Chapter Twenty-Five - Evie #3
“At first I thought escaping would fix it,” I said, sniffling and wiping at my face again and already failing to keep up. “I thought if I just got back to you, if I just got out of that place, then maybe…”
I curled tighter into myself, drawing my knees up a little, making my body smaller against the bed, like maybe if I took up less space, the damage would too.
“I thought…” My voice caught. I swallowed and tried again. “God, it’s so stupid, but I thought if I could just get out of there, it would fix everything.”
Luc didn’t move or interrupt, so I kept staring at the blanket twisted in my fists and made myself say it.
“If I got out of that place and back into your arms, then maybe…” I laughed once, small and ugly and tired. “Maybe I’d be fine… We’d be fine.”
The silence after that was gentle in the worst way. Because the truth sat there between us, breathing. And I tightened even further into myself, my shoulders curling in, my chin dipping, like I could fold around the shame of how stupid that sounded now. How childish.
Luc stayed on the edge of the bed, close enough that I could feel him there, far enough that I could still breathe on my own.
We were both quiet, and when the silence had started to feel like drowning, I admitted softly, nearly a whisper. “I got sick up there.”
Luc’s head whipped around so fast it almost startled me. “You were sick?”
I nodded once.
His whole body changed as if every line in him tightened at once, all that cautious stillness suddenly edged with something alert and dangerous.
“I thought— I felt weakness through the bond,” he said quietly. “How sick were you?”
I looked down at my hands. “At first, I thought it was nerves. Or maybe because I was afraid to eat the food. Or…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just kept feeling worse. I started throwing up, and I couldn’t keep anything down.”
Luc went still again. I could feel him trying not to interrupt. Trying not to bolt ahead of me in his own mind.
“So Mara helped me,” I said.
“Mara?” He asked.
“She was… well, at first I thought she was just a servant, but then I realized she was also kept there. In the room next to me. We became… friends.”
He nodded.
“She kept bringing me what she could. Water. Bread. She was trying.” My throat tightened in guilt, but I pushed through it. “And then I got worse. I thought maybe…” I stopped and looked away. “I thought maybe I was dying.”
Luc’s jaw flexed.
“Then, He showed up,” I said.
I saw the change in him immediately, the hardening, the coldness settling beneath his skin like metal dragged to the surface.
“She told Him, and He came to my room. I was so weak, I couldn’t get out of bed, could barely sit up.
” My voice sounded far away to my own ears now, like I was telling the story from the bottom of a well.
“He brought me water, and He touched it and turned it into this… golden drink. Like melted light.”
Luc’s eyes had gone fixed and bright in that dangerous way I knew too well.
“And He helped me to drink it,” I said quickly. “Not forcing me, not like that, I mean…” I swallowed. “He was gentle and kind and helped me sit up to drink it. And it helped. It stayed down. It was the first time in days I wasn’t constantly throwing up.”
He didn’t say anything, but I kept going.
“And then,” I said, “He brought me bread, which I found out was actually manna.”
Luc straightened like someone had pulled a wire through his spine. “Did He?”
The words came out low, too low.
I looked at him and immediately wished I hadn’t because there was something in his face now that made me think of wildfires and old vengeance and all the reasons Heaven should be afraid of him.
“Yeah, He called it bread,” I said, quieter this time. “But Mara told me that’s what it was. Bread made by…” I made a face. “By Him.”
Luc stared at me as if he was rearranging the whole world into sharper pieces and finding new reasons to hate every single one of them. He stood up, pacing.
“He came when you were sick,” Luc said, but now he wasn’t really talking to me. He was talking to whatever part of himself had already gone somewhere dark with it. “He touched what went into your body. He stood over you in that room while you were weak enough not to fight.”
His hands had curled into fists at his sides.
“Luc,” I said softly.
That made him look at me again. And fuck, that was somehow so much worse.
Because I could see the rage, and beneath it, beneath the murder lighting up his face, there was something almost shattered there too, like the thought of The First Light tending to me in any way made Luc want to tear Him apart with his teeth.
“I didn’t know,” I said, hearing the apology creep in and hating it instantly. “I was so sick. Mara was scared. I just—”
“Don’t.” His voice was rough enough to catch. “Evie, don’t apologize for surviving. You did what you had to do.”
That shut me up, but he looked away first this time, breathing once through his nose as if he didn’t get control of himself right now, something in the room might actually catch fire.
“Manna is meant to sustain angels,” he said finally. “Real manna. Not…” His mouth twisted. “Not whatever version He makes with His own hands.”
A chill moved over my skin. “What does that mean?”
Luc paced again, once, short and violent, then stopped with both hands braced on the dresser like if he didn’t put them somewhere solid, the wood might become someone’s throat instead.
“It means He doesn’t need chains for Heaven,” he said. “He doesn’t need cages for them the way he used one for you.” His voice had gone flatter now, and somehow that made it worse. “He feeds them.”
I stared at him, and he looked back at me, eyes bright with the kind of fury that made the room feel too small to hold him.
“Why do you think Michael and Gabriel and Rafael do His bidding so easily?”
My eyes widened.