Page 126 of The Death Wish

‘And this Cultivation has something to do with the ballroom? Where Samyaza’s bones lie?’ Lucifer tried to overlook how certain Seraphiel had been in his death.

‘The bones are the lynchpin, yes.’

‘So the dancers...they are a part of the Cultivation, too?’

The angel watched Michael, who sat like a statue of stone in the boat. His gaze was such that it seemed he looked straight at the mirror.

‘What greater thing to counter death than life?’ Seraphiel spoke like a poet over his cups, a whimsical note to his words.

But Lucifer understood the darkness that truly lay there. ‘The purebreds…they are what feed the Seal in your absence.’

‘They keep insisting on dying though…’ Seraphiel’s laughter was short. ‘I cannot seem to make life bend to my will. She refuses to offer the eternity that her sister Death provides.’ He poked his finger at Michael’s head, twisting it, as though he sought to grind the image of the angel from the glass.

Lucifer turned to Jacquetta as thunder strode like giants’ footsteps across the sky. ‘Do you have more? Purebreds, I mean?’ Perhaps Seraphiel had thought to stock up a dungeon before he went and got himself killed.

‘No.’ Jacquetta answered as Seraphiel sang a vicious song of hatred beneath his breath, counting all the ways Michael was flawed. ‘I have used all those we had, as I didn’t dare to send the Ferryman to collect more, knowing of the great unrest in the Blight, and of maleficium’s return.’

Lucifer felt the weight of his own blood in his veins, the snapped beat of his burdened heart. ‘So those who dance there now are the last, and when they are no longer there to sustain the Seal, it shall turn to the Sanctuary to feed.’

‘Yes, your majesty. And if Michael keeps up his assault, the Sanctuary will fall –’

‘And Blood Lake may flood this world once more.’ Seraphiel did not raise his head from the mirror, letting gold strands hide him away.

‘Then we must feed the bloody Sanctuary.’ Lucifer paced away, his fingers going instinctively to his moustache. Or at least, where it had once been; with half scorched away by the interlude with Michael he’d decided on being clean shaven. Not his preference, for he found the endless running of fingers over oil-slicked hair strangely soothing, and was pleased to feel the hint of coarse hair growing back already. He needed some refuge from this nightmare he’d landed in.

‘Could you reason with Michael?’ Jacquetta offered, though she sounded doubtful.

‘He has always been one to exterminate a threat before he learns anything of it. And he is set on destroying Vassago,’ Lucifer said. ‘Plus, he knows of the simurgh.’

‘He will be determined to see this Sanctuary razed.’ Seraphiel paused in his derogatory tune, returning to sensibility. ‘And he does not know my Seal is here. I’ve always kept its location hidden, and moved it on occasion, as all my brothers have done with theirs. Michael would come in, halo blazing, and not pay us a whit of attention. By the time we could convince him my Seal was here –’

‘It would be too late.’ Lucifer nodded, his fingers still working over his bare lip.

‘Time.’ Seraphiel rose to his feet, warding off Jacquetta’s step forward to help. ‘Time is the only weapon we have against him now. Vassago needs time. He will see this done. Look how far he has come.’ He shifted his hair back behind his shoulders, and Lucifer saw the steadiness in his hands. His Antinous had returned, however short the visit. ‘Knowing how long he has endured my Cultivation, even I am taken aback by his tenacity.Perhaps you were right to make that vow, to keep the ankou and those purebreds safe, Luci. Vassago deserves that much.’

Lucifer's fingers ceased their tracing. The thudding blow that struck the Sanctuary might as well have landed against his chest.

Hehadvowed to see them safe; Silas and Charlie, Edward, and the wisp.

But the stakes had grown exponentially higher than that odd gaggle; if the Seal were to break, it was not just those within the Sanctuary, but every single creature who had aided Vassago in reaching this place, who now lay in harm’s way. Worse still, every writer of Lucifer’s beloved tomes, every storyteller who had built wondrous tales in which he could escape–all those who still lived–now faced a monumental threat.

Lucifer’s fingers moved again; and ran along the scratch of coarse hair forming above his lip. He was not gone yet. There was life in his weary bones.

‘My blood. Can you take more of it? Perhaps give it to the purebreds who still dance?’

‘That was enough for the simurgh, but not for the Seal.’ Seraphiel shook his head.

An idea sparked in the grim depths of Lucifer’s innards, and bloomed bright; defying the poisons that broke him down. ‘You need more.’

‘Far more, yes.’ Seraphiel said, carefully. He moved closer, head tilted. ‘Share your thoughts, Luci.’

But Lucifer had shared enough years with the angel, spent enough time in quiet contemplation with him to know he already understood.

‘We are enough, aren’t we, Raph?’ The idea was like ivy now, wrapping itself around him, beautiful, and suffocating. ‘We could revive the dance.’

Jacquetta drew in a breath, but knew better than to intervene.

‘We could.’ The angel pressed his hand to Lucifer’s shoulder. A rare moment of contact between them. ‘Are you sure, Luci?’