Devon
Kazimir offered his arm in the corridor, and I clung to it like a lifeline.
My feet barely touched the marble. The farther we got from the garden, the more unreal everything felt, as if the house was shifting underneath us, or as if my body was moving without my consent.
I half-expected to float off the floor and bump my head on the chandeliers.
The hellhound had vanished somewhere in the corridors—probably slunk off to hunt phantom foxes or whatever hellhounds did in mansions—but I didn’t have the capacity to care.
All my focus narrowed to the meeting ahead, and the way Kazimir’s hand covered mine, thumb rubbing the inside of my wrist.
The butler—Tilden, right?—waited at the door of the sitting room.
He gave a tiny bow to Kazimir, then to me, his gaze politely neutral but still assessing.
I squeezed Kazimir’s arm so hard he could have popped like an over-inflated balloon, but all he did was pat my hand, then push open the double doors.
The room had been transformed for the occasion.
Instead of the usual museum-grade gloom, the velvet drapes were drawn wide, letting dusk’s purpled light pour in.
All the lamps were lit, casting gold onto every blue and ivory surface.
On the far side of the room, standing with his back to the window, was the most physically impossible man I’d ever seen.
No—“man” was the wrong word. This was a living pillar, carved from pure white marble and then dipped in the unfiltered light of a dying sun.
He must have been close to seven feet tall.
His hair, long and loose, shimmered white-gold down past his shoulders, catching the light and throwing it into the air.
He wore white linen pants and a tunic with gold trim so fine it looked like starlight caught in fabric.
The cut should have been ridiculous, but it hung on him with the gravity of a god.
His hands were behind his back, and his bare feet pressed perfectly flat to the floor, the toes long and elegant and weirdly beautiful.
His eyes were the worst part. They sparked with liquid gold, ringed with a violet so intense I had to look away.
He radiated not just power, but some kind of—fuck, I don’t know—majesty.
Even Kazimir seemed… smaller, in his presence.
But that wasn’t the only reason I stared.
The strangest, most horrible familiarity crawled over my skin.
My own hair was this shade in the right light.
My own eyes, just on the edge of that unearthly quality.
Something in my bones recognized him in the way a starving dog recognizes its first real meal: with awe, and panic, and lust, and terror.
Kazimir cleared his throat, formal. “Archon, King of Angels. May I present Devon Wade?”
I opened my mouth to say something witty, or at least “hello,” but nothing came out.
My knees buckled. Without even thinking, I bent my head, a reflex drilled in deeper than muscle memory.
Not a full-on curtsy—that would be too on-the-nose—but a bow that had to have come from another life. The urge to kneel was nearly physical.
“Majesty,” I whispered, and it came out raw and unfamiliar.
King of Angels. The title made sense. He was a cathedral wearing human skin.
He regarded me with no trace of judgment. When he finally spoke, the words shimmered through the air and made every molecule of my body vibrate.
“You do not remember me,” he said, and his voice wasn’t deep so much as resonant. Like it echoed inside your head instead of in the room.
I managed to lift my eyes. “No,” I croaked. “Should I?”
His head tilted, birdlike, as if he were sorting through files in some astral filing cabinet. “Not necessarily. I did not expect you to bow, though I appreciate the gesture. Please, be at ease.”
At ease. As if that were even remotely possible.
Kazimir drew me to the nearest couch, a navy blue cloud of velvet, and sat me down beside him.
Only then did I realize my hands were shaking.
He laced his fingers through mine, grounding me.
Archon remained standing, haloed in window light, but I felt less threatened and more…
protected? Even my panic responded to his presence by flattening into something dignified.
The silence was weirdly comfortable, or maybe just thick enough to block out any other sensation.
Kazimir broke it. “Archon has done me the courtesy of investigating your circumstances. He is… uniquely qualified.”
Archon’s gaze never left me. “What I am about to tell you,” he began, “may precipitate a crisis of memory. It could trigger a restoration of your past—or, if you are not prepared, an episode of considerable distress.”
“Does this mean I get my memories back?” I asked. I sounded about twelve.
He considered. “It is possible. But it is also possible that the very act of attempting to recall them will create a disturbance, an energy signature, if you will, that can be traced by those seeking you.”
I wanted to ask “who” so bad it hurt, but for some reason I didn’t dare. Instead, I looked at Kazimir, whose fingers squeezed mine just a shade tighter. For the first time, I realized he was anxious, too.
Archon continued. “You have spent the last six months under a sort of cloak. Someone, or something, severed your connection to the network of memory and power that binds our kind. It is not easy to do, and it is rarely benevolent. You have been hidden, but if you emerge from that shadow…”
“Others will know,” Kazimir finished.
I was sure my pulse would snap my wrist bones. I gripped Kazimir’s hand tighter, let my head fall to his shoulder, and tried not to let the trembling become visible.
Archon’s expression softened infinitesimally. “There is no shame in fear. You have survived what would have destroyed many. But you must decide if you wish to pursue this. Once the process begins, it cannot be stopped.”
I tried to picture what “process” meant. A ritual? Brain surgery? I couldn’t even remember my mother’s voice—did I even have a mother? But even the idea of staying blank forever made me want to scream.
Kazimir must have sensed my panic. He wrapped his arm around me, pulled me to his side so that my entire body was pressed against him from thigh to shoulder. “You are safe here,” he said, his accent thicker than usual. “Nothing will happen unless you wish it.”
Archon’s eyes flickered to Kazimir and back. “The decision is Devon’s. I will abide by her choice.”
I wanted to ask a thousand questions. About who was after me, what I’d done to suffer these consequences, why the hell I recognized this man in my cells and not my mind. But the words got stuck behind my teeth.
I looked down at my hands, at the way Kazimir’s thumb traced soothing circles on my skin. “What if I say no?” I whispered.
Archon shrugged, a movement both perfect and casual. “You can live as you are. There is nothing wrong with beginning anew. The past does not define the soul.”
I felt something hard and beautiful snap into place inside me. I would not live my whole life in hiding. Not after everything that had happened to get me here.
I stood and straightened my spine and looked the angel dead in the eyes. “Then let’s do it. Whatever you have to do. I want to remember.”
Archon waited until I steadied myself. “Are you prepared, Devon?” he asked, his voice solemn, even a little gentle. “Once you remember, the world will see you. You will not be safe, not truly, until this is finished. But your fate will be yours to choose.”
Every instinct in me screamed to say no, to run upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom until the end of time. But with Kazimir here, I could do anything. I swallowed hard and nodded.
“I’m ready.”
Kazimir stood and moved to my side, his body angled between me and the window. He put both hands on my shoulders, grounding me, the pressure just shy of bruising. Archon stepped forward until his shadow blanketed us both.
He placed his right hand—broad and strangely soft—on the crown of my head. “Give me your hands,” he said, and held out his left, palm up.
I slid both hands into his, and the skin-to-skin contact was like plugging into a live wire. A charge crackled down my arms, through my core, all the way to my feet. I bit down hard on the urge to yank away.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
I did, and the world vanished.
Archon began to chant, the syllables rising and falling in a rhythm that seemed older than language itself. I didn’t recognize a single word, but every one felt like a hammer on an anvil, forging something in the dark.
At first, nothing. Just the black of my eyelids and the pulse in my ears.
Then the room dropped away. The floor was gone; the air was gone, and I was falling—not the slow-motion, dreamy fall from before, but a rocket-ride straight through the middle of the earth.
I tried to scream, but there was no air, no sound, just the sensation of movement so fast it shredded my thoughts into sparks.
Suddenly, a world. A garden. The ground was soft and green under my feet, and the air was so fresh it hurt to breathe.
Above me, the sky was blue—not regular blue, but a blue so deep and clear it made my chest ache.
The sun was everywhere and nowhere, lighting every blade of grass perfectly.
Birds sang, but not the birds I knew. They sounded like the laughter of children, or bells.
I was barefoot, and in a dress of white so fine it felt like mist. My hands were clean, no scars or burns, and when I touched my hair, it shimmered like moonlight. The memory of being human was there, but it was distant, the way you remember being a child: true but not relevant.
A shadow fell across the lawn. I turned, and there he was. Sariel.