Chapter Thirty-One - Evie #2
There was no accusation in it, and that made it worse.
“I was angry,” he said. “At him. At The First Light. At myself. At the dark. At the silence. Anger was useful for a time. It gave shape to the time.”
His gaze went distant again. “But angels can sleep when we need to heal, not sleep like humans. It’s deeper, a kind of retreat. A lowering of the self until pain can no longer reach every part of you.”
I thought of him alone in the dark with no light, and no time except anger and memory.
“Did you choose it?” I asked.
“At first.”
“And then?”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t know.”
A chill crept over me.
“I slept for a long while,” he said. “Long enough that when I woke, the stone had changed. Edges had smoothed. Mineral threads had grown where there had been none. Stalactites formed above me. Stalagmites rose from the floor. Some joined. Some broke and fell while I slept.”
My stomach turned.
“How long does that take?”
Az looked at me. “Millennia?”
I hated that answer. Because it was probably kinder than the real one.
“When I woke,” he continued, “I didn’t know where I was. Or if Lucifer was still there. Or whether Heaven still stood. I didn’t know whether I had slept through the end of all things.”
My eyes and nose burned. He said it plainly. That was what made it worse. He wasn’t reaching for sympathy. It was just the facts of a cruelty so vast my mind struggled to make it fit.
“And then one day,” he said, “I heard the rocks move again.”
I barely breathed, “Luc?”
Az shook his head. “No. A voice.”
I knew before he said whose, not because I wanted to. Because I understood how men like Him returned. How they waited until you were weak, lonely, hungry for any sound that was not your own grief.
“The First Light,” I whispered.
Az nodded once. “He didn’t come as Himself that time. Only His voice.” His gaze dropped. “He said Lucifer had forgotten me.”
My hands clenched the blanket.
“He said the silence above me was proof and that loyalty always ended with abandonment. That rebellion always devoured its own.” Az’s voice remained level, but something under it trembled. “He said I could still be forgiven.”
I felt sick. My father’s voice echoed in my head, not the words exactly, but the tone. The soft certainty and the sadness used as a hook. The way control became concern if someone tilted their head just right.
He had done that with Zeke, calling my love for him temptation, saying Zeke was a test. Told me wanting him was proof I was drifting from God, from family, from the future they had chosen for me.
And then he’d said it gently, like it hurt him to say it at all. That was the worst part. The fucking gentleness. Cruel men loved gentleness when it made the cage look padded.
I remembered the anger then. I remembered the way it had welled up hot and helpless beneath my skin while I sat there and listened to my father turn love into sin and call it protection.
I remembered wanting to claw at something.
The walls. The sheets. My own chest. Anything that would give beneath my hands or would prove the rage had somewhere to go.
And the worst part was, it still came, even now. It was years later, and still that same old fury rose up like it had been waiting right under the floorboards for me.
“He was nice,” I said.
Az’s eyes lifted.
“When He said it. He sounded nice, didn’t He?”
Az stared at me for a long moment. Then, quietly, “Yes.”
Of course He did. That was always how it worked.
My father never sounded cruel when he told me I was ruining my soul. He sounded heartbroken and patient, like my refusal to break was hurting him more than it hurt me.
The First Light had done the same to Az. The same to Luc. The same to me. He built cages, then stood outside them, grieving that we kept calling them cages.
“He made Himself the comfort after arranging the pain,” I said.
Az didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
I pressed one hand to my stomach. The babies were still. Listening, maybe. Or maybe that was insane. It was hard to tell anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Az’s face closed immediately. “You did nothing.”
“I know.” My voice cracked. “I’m still sorry.”
Silence settled again. Then Az said, “So am I.”
I looked at him. “For what?”
“For what they did to you.”
The tears came too fast. Rude, honestly. “I survived.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t try to destroy you.”
And there it was. The thing no one ever said quite right. Survival was not proof that it hadn’t been that bad. It was proof that it had tried to kill you and failed.
I wiped at my face with the heel of my hand, annoyed with myself and my entire leaking head. “I’m fine,” I lied.
“No,” he said. “But you’re here.”
I laughed once, wet and small. “Comforting.”
“I’m still practicing.”
Liora made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. I had forgotten she was there.
Az looked toward the door again, and I realized he had never really stopped guarding it. Even while telling me things that sounded like they’d been pulled from him with hooks, some part of him had stayed alert.
Luc trusted him with me, after everything, and I understood why.
“I had a dream,” I said quietly.
“I had a weird dream,” I said. “About the babies.”
Az froze as Liora turned back toward me. I pressed both hands over my stomach, and somewhere beneath my skin, the bubbles answered again.
“They were little girls in this… garden,” I whispered. “And I think He tried to get in.”
The room went cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
“But He couldn’t,” I said quickly. “They stopped Him. Or the garden did. I don’t know. It was like the whole place closed around us.”
Az’s eyes sharpened. “What garden?”
“One that hadn’t been made yet.”
Liora’s face changed.
I swallowed. “And Luc was there, but not exactly like himself. The girls looked at him like they knew who he was. They didn’t speak, but they told me…”
Az didn’t move.
“They said he forgot,” I whispered. “But not just him. It felt like almost everyone forgot something.”
Az’s expression changed so slightly I might have missed it before. But now, I knew what to look for—fear.
“What?” I asked.
Azazael was silent.
“Az.”
The haunted thing in him came all the way to the surface. “There was one thing He said when I was down there that I never understood.”
My fingers went cold. “What?”
Az’s gaze held mine. “He said if they ever remembered what came before Heaven, it would all burn down.”
“What came before Heaven?” I whispered.
Az looked away. “I don’t know.”
The babies fluttered once beneath my palm. Tiny and precise, like they had heard. I sucked in a breath.
Az saw it. “What’s wrong?”
“They moved.”
His gaze dropped to my stomach, but neither of us spoke. Then Az returned to his place by the door, not because the conversation was over. Because he had given me everything he could bear to give. And maybe because standing guard was easier than remembering.
I leaned back against the pillows, my heart beating too fast, my body too tired, my mind wide awake. I’d seen The First Light afraid, and I turned it around in my head as I looked toward the window, wondering where Luc was right now.
I pressed both hands over my stomach. “What did everyone forget?” I whispered.
Az didn’t look my way. But after a long moment, he answered. “I think that is what He’s afraid of.”