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  Illium didn’t roll his eyes and tease him about his abrupt descent into crotchety old age. He didn’t even scowl or make an annoyed face. He just carried on.

  As if nothing Aodhan did or said mattered.

  Aodhan’s hand fisted at his side, his lips parting before he clamped them shut. This wasn’t the time to confront Illium about his behavior.

  Having reached the edge of the railingless mezzanine, he dropped down to the lower floor of the stronghold. As with most angelic residences, the central core of the place was open, giving him plenty of room to spread his wings to slow his descent.

  He caught Illium coming down next to him—plenty far enough away that their wings didn’t as much as brush at the tips. Polite, so damn polite when Illium was never polite to Aodhan. He was affectionate, irritating at times, wicked always. Polite between them was a calculated rudeness.

  Teeth gritted, he led Illium through a side door and into the untamed garden that flourished despite the biting cold that foretold bitter snows. According to Suyin’s scholars, this region wasn’t one for severe winters, but no one knew what Lijuan’s death fog had done to the land.

  They wouldn’t know the whole of it for years, decades even.

  Aodhan had advised Suyin to prepare her people for a hard winter when she first chose the stronghold as her interim base, and she’d immediately put a survival plan into action. No one would freeze or starve even if the entire landscape became a sea of endless white.

  Illium whistled, the sound low and musical. “Now this is more like it.”

  Having glanced at him in the split second before he breathed out that statement, Aodhan saw his first true glimpse of his friend. Illium’s eyes sparked with unconcealed wonder as he reached out toward a lush white flower so big and heavy that it drooped from its own weight.

  Aodhan instinctively shot out his arm, blocking Illium from making contact with the flower—without ever touching the other man. Illium had made it clear that such contact was unwanted. “It has a narcotic-like liquid on its petals,” he explained. “Does actually affect angels if we forget we’ve touched it then rub our eyes or get it into our mouth. Visions, distortions of reality for an hour or so.”

  Illium sighed, his expression morose. “Why did I think Her Evilness would have a normal garden?”

  Aodhan’s lips wanted to twitch, the words were so Illium—though the moniker had come from Elena. “All of the plants in this garden are both lovely and peculiar.”

  When Illium said nothing further, Aodhan took him down a path bordered by trees that had been swamped by sweetly fragrant vines with shiny leaves of dark green and tiny white blooms. At the feet of the trees grew mushrooms in an array of colors unnatural and striking.

  “We don’t know the effects of all the plants, just the ones where an unfortunate member of the court has unintentionally made themselves a guinea pig.” The subject held no emotional weight for Aodhan, was an easy one to use to fill the painful silence between them. “There’s a pond deeper inside, the water a clear and cool green that’s now filmed by ice in the mornings.”

  “Is it infested with flesh-eating fish?” Illium said sourly.

  Aodhan did laugh then; it burst out of him without warning. He hadn’t laughed since he’d come to this land, the sadness of it overwhelming. But Illium . . . Illium had always known how to make him laugh, make him remember what it was to be happy.

  * * *

  * * *

  Illium fought not to stare at Aodhan. He was beautiful when he laughed—and it was a sight that had been missing too long in Illium’s life for him to take it for granted. If Aodhan was a captured piece of light in normal circumstances, a dazzling star fallen to earth, he was beyond breathtaking when he laughed or smiled, the light of him a glow in his irises.

  Jerking away his head when their eyes threatened to meet, Illium stared at a huge winter-blooming rose in a bluish-purple that would burn against the white of the snow to come. Inch-long thorns marched along its stem, ready to tear into the flesh of the unwary. He respected that plant. At least it declared itself exactly what it was—beautiful and deadly. No guessing games there.

  “Not quite,” Aodhan said, the laugh yet in his voice.

  Having all but forgotten his sarcastic question, Illium forced himself to find that thread in his brain, somehow managed a light response. “Insects that will sting you to death?”

  “The water is clear and uninfested, but there’s a suction effect due to the natural mechanics of the pond. One angel who dived in ended up stuck at the bottom for six minutes before we worked out what was wrong and hauled him out.”

  “Just as well our kind doesn’t always need to breathe.” It was painful to suffocate, but no adult angel would expire of a lack of air. Of course, the younger the angel, the higher the chance of actual death as lack of oxygen killed the brain.

  Put another way, suffocation for immortal children was akin to an unspeakable and slow decapitation. “Trust Lijuan to have an inviting pool that can keep you prisoner.”

  “A number of intrepid scholars have joined Suyin’s court,” Aodhan shared, and at that moment, he was Illium’s Aodhan: curious about the world and giving of his knowledge, his presence warm and stable.

  An enduring oak to Illium’s changeable wind.

  “One particular scholar has made it her mission to dig into the archives in the stronghold library, and she thinks the pond was used to torture immortals—and that this garden was originally set up as a maze, possibly one designed to drive those within it crazy as a result of the toxic botanicals.”

  “The underground complex? Any more news on that?” Illium had heard that Suyin called it the nexus of darkness.

  Aodhan shook his head. “After our lead vampire squadron did a full sweep and found only skeletal remains in a few of the cells, Suyin made the decision to seal it back up.” He rubbed his face. “It’s an evil thing to find, and must one day be further explored, but right now, Suyin has to focus on the living not the dead.”

  Illium didn’t disagree. The ancient underground prison would keep. Suyin’s people wouldn’t. “You didn’t have to go underground?” The words spilled out without his conscious volition.

  Aodhan’s jaw was vicious stone between one breath and the next. “No.” A single clipped word.

  Aware he’d hit a nerve without meaning to, and furious with himself for it, Illium went to apologize, but then Aodhan spoke again. “Suyin decided it’d be more efficient to send in Xan’s team. He and the others are highly trained, including in night maneuvers—and it’s effectively night in the complex. They discovered no functioning light sources.”

  Since Aodhan seemed to have let his mistake go, Illium didn’t bring it up again. He’d never knowingly dig up the past Aodhan wanted dead and buried. “I’ve picked up fragments of who’s joined Suyin’s court. Is she building a good overall team?” Jason had done his job, so Illium knew Suyin’s court was growing—but it wasn’t the same as being on the ground.

  “You remember Xan?”

  Illium’s lips kicked up. “No one ever forgets Xan.” The two-thousand-year-old vampire was a lethal fighting machine who could carouse even Titus under the table—and who led a team of the best mercenaries in the world. “It’s been a long time since he’s tied his flag to an archangel’s.”

  “He epitomizes one group of those drawn to Suyin and to the task of rebuilding China,” Aodhan said, his tone thoughtful. “The adventurers and explorers, you could say. Others are old immortals hungry for a challenge. Arzaleya, for one, requested leave from Lady Caliane to switch courts.”

  “Amanat’s probably too staid for her.” General Arzaleya had stayed awake while Caliane Slept, a loyal soldier who’d watched over her lady’s interests. “That’s a coup for Suyin. I think I remember hearing that Uram once courted her to be his second.”

  “Yes, the genera
l stands as Suyin’s third. She’s blindingly clever and old enough to be a steadying presence. As for the rest of the main court, I’m ninety-nine percent certain I’ve succeeded in digging out any Lijuan sympathizers, and none of the rest of the Cadre appear to have tried to insert spies into the court.”

  “Not worth it,” Illium said with a shrug. “They know Suyin is the least well positioned of them all to be a threat.” Archangels could be brutal in their practicality.

  “Yes—but I expected them to try to insert people just to know what was happening here.”

  “Not enough to risk a mutiny.” When Aodhan shot him a questioning look, Illium filled him in. “Seems a lot of older angels still aren’t sure China is safe—not after Lijuan’s death fog.” A veil of black that had swallowed up life after life, their screams locked inside her power. “They’d rebel if asked to come here.”

  An incline of Aodhan’s head, his hair glittering bright despite the pale gray clouds that had moved in over the past few minutes. Illium’s hand ached from the force he had to expend to keep from reaching out, pushing back a wayward strand of that hair so rare and precious that children in the Refuge hunted for fallen strands of it whenever Aodhan visited.

  Then Aodhan’s gaze shifted forward. “The archangel.”

  7

  Suyin stood at the end of the pathway, under a tree that bloomed a riotous scarlet that colored the otherwise clear water of the stream below. Thankfully, it bore no similarity to the time the Hudson had turned blood red, the fallen blooms appearing nothing more than a natural garland on the water.

  Suyin was a tall and slender woman dressed in leathers of dark brown that were surprisingly well-worn for a woman famed as an architect, and depicted in ancient paintings only in gowns flowing and delicate. The unbound white silk of her hair reached to the center of her back, a shimmering mirror.

  Her wings, too, were snow-white but for the iridescent bronze of her primary feathers, and, when she turned to face them, her eyes gleamed a rich brown that was all but onyx. Those eyes tilted sharply upward at the corners, the cut-glass lines of her cheekbones striking accents that highlighted the near-painful beauty of her.

  No flaws marked the cool ice of her skin—but for the beauty mark on the far edge of her left eye. And that was no flaw at all. She was a stunning woman by any measure, but all Illium saw when he looked at her was Lijuan.

  It was an unfair, visceral reaction, one fueled by his jealousy at how close she’d become with Aodhan while the other man kept Illium at bay. But that was his problem, not hers. She could no more help her familial resemblance to her aunt than Illium could help having an asshole for a father.

  As for the rest . . . No, not her fault.

  Aodhan was the one who’d chosen to leave Illium in the past.

  Suyin smiled, gentle and with too much weight in her eyes. “Ah, Illium. It has been too long.”

  “Archangel Suyin,” he said, going down into a full bow on one knee, his wings flared and held in exactly the correct position for high angelic etiquette. She deserved his respect and he would not stint it.

  Showoff.

  His muscles spasmed at that crystalline sound in his head. Aodhan’s mental voice was akin to the refractions of light that was his physical form. Illium hadn’t heard that voice in his head since the war . . . and he hadn’t been ready for how it would smash through the walls he’d tried to erect.

  Just because you failed bow training, don’t blame me. It was instinct to respond with the old insult that had never been an insult—they both knew Aodhan was graceful beyond compare and his lack of bowing skills had nothing to do with ability.

  I didn’t fail, was the response as familiar as the air in Illium’s lungs. I never tried to pass.

  Chest aching, Illium never wanted to stop this exchange. It was so effortless with Aodhan, so natural, a thing they’d been doing since they both developed the ability one after the other. Aodhan was technically younger than him, but the few years that separated them meant nothing in the context of an immortal lifetime. They’d developed near identically in strength and power.

  “At times,” the healer Keir had once mused, “I deliberate on if you’re so similar in power because you’ve been friends since childhood, and have somehow influenced each other’s development. Or is it the other way around?”

  A smile on that young-old face with its dusky skin and pretty features. “That you were drawn to one another as children because of your innate core of power. Like calling to like.”

  Illium didn’t know and didn’t care. Power had nothing to do with their friendship. It had been forged through a hundred thousand small acts of loyalty, of kindness, of adventure—and even of punishment taken for each other’s crimes.

  No one, not even Illium’s mother, had believed that Aodhan ever came up with their antics. In fairness to Illium’s mother, Aodhan hadn’t come up with ninety percent of them. But the remaining ten percent had included several of their most glorious acts—for which Illium had been branded as the ringleader, despite Aodhan protesting that he was the one in charge.

  No doubt because Aodhan had always been right beside Illium, confessing to all the things he hadn’t masterminded. And vice versa. Never had they allowed each other to fall alone. And no matter what, Illium wouldn’t do that now, either.

  Even if it hurt to have Aodhan’s voice in his head, Aodhan’s presence beside him when he knew Aodhan was in the midst of walking away from all that lay between them, he’d give Aodhan what he needed.

  That was what it meant to be a friend.

  Illium would do this one last thing for his friend before he no longer had the right to use that word to describe their relationship.

  “It is good to have you here, Illium,” Archangel Suyin said as he rose to his feet and folded back his wings. “I have gathered a small court, but given the dearth of strong angels in the world, after the war . . . well, my territory is not a first choice for many.”

  “You’re gaining a reputation as a strong and fair archangel.” Illium dared the personal comment only because Suyin was a warrior beside whom he’d fought in battle. And though she’d ascended, she didn’t yet have around her the cold burn of power held so long that it was in the blood. “Your court will grow.”

  “And, I suppose,” Suyin replied, “I do not need a huge court when my territory is so very small.”

  He knew exactly what she meant—though China was a sprawling territory if measured by landmass, its population had been decimated by the choices of its former archangel. It would take Suyin centuries upon centuries to build it back up to anything near the powerhouse it had once been.

  At some point in the far future, the other archangels would get over their Lijuan-induced skittishness and begin to look at this land with covetous eyes. Whether Suyin chose to fight to hold on to it, or accede to their demands in favor of ruling a more compact territory, it’d be a choice made on a strong foundation.

  “Walk with me,” the archangel said, and he and Aodhan fell into step on either side of her, all of them keeping a polite distance so their wings didn’t brush.

  Illium found himself surprised by Aodhan’s formal deference. After so long working at Suyin’s side, he’d expected more casual intimacy between the two. But that, of course, was none of his business.

  Jaw set, he stared straight ahead at this strange garden that bloomed in the heart of winter. It made him remember what Ellie had told him about the red roses that had bloomed in the snow in Imani’s garden. Those blooms had augured a time of death and blood and war. He hoped this garden was nothing but a small strangeness.

  It was after they passed a tree blooming with trumpet-shaped yellow flowers that had dusted the path in sunny pollen that Suyin spoke again. “I’ve decided to begin the rebuild—physically speaking.”

  A glance at Aodhan. “I know we have spoken of priorities
many times, but I see now that I cannot move forward if I am always in Lijuan’s shadow. I must make China Suyin’s land rather than hers. And for that, I first need a citadel of my own choosing, with nothing of her in it.”

  Aodhan inclined his head in that way he had of doing, his face calm and his expression difficult to read. “I understand. Illium and I are at your service.”

  Illium, too, had no argument with Suyin’s decision. Even setting aside her madness of the recent past, Lijuan had ruled this land for millennia, stamped every part of it with her mark. “Where are you thinking of building your citadel?”

  “Ah, I made that decision some time ago.” Suyin’s face softened. “I will build on the coast, far from the places preferred by my aunt. A new start to a new reign. Also a place I can hold in battle when it comes in the future, for it will. No member of the Cadre can look at this empty land and not covet it.”

  Illium wasn’t so sure about that; Raphael had never been land-hungry. It was part of the reason he and Elijah got along so well, their border having held since Raphael’s ascension. Not many people remembered that Eli had actually governed Raphael’s territory while the Cadre had been short an archangel.

  When Raphael ascended, Elijah had given up that land without a fight, for he’d much rather rule well in a smaller sphere than spread himself thin. Raphael thought the same way.

  Suyin stopped beneath a tree whose leaves were a deep ruby with fine veins of pink, the perfect foil for her coloring. You should paint her this way, he found himself saying to Aodhan.

  I’m already making the mental brushstrokes.

  “I will gather my people and head to the coast tomorrow.”

  Illium sucked in a breath at Suyin’s pronouncement. “So soon?”

  “Ah, Bluebell”—a soft smile as she used the nickname by which his friends so often called him—“none of us have settled here. Today, as I walked among my people, I saw most hadn’t even unpacked their meager belongings.”