroix and Wildblood.
Has every Penitent before me come to the same crossroads as I? This hesitation, this moral dilemma? Or hell, is it pure selfishness on my part? Maybe I just don’t want to die.
No, it’s not that. I am not afraid of death. But Willow… What I am doing is condemning her to death. I knew that before I ever set foot in the Wildblood house, before The Tithing ceremony, yet I did it.
I walked in there, found the woman bearing the birthmark, and took her despite knowing all along exactly what I was doing even if they did not. Even if they knew the marked woman’s life would end tragically within a year of being taken, the Wildbloods do not know that that tragedy is brought down by us. The blood of their daughters, their sisters, very firmly stains our hands.
“You have angered him,” Grandmother says without looking at me.
I don’t speak. What can I say, that it was a bolt of lightning? It’s the truth, yes, but that will only support her argument.
And what do I believe? Am I a hypocrite?
She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder, but I keep my sight on the altar. “In two days’ time, we will mark the anniversary of your brother’s passing,” she says, as if his death was in any way gentle, but I bite my tongue. “Will we bury your sister on the same day, Azrael?”
I meet her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“Isn’t it the truth?”
“Do not say it.”
“As you wish,” she answers, having hit her mark and made her point despite having heard the warning in my voice. She walks toward me. “It is up to you. Your sister’s life is in your hands. The Sacrifice must be made, Azrael. And if you refuse it, for now, then as you wrestle yourself to come to terms with what must be, make an offering to him. Appease him, or he will take your sister. Does a Wildblood witch mean more to you than your own flesh and blood?”
“Grandmother, taking one life will not heal another. Bec’s illness is not Shemhazai’s doing.”
She steps closer to me, so close I smell her acrid breath. “Then explain what happened to your sister,” she hisses. “Make it make sense when not a single doctor can.”
My jaw tightens and my gaze moves over her shoulder. I can’t explain it, and she knows it.
“Medical miracles happen every day, don’t they?” she asks using a falsely sweet voice, one too young for her. Too unnatural. “It is not too late to reverse this. This…” She gestures to the altar. “This is a sign, a warning for you to act. It is a second chance. I won’t allow you to waste it.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, meeting her pale eyes, seeing the sheen almost like tears, but not tears. Never tears with my grandmother.
“It means what I said. I will not allow you to waste this second chance Shemhazai has given us.”
With those words, she turns and walks away, leaving me standing in the shadow of the demon-angel.