Chapter 8
One Aeon Pre-Great War
“I’ve been thinking about the plants.”
“Hmm?” Luc cracked his eyes open. A few moments ago, Lila had pressed him between her body and the obelisk with aggressive force, but now she’d stopped kissing him. She was frowning into the aether as they stood there.
An aeon had passed since they’d played with clouds near the Crescent Arch, but even for their graduation, Lila had her hair pulled tight into the single, unadorned braid that she usually wore over her shoulder.
She was a fearsome thing to behold, with eyes dark as obsidian and dark brown skin with a glow of fire beneath it.
Gold eye makeup glittered like sparks above her eyes, and her lips, too, had a touch of gold to them, smoothed across their fullness like the fine sheen on a sword.
He often thought her lips were as cutting as a sword, though her voice was rich and warm, like fire in a kiln.
He’d rather kiss her, but hearing her voice was an acceptable substitute. What had she said? Something about the plants?
“The plants?” he prompted, confused.
“What if the plants were capable of reproduction?”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, what if they were able to make more of themselves?”
“Why would they need to make more of themselves?” Luc frowned. “They only need to be created once. We’ll put them where they’re supposed to go.”
“I suppose so.” Lila shook her head. “Perhaps that was a silly idea.”
Was it? Lila never had ‘silly’ ideas.
Luc thought it over. He didn’t see how reproduction could be a bad thing. In fact, on some level, it would make it possible to bypass the Creator, which seemed treasonous, but was also intriguing.
“In that case, maybe everything in our world should be capable of reproduction. All the plants and creatures.”
“You think so?” Lila brightened.
“It’s a novel idea. I wonder why the Creator didn’t do that with us instead of creating each angel individually. Seems like it would save time and effort. But then, who can know the mind of the Creator?”
Lila shrugged.
“You will soon.”
“That’s true.” He smirked.
“I would say ‘congratulations,’ but I don’t think He’ll like you.” Lila chuckled.
“Why wouldn’t He like me?”
“Because you’ll think you know better than Him.”
“I prefer to think of us on equal footing.”
“Well, there’s your problem already. No one else would dare.”
“No one else is me.” Luc caressed the side of her face, but she tugged his hand aside.
“I want to talk about the plants.”
“Now? Why?” He wrinkled his nose.
“Because I wrote down this idea, and I’ve been dying to share it with you.” She dug into the folds of her robes and produced a small scroll. “Besides, I told you our time is up.”
“I don’t remember a time limit being part of our original agreement.”
“I think our original agreement only involved kisses. Your argument is invalid.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“The plants”—Lila unrolled her scroll—“that have flowers will produce a substance that…well, when it’s mixed with this other part of the flower”—she turned her scroll toward him, and he saw a neatly drawn diagram of a camellia flower; she tapped its center—“it will produce something like a soul.”
“A soul?”
“Well, not a soul, but…something small that contains all the essentials of what that plant is. Then, with the proper amount of care, that small thing will grow up to be the plant it came from. Does that make sense?”
Luc rubbed his jaw. He understood what she meant theoretically, but he was trying to conceptualize it in a concrete way.
“This substance…” he ventured. “Will it only work on the flower it came from or on other flowers as well?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Mm, it could be something that’s carried on the aether and spread that way.”
“Like incense smoke?”
“Yes, like that.”
“I’ll write that…” Lila rummaged in her robes. “Oh, I forgot my pen.”
Luc tsked.
“Whatever will we do without your pen?” He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her closer.
“Luc, I’m serious.” Lila laughed. “I need to write—”
“Shhh,” he whispered in her ear. “As you said, this is all we will be doing from now on.” He took her scroll from her and tossed it aside. “So let’s finish the terms of our contract first.”
With that statement, Luc slid his hand around the back of Lila’s neck and tugged her face to his.
In response, she moved her lips expertly against his and teased the inside of his mouth with her tongue.
Her hands cupped the sides of his jaw and clamped it in place, like his bones were a piece of metal she was shaping.
It reminded him of the first time she’d pressed him against this very obelisk and kissed him so violently he lost his breath.
Everything in Luc’s existence had been predictable, apart from her. His instructors had fawned and fussed over him, his classmates had hated his guts, but only in Lila’s hands was he a slight, trivial being.
Lila enjoyed logic. She relied only on the evidence in front of her face, and whatever evidence she saw in Luc’s face had always told her he was not nearly as special as anyone believed. He had not yet proven that to her.
This should have annoyed him—and it had, initially.
But the problem was, Lila improved him. When she’d corrected him during lessons or group projects, he’d always learned from her.
No one gave her credit for how brilliant she was—no one else seemed to care.
But Luc cared because the truth was, she completed him.
He’d always aspired to be perfect, and he no longer felt he could be that way without her. They did great work together; with her by his side, there was no limit to what he could accomplish.
“I have a question,” he announced, pushing Lila away from him and holding her at arm’s length so he could view her properly. His architect pin accented her collar nicely, as though it were meant to be there. To be fair, Lila should have been an architect; she was one, in everything but name.
“I’m not giving the pin back if you’re having second thoughts,” she informed him with a wry smile.
Luc laughed.
“I wouldn’t dare ask.”
“How wise of you, for once.”
“How would you like to be attached to me instead of Castor?” Luc rushed the words out, afraid if he didn’t ask right then, he would never have the nerve to do so.
Not that Lila intimidated him. Except when she did. Sometimes.
It was just that she was unpredictable, and he thought that her answer might be different depending on when he asked. But there it was. He’d done it. Their graduation had seemed as good a time as any.
As pressing a time as any.
“Lila?” he prompted when she didn’t answer.
She’d gone rigid, giving him the same alarmed stare she’d given him right after she’d kissed him for the first time. Like she couldn’t believe what had happened even though she had instigated it.
“Li—”
“No.” She shied away from his outstretched hand and shuffled back a few steps. “No. What are you thinking? How could we possibly do something like that?”
“What do you mean?” Luc shifted on his feet. “I’m going to be on the Council. I’ll ask them, of course. I can ask them for anything.”
“That’s not what being on the Council means,” Lila scolded. “It has nothing to do with your personal relationships.”
“But the Council is one step down from the Creator. They can talk to Him directly, and He has the power to grant this.”
“And if the Council says ‘no,’ and the Creator says ‘no,’ what then? What then?”
“Why would they say ‘no?’ Why would they care? It has nothing to do with them.”
“They’ll say ‘no’ because they can. Because they do, and they will. And what then? Can you imagine what would happen if the truth of what we’ve been doing this whole time came out? Can you imagine what the punishment might be? Do you want them to cast me out into the Void?!”
“Lila, no one has ever gotten thrown into the Void.” Luc scoffed at her absurdity.
“Well, they might start with me,” she argued, clutching her skirts.
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The Council would never deny me anything.”
“You don’t know that, or you would have already asked them.”
“I didn’t ask them yet because I wanted to discuss it with you first. But since you’re so bent on rejecting the idea—”
“Because only you could imagine asking something so foolish!” She swatted at him. “Because you have never been denied anything. Others listen when you speak.”
“Well…exactly. So why would they deny me this? Aren’t I going to do great enough things? Isn’t this a small thing to ask in return?”
“For you, it’s a small thing. For them, it is not.
And for me, I dare say it is not either.
You trust the Council. And the Creator. Well, I don’t.
You think you know everything. You think everything works exactly the way it’s supposed to.
Then answer me this. If we were meant to be together, why didn’t the Creator put us together in the first place? ”
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Unlike Castor, we’re both perfectly capable of existing on our own.”
“And yet, you now feel you need my help.”
“Yes! Exactly! You feel it too, don’t you? You’re the only angel who could make me better. You’re the only angel who could possibly be the other half of my soul. Surely, it should be clear to anyone that we make a better match than you and Castor.”
“Oh, like it was clear to them that they should admit me to the architect program?”
“This is different.”
“Because you’re asking?”
“Yes.”
Lila scoffed.
“Truly, Luc, your ego knows no bounds.”
“They. Will. Do. It.” He ground the words between his teeth and spit them out.
“No.” Lila shook her head. “They won’t do it, even for you.
” She pointed an accusatory finger at him, then began pacing in front of the Void, ranting and demonstrating with her hands.
“How would that even work? You think swapping souls is like swapping inlaid gems? Your soul is who you are! Everyone knows that. And who I am is Castor’s.
The Creator made me that way, and not even He can change that. ”
“Oh, so now you know what the Creator can and can’t do?” Luc took a furious step forward.
“I know what I am!” Lila snapped, rounding on him. Her chest heaved, and she gripped her skirts like she wanted to squeeze his neck instead.
Luc didn’t understand. Lila was one of the smartest angels he knew; she could imagine so many complex and beautiful things that didn’t even exist yet. How could she not imagine this? How could she so readily reject his offer when, clearly, both of them wanted it?
Unless…
Unless she didn’t want it.
Unless, this whole time, she had only been interested in what he could teach her.
What he was willing to teach her when the instructors would not.
Perhaps he’d been fooling himself, and he was a means to an end for her, as he was for so many others.
Lucifer, the golden angel child who would grow up to do great things for them, given scrolls for companions and flattery for friendship.
“So that’s it?” he spat. “You don’t even want to try? You’re going to stay with Castor? You’re going to go along with that like you go along with everything else?”
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t fight being placed in woodworking. You didn’t fight to be an architect.”
“Excuse me? You have no idea what I’ve done!”
“Well, you didn’t do enough! Clearly!”
“Is that what you think of me? You think that none of it bothers me?!”
“Obviously not! You’re about to make your eternal bed with him!”
“Oh, you are so far out of line, you’ve already disappeared out there.” She pointed to the blackness beyond.
“And you are so far in line, you’re already cast in stone. How can you accept staying with someone so beneath you?”
“What does it have to do with you?! What, honestly, does my existence have to do with yours?!” She wrung her hands.
“Maybe I only have half of someone’s else soul, and not even a good soul at that, but I’m convinced you don’t have a soul at all.
Would half a soul even fit in your body? Your ego already fills it up!”
“Better my ego than your brain.”
“Better my brain than your heart.”
“Better my heart than yours. It doesn’t belong to you either. It belongs to Castor,” he sneered, aiming the words where he knew they would hurt, and when she recoiled from him, he regretted it. But she recomposed herself, and he didn’t apologize.
“Don’t speak of my heart like you know it so well. You know nothing.”
“Then don’t presume to know what I can and can’t do.”
“Fine!” Her eyes flashed. “You want to ask the Council? Ask them. But even if they say ‘yes,’ you’ll be wasting your breath. I will never be yours.”
“Fine. I won’t ask. You can forget me telling them about your little input to my project.
” Luc waved her contribution off like it had been anything but invaluable.
“In fact, lessons are finished, so you can forget me altogether,” he continued.
“You can go on to woodworking and stay there for all eternity if that’s what you want. ”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“We won’t speak of this again.”
“We won’t speak at all. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Lila offered this last word coolly, regaining that firm impassiveness she wore so well. All emotion had fled from her face, as if she was utterly unbothered by what had just happened.
Did she really not care if this was the last time they spoke to each other? Even when Luc had imagined their relationship ending, he’d imagined it closing like a scroll in the Library—peacefully, methodically, as a matter of course.
Then again, their relationship had begun with one startling act of ferocity, so perhaps an abrupt, violent end was fitting.
Perhaps, necessary.
In any case, the door had shut so suddenly, so forcefully, that Luc knew there was no going back, no opening it again.
Before he could say anything else, and without so much as a ‘farewell,’ Lila turned and marched off, vanishing into the brightness of Heaven while he stood at the edge of the Void, watching her leave with anger still burning in his throat. Though anger at who, or what, he couldn’t say.