Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
The book hits the table with a satisfying thunk.
I stretch my arms over my head, feeling vertebrae pop in a way that should probably concern me, and let out a groan that echoes through the empty library. My eyes burn. My neck is a solid knot of tension. And my brain feels like someone's been using it as a pincushion for the last six hours.
Six hours of ancient texts. Six hours of cross-referencing bloodlines with grandmother's notes. Six hours of trying to find the missing pages that could explain what "NOT—" and "—the LIGHT" actually mean.
Six hours of finding exactly nothing useful.
From somewhere deep in the stacks, I hear Seraph moving.
The soft rustle of pages. The occasional muttered curse in a language that probably predates humanity.
He's been at this even longer than I have, pulling books one by one, checking for torn pages, for hidden compartments, for anything grandmother might have tucked away.
I drop my head to the table. The wood is cool against my forehead. Blissful.
"If you're planning to take a nap, the bedroom is more appropriate."
I don't lift my head. "The bedroom requires walking. I no longer have legs. They've been replaced by library-induced atrophy."
"Dramatic."
"Accurate."
His footsteps approach, and I feel him stop beside me. The familiar tingle of his presence, that pull of awareness that I've stopped trying to fight. Through my limited peripheral vision, because lifting my head is still not happening, I watch his fingers drum once against the table.
"Look at me."
"Can't. Dead. Leave flowers."
A beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly: "We're going out."
That gets me to lift my head. "What?"
Seraph is watching me with an expression I can't quite read. His silver eyes reflect the lamplight, catching me in their mirrors like they always do. His white suit is immaculate despite hours of dusty books. But there's determination in the set of his shoulders.
"Out," he repeats. "You and I. Tonight."
"We don't have time to go out." I gesture at the chaos of books and papers surrounding us. "We're in the middle of—"
"Finding nothing."
"We could find something in the next—"
"We won't." He says it with absolute certainty. "Your grandmother hid those pages well. One more night won't make a difference."
"You don't know that."
"I know that you've read the same page three times in the last hour without absorbing a word.
" He tilts his head, that bird-like gesture that should be unsettling but has somehow become almost endearing.
Almost. "I know that you need food, and rest, and something other than the weight of this mystery pressing down on you. "
"Since when do you care about my well-being?"
"Since your deteriorating mental state started affecting your usefulness."
I snort. "There he is. For a second I thought you were being genuinely nice."
"Heaven forbid." But his mouth twitches, just slightly. "Now. Will you come willingly, or do I have to resort to undignified measures?"
"I'm not going anywhere." I turn back to the books. "We have research to do. Missing souls to track. A grandmother's murder to solve. A possible apocalyptic conspiracy to unravel. So forgive me if I don't feel like—"
The world tips.
One moment I'm sitting in my chair. The next, I'm upside down over Seraph's shoulder, staring at the back of his pristine white jacket while the library wheels past in a blur.
His arm is banded across the backs of my thighs, holding me in place, and every point of contact burns through the thin fabric of my clothes.
"PUT ME DOWN."
"No."
"I swear to every god that exists—"
"None of them are listening."
His hand slides higher on my thigh, adjusting his grip, and heat floods through me that has nothing to do with anger. I can feel the strength in his arm, the casual ease with which he's carrying me like I weigh nothing.
"—I will make your life a living hell—"
"You already do."
I pound my fists against his back, and despite my anger I avoid his wings knowing how sensitive they are. The asshole. It's like hitting marble. Warm, annoyingly well-muscled marble. "This is assault!"
"This is intervention."
His palm connects with my ass. Not hard, but firm. Deliberate. The sound echoes through the library and I gasp, heat rushing to my face and somewhere considerably lower.
"Did you just—"
"You were squirming." His voice is infuriatingly calm. "It was distracting."
"I'll show you distracting, you arrogant—"
"Promises, promises."
He walks through the library like he's not carrying a flailing, furious, suddenly very flustered woman over his shoulder. Like this is completely normal behavior. Like he does this every day.
Which, I mean, maybe he does. Just not since I arrived.
"Seraph. Put me down right now or I will—"
"What? Absorb my pride?" He sounds amused. The bastard sounds amused. "Go ahead. It might make you more cooperative."
"I hate you."
"No you don't."
The worst part is, he's right. The absolute worst part.
We pass through corridors I barely register, too aware of the heat of his body against mine, the way his fingers press into my thigh, the lingering sting where his palm connected.
Then we're in his chambers and he's dumping me onto the bed.
I bounce once, twice, and come up sputtering with indignation.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
But he's already moving, striding to the massive wardrobe against the far wall. He pulls open the doors and starts rifling through fabric with singular focus.
"No work tonight," he says, not turning around.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm taking you somewhere special." He pulls out something silver and shimmering, studies it for a moment, then lays it across the foot of the bed. A dress. Floor-length, sleek, catching the light like liquid moonlight. "Put this on."
I stare at the dress. Then at him. Then back at the dress.
"You're insane."
"Possibly." He's back at the wardrobe, pulling out shoes now. Silver heels, delicate straps, completely impractical for anything except looking devastatingly elegant. He sets them beside the dress with precise placement. "Put it on."
"I'm not your doll to dress up whenever you're bored."
"No, you're my sin eater who hasn't eaten in twelve hours and is about to collapse from exhaustion.
" He turns to face me, and there's something in his expression that makes my next objection die in my throat.
"You're also the woman who has been carrying the weight of this investigation on her shoulders for months.
The woman who found out her grandmother was murdered and hasn't stopped working since.
The woman who—" He stops. Swallows. "—who deserves one night without the world ending. "
I don't know what to say to that.
Seraph crosses to the bed, crouches down so we're eye level. This close, I can see the faint shadows under his eyes. He's been working just as hard as I have.
"Will you wear it?" His voice is quieter now. Almost soft. "For me. Please."
The please is what gets me.
Seraph doesn't say please. Seraph demands. Seraph commands. Seraph expects the world to bend to his will because it always has.
But right now, he's asking.
And there's something in his eyes, vulnerability maybe, hidden beneath all those layers of pride and perfection, that makes me want to say yes.
"Fine." I drag the word out like it costs me something. "But if this turns out to be some kind of test, I'm going to shove those heels somewhere extremely unpleasant."
The corner of his mouth curves. "Noted."
He leaves the room without another word, and I'm left staring at the dress like it might bite me.
Silver. Because the angel of pride wouldn't pick anything that clashed with his aesthetic.
I strip out of my research clothes, wrinkled, ink-stained, probably haunted by the ghosts of six dead languages, and pull on the dress. It fits perfectly. Naturally. Seraph has probably memorized my measurements just by looking at me, the observant bastard.
The fabric slides over my skin like water, cool and impossibly smooth. The neckline dips just low enough to be interesting without being indecent. The back is mostly not there, held together by a series of delicate chains that crisscross between my shoulder blades.
I'm reaching to resettle my gold jewelry, Croesus's marks, when the air in the room shifts.
A figure materializes beside me. Translucent, ethereal, humanoid but distinctly not. One of Seraph's spectral servants, the ones I've glimpsed cleaning and arranging things throughout the House of Ruin. It gestures toward the vanity.
"Um," I say eloquently.
The spectral servant gestures again, more insistently.
I sit.
What follows is the strangest beauty routine of my life.
The servant's hands are cool mist against my scalp as it works through my short dark hair, somehow coaxing it into an elegant arrangement that should be impossible given the length.
Pins appear from nowhere. Products materialize and vanish. And when it moves on to my face—
"I don't wear makeup," I protest.
The servant ignores me.
But the touch is gentle. Surprisingly so. Cool brushes across my cheeks, my eyelids, my lips. I close my eyes and let it happen, because apparently this is my life now. Being primped by ghosts for a mysterious outing with a fallen angel.
When the servant finally steps back, floats back, I turn to look in the mirror.
And don't recognize myself.
The makeup is subtle but transformative. My dark eyes look larger, smokier, rimmed with something that makes the flecks in them catch the light. My cheekbones look sharper. My lips are painted a deep, muted rose that somehow makes me look both elegant and dangerous.
My hair is pinned up in a complex arrangement of twists and curls, with a few strategic pieces left loose to frame my face. It's the kind of style I've seen in old paintings. Timeless. Regal.