Chapter 16
Sixteen
They come without warning.
One moment I'm staring at the family tree, trying to process everything Seraph just showed me. The next, the binding in my chest explodes with sensation.
Not just Seraph. Not just Croesus's distant, walled-off presence.
All of them. All at once.
I gasp and grab the edge of the table as seven different presences flood through me. Pride and greed and envy and wrath and lust and gluttony and that terrible, empty void that is sloth. They crash together like waves, each one demanding attention, each one pulling at something inside me.
It's too much. Too loud. Like standing in the middle of a crowd where everyone is screaming directly into my skull.
"Raven." Seraph's voice cuts through the chaos. His hand grips my elbow, steadying me. "Breathe. Focus on my voice."
I try. Four counts in. Hold for seven. Out for eight. But the bindings are shrieking now, seven threads of light pulsing in my chest, and they are coming closer. Converging on this place like sharks scenting blood in the water.
"They felt it," I manage. "When I understood. They felt it through the binding."
"Yes." Seraph's jaw is tight. "And now they're coming to see what you know."
The library door slams open.
Kael enters first, because of course he does.
The Angel of Wrath doesn't wait for permission or invitation.
He fills the doorway with his massive frame, six and a half feet of muscle and barely contained violence.
His dark red hair is shorter than I remember, and his ember-bright eyes scan the room like he's assessing threats.
The scars covering his arms and neck stand out stark against his tan skin, burn marks that never healed. The air around him shimmers with heat.
"What did you show her?" His voice is a growl, directed at Seraph. "I felt her reaction from three realms away."
"Nothing that concerns you." Seraph doesn't release my arm. His grip is the only thing keeping me upright as the binding screams louder.
"Everything about that binding concerns me." Kael stalks into the room, and the temperature rises with each step. "We're tied to her whether we like it or not. When she learns something dangerous, we all feel it."
Dangerous is an understatement. Idris's voice slides into my mind.
They follow Kael through the door, sharp beautiful features catching the library's silver light.
Their hair shifts colors as they move, dark like oil on water, and their lips form words that make no sound.
The Angel of Envy is mute, has been since the fall, but that doesn't stop them from making themselves heard.
She knows about the bloodlines now. About where they really come from.
"Get out of my head," I grit out.
Make me. Idris smiles, and it's not kind. Oh wait. You can't.
Lysander saunters in next, looking like he just rolled out of someone's bed. His dark hair with its red undertones is artfully tousled, and his purple eyes are half-lidded, lazy. But there's an edge beneath his sensuality today.
"Well, well." He leans against a bookshelf, crossing his arms. "The little sin eater discovered a secret. How exciting."
"This isn't a game, Lysander." That's Dorian, sauntering through the door lazily despite the tension crackling through the room.
His golden-brown hair is slightly messy, and his warm brown eyes hold that hollow sadness I remember from gatherings in the House of Gold.
He nods at me with genuine warmth, but it feels distant. Muted. "Are you alright, Raven?"
I want to answer. Want to say something clever or defiant or at least coherent. But the binding is so loud now, five more presences added to the two I'd grown almost accustomed to. My head is splitting. My chest feels like it's being torn in seven different directions.
And then the temperature drops.
Caspian enters last, and his presence is somehow worse than all the others combined.
The Angel of Sloth moves slowly, leaning heavily on a cane that looks like it's made of bone.
He's tall, taller than Kael even, but skeletal thin.
His white-silver hair falls past his shoulders, and his eyes are pale blue, almost colorless. Empty.
Looking at him is like looking into nothing. A void where feeling should be.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't react. Just finds a chair in the corner and sinks into it like the effort of standing was more than he could bear.
But I feel him inside. That terrible absence. That crushing weight of not caring about anything at all.
"She's going to pass out," Dorian observes. "Someone should probably do something about that."
"She needs to learn to handle us." Kael hasn't stopped radiating heat. A book on a nearby shelf is starting to smolder. "If she can't manage us all at once, she's useless."
"She's not useless." The voice comes from behind me, and I feel Croesus before I see him. His presence in the binding shifts from walled-off distance to immediate, protective fury. "She's mine."
He steps around me, positioning himself between me and the others. I can't see his face, but his anger is a hot wash through me. Hot and possessive and absolutely unwilling to let anyone hurt what belongs to him.
"She doesn't belong to anyone." The words come out before I can stop them. Weak, shaky, but mine. "I'm not property."
Silence.
Then Lysander laughs, warm and inappropriate. "Oh, I do like her. She's got fire."
"She's got a death wish," Kael counters. "Speaking to us like that."
She's got something more valuable than fire or death wishes. Idris's mental voice is thoughtful now, calculating. She has knowledge. Knowledge we've been forbidden to speak.
That gets everyone's attention.
I force myself to straighten, to release my death grip on the table. The binding is still screaming, but I'm learning to breathe around it. To exist in the spaces between the noise.
"You all know," I say. "About the bloodlines and where they really come from."
No one answers. But I see it in their faces, in the way they won't quite meet my eyes. Even Caspian, empty as he is, shifts slightly in his chair.
"You've known all this time. And you couldn't say anything because they silenced you. Bound you so you could never speak the truth about what Heaven did."
"Careful." Kael's voice is low, dangerous. "There are things that shouldn't be spoken aloud. Even here."
"But I can speak them." I look at each angel in turn, these ancient beings who have been caged by their own exile. "That's why you're really here, isn't it? Not because you're angry I know. Because you're terrified of what I might do with that knowledge."
Terrified is a strong word. Idris's lips curve into a wicked little grin. Intrigued might be more accurate. You're the first person in millennia who can actually say what we cannot.
"Which makes her dangerous." Kael again, stating the obvious. "To Heaven. To whoever is collecting those bloodlines. To us, if she decides to use what she knows against us."
"I would never—"
"You don't know what you would do." His ember eyes bore into mine. "You've had this knowledge for what, an hour? Wait until Heaven comes for you. Wait until they threaten your sister, your life, everything you care about. Then tell me what you would or wouldn't do."
The words hit me low in the gut. A fucking sucker punch. Because he's right. I don't know what I'd do if Luna's life was on the line. I don't know what lines I'd cross to keep her safe. No, I do. I’m sitting here as chattel to protect her. I’d do anything.
"She's under my protection." Croesus's voice is steel. "Anyone who threatens her answers to me."
"Your protection?" Seraph's laugh is sharp, humorless. "She's in my house, Croesus. Has been for months. If anyone is protecting her, it's me."
"You're the one who showed her the family tree. You're the reason we're all standing here having this conversation."
"I showed her because she deserved to know. Because her grandmother died for this truth and Raven has the right to understand why."
"You showed her because you wanted a weapon." Kael's voice is flat. "Someone who can speak when we cannot. Don't pretend this was about honor or justice."
The tension in the room ratchets up another notch.
Seven different flavors of anger and suspicion and fear all crashing together.
Croesus's possessive fury. Seraph's wounded pride.
Kael's simmering wrath. Idris's sharp-edged envy.
Lysander's lazy interest that hiding darkness.
Dorian's hollow concern. Caspian's crushing emptiness.
It's too much. All of it, too much.
"Stop." The word comes out loud and echoes through the room. "All of you, just stop."
They actually listen. Seven fallen angels, ancient and powerful and terrible, all turning to look at the human woman who just told them to shut up.
"You want to know what I'm going to do with this knowledge?
" I take a breath, try to steady myself.
"Nothing. Not yet. Because I don't understand it well enough to do anything with it.
All I know is that someone killed my grandmother for discovering what I just discovered.
And that same someone is probably going to try to kill me too. "
"Probably?" Lysander raises an eyebrow. "Definitely, darling. Heaven doesn't leave loose ends."
"Then help me." I look at them, these beings who have every reason to hate each other and very little reason to help me.
"Stop arguing about who owns me or who showed me what.
Help me figure out who killed my grandmother and why.
Help me understand what these bloodlines mean and why someone is collecting them. "
"And in return?" Kael asks.
"In return, when I figure out how to speak this truth without getting killed, I'll make sure the world knows what Heaven did. What they're still doing." I lift my chin. "That's what you want, isn't it? After years of silence? Someone to finally tell your story?"
The words hang in the air.