Page 17

How is someone supposed to rest when they’re lying in enemy territory? Only a few hours ago, I was seconds away from death at the hands of one of the archangel’s men.

The archangel has broken our deal before, and I’d be willing to bet that he’d do so again. If one of his men were to sneak in here and try to kill me, would he get here in time to stop them? Worse yet, would he care to?

I toss and turn on the chaise, fighting off thoughts of death and danger. Strands of hair tickle my cheek and tangle with my eyelashes. Through my restless fits of sleep, I haven’t heard the archangel return, and I assume I won’t see him until sunrise.

A feeling of warmth gently guides the hair off my face, and lingers for a moment on my cheek. I shiver under the touch despite the warmth that surges into my skin. My eyes begin to flutter open, and the ghost of a hand tears itself away. I moan begrudgingly as my body regains consciousness. What I wouldn’t give for a heavy twelve-hour sleep.

I nearly jump at the sight of the archangel sitting on the floor in front of me, his wings spread out lazily beneath him. He leans on one hand, the other draped over his knee. The fireplace across from us crackles and pops with burning embers that I find somewhat comforting.

He stares into the flames, not turning to acknowledge me as I wake, though I’m sure he can sense it. He must have returned while I was in a moment of deeper sleep, light on his feet as any winged being is.

I rub my eyes. “What time is it?”

The question is a strangled sound, due to the lack of sleep and the bruises that paint my throat. The joys of nearly having my windpipe crushed by immortal strength.

He glances back at me for a brief moment, as if he’s annoyed by the question. “There’s still three hours until sunrise. Go back to sleep before you ruin my peace.”

My eyes narrow on his back. “Oh, how the temptation to stab you again is fierce.”

The archangel chuckles softly, but continues to stare into the fire. “Are you hungry?”

I blink at his question. The thought of any sort of hospitality hadn’t even crossed my mind. I lean to the side to see his face. “That depends. Are you going to poison my food?”

There’s humour in my tone, but part of me fears the answer.

He shakes his head as if I were being serious. “No. Poison takes too long. I’d have to spend too much time listening to your witty jokes before you die.”

A snort escapes me before I can stop it. “The archangel has a sense of humour. Who’d have thought?”

He pushes off the ground and walks through a door to the right, returning with a plate. He places it down next to me before retaking his seat on the floor in front of the fire.

The plate is stacked high with meat that I haven’t had the luxury of tasting in years.

My mouth falls open, a million questions fighting their way out – but I snap it shut. In the city, the hydro farms are all we have. How do the angels have such a generous supply of meat? Are there still animals alive outside of the city? Do the angels have their own farm?

Though I wish to ask, I know I will have to pick my battles with him. Of all the things I want to ask him while we’re forced to tolerate each other, are those really the ones I want to prioritise? If I piss him off with incessant questions before we’ve even left the Luminary, the chance that he’ll answer the most important ones dwindles.

“Thank you,”

I say softly, before stuffing my face with as much food as I can get. Though he could’ve lied and easily poisoned it, something tells me that isn’t his style. He strikes me as a man who prefers to get his hands dirty. “Where are we?”

I ask between bites.

The archangel’s wings sit lazily behind him, resting on the floor as if to give his muscles a break. “We’re at the Luminary.”

I scoff. “Thank you, I gathered as much. But where at the Luminary?”

My eyes shift down his figure as I speak. He’s wearing his armour again, but his arms are eerily defined by the moonlight. Sculpted as the perfect weapon. He stares into that fire as if he’s searching for the answer to end the war, as if it will burn away all his troubles. I wonder if he has an answer, or what the endgame even is. We humans don’t know why the war began or why they’re tearing apart our world.

“We are at my sleeping quarters.”

Of course this is his hut. Of course he plans battle strategies in here. I didn’t take him for a lounge-around-and-waste-time kind of guy. “Bold of you to trust me not to snoop through your things.”

“Bold of you to assume I have anything of importance in here.”

Touché.

I shove more beef into my mouth and wipe my face with the back of my hand. The archangel watches me, disgust staining his features.

“You eat like an animal.”

His nose screws up, but a flicker of a smile flashes across his face.

“How about you go two years without meat and then come back to me?”

I say with a mouth half full of food.

He snorts and looks away again.

I can blame my hunger for meat all I want, but I’ve always been told that I eat like a pig. Jeremy claims it’s what made him fall in love with me, but I’m pretty sure that’s a lie. I wish I could save some of this to share with him.

Guilt twists around my torso like a rope. Here I am stuffing my face while Jeremy is likely starving and terrified. I wonder if he’s eaten, wherever he is. If he’s likely to starve to death before I can get to him.

No, he won’t die. I will find him. Then I will find where the angels keep their cows and steal one just so that he is able to enjoy a meal like this.

“So, where are we going?” I ask.

The archangel grabs the poker and shuffles some wood around in the fireplace. “Apparently Cain has been taking humans to a facility north of here.”

A toxic mixture of hope and fury washes over me. If this is true, Jeremy could be there. I could actually find him. If this is true, how many of the names that I’ve scribbled down at night are suffering at the hands of the fallen angel?

“No one has been able to find this facility, at least not from above. He’s expecting me to come looking for him, but he won’t be expecting me to be travelling with a human.”

He looks back at me. “Though it may be insufferable, it wasn’t a terrible idea.”

“I came across some humans who were looking for you,”

I tell him.

The archangel looks away again, boredom creeping over his features. “That is not a concern.”

“Maybe not, but they were on some sort of patrol. It was… odd. They were human, but they felt different, darker. One of them… His veins were black. It looked as if he were ill of an otherworldly sickness.”

He stops moving. Stops breathing. “And what about the shadows?”

I frown. “What about them?”

It feels like he’s staring straight through me now, like he’s disengaged from his body and has become trapped in time by his mind.

“Archangel, what is it?”

He blinks a few times before he shakes off whatever it is that haunts him. “Nothing.”

Liar.

He turns away from me and prods at the fire once again. “We will leave as soon as the sun rises, but you need to rest up until then. You will only slow me down if you become tired.”

I shouldn’t have expected him to tell me the truth, but I suppose it was a foolish moment of wishful thinking. I remind myself of who he is and what he’s done. The rumours of the archangel are like ghost stories. If we thought the rest of the angels had little regard for human life, their ruthless leader in this war is the worst of them all. No one has seen him, but everyone has heard of him.

Those who have seen him have never lived to tell the tale.

Those who have heard of him have done so through ever-changing whispers that depict him as the monster that hides under your bed at night.

I wonder if the fallen angel is worse. I wonder what makes him more of a monster than the archangel. Does the archangel kill for sport? Does he collect trophies of his conquests?

I look around again, but I see nothing more than the room of a general at war. Impatience thrums through my veins. Every second I wait here could be a second too long. But he’s right: I do need to rest.

“He could be dead already.”

I didn’t mean to say the words aloud, but they fell out before I could stop them.

The archangel stiffens, clearly wanting to do anything other than have this conversation. “He could be. He could also still be alive.”

His optimism surprises me. I look up at him, expecting to see some sort of empathy in his gaze, but his brow is furrowed as if he doesn’t understand. It makes me wonder if the archangel feels human emotions. I wonder if he has the ability to shut them out.

I shake my head and look away again. Human emotions or not, he’d never understand. He’s not human. He’s nothing but a psychotic monster who’s slaughtered half of mankind.

“Human life is so easily taken. You must know it is inevitable.”

The archangel watches me closely as he says the words, as if expecting me to respond violently. A fair assumption.

He’s right, though, and I know it. If he wasn’t, fear wouldn’t play such a large part in my life. Death is inevitable for us, but as someone who never has to fear it, how could he ever understand that it doesn’t make us weak? “Yeah, you’re right.”

The archangel looks at me as if he never expected to hear those words come out of my mouth.

“Since the war began, every day I’ve thought, This is it. Today’s the day I die. One step out the door could be the last one I take. You don’t appreciate humanity because you don’t understand what it’s like to live like that. Your kind was born with strength, speed, endurance, and immortality. There is no urgency to anything for you, because you never have to worry that you won’t get the time to do the things you want to do. Your war could wage for decades and it would be the blink of an eye for you. That’s what makes humans strong. We can’t waste a single second, because life is short and any day could be our last.”

Ice settles in my veins and in my eyes as they narrow on him.

“You took that away from us. Time. We don’t get to live anymore, and we will probably never get to again. We just get to survive.”

For a second, I almost think I see a twinge of an emotion akin to guilt on his features, a flicker of something human. It’s so brief that I wonder if I was just searching for something that’s not there. Angels don’t feel remorse about the destruction they’ve caused. It’s just a means to an end for them. We are collateral damage.

“What would you do?”

he asks, breaking into my thoughts.

“What?”

I sniff and look up at him with my brows pulled together.

“What would you do if today were your last?”

The archangel places one arm on the edge of the chaise and leans towards me, his wings tucking behind his back.

I blink at him, unsure what to say. The question could be interpreted as a threat; his features are harshly illuminated by the firelight, and it should make him appear frightening, but to me he just looks tortured. I study him for a long while, racking my brain for an answer that doesn’t come.

“I’ve spent my whole life surviving,”

I finally say. “I don’t know anything else.”