Another giant yawn broke Elena’s laughter in two.
“Ellie, you sure I can’t run over there and give you a hug?”
“No, not yet. I need recovery time.” Seeing her this way would undo any good her call had achieved. “I’ve got to touch base with a few other people before I fall asleep. But I’m back and I’m not going anywhere.”
Ending the call with Sara soon afterward, her limbs so heavy by now that they felt like lead, she tapped in the number for her younger sister. It was a miracle she remembered any numbers at all with the sleep-fogginess in her brain.
Beth turned out to be with Majda and Jean-Baptiste Etienne—two people who’d already suffered unimaginable torture and loss. Her grandmother broke down in tears at the sound of her voice, while her grandfather was stolid but shaken.
Beth was mute.
Elena would deal with this, find some way to make emotional recompense for the pain she’d inflicted, but she’d do it face-to-face not over a telephone line. Promising to call again soon, she hung up and, eyes too heavy to keep open, dialed Eve.
Her youngest half sister didn’t pick up.
So Elena called five times in a row—until Eve finally answered with a snarled, “What?!”
“I hope you didn’t scratch Ransom’s bike. He’s in love with that—”
“Ellie!” It was a scream.
The rest of the conversation was rapid and excited and Elena had to talk her sister down from stealing another ride and zooming over to the Tower then and there.
After reluctantly agreeing to wait to visit, Eve said, “Shall I tell Father?”
Elena’s body stiffened, nervous tension acting as adrenaline in her veins. “Are you home?”
“Yeah. Grounded.” The teenage eye-roll was almost audible. “I stayed out past curfew, then came home and decided to drink Father’s expensive brandy. Stuff is gross. I poured most of it in the garden, but he’s convinced I’m an alcoholic.”
Beth, Majda, and Jean-Baptiste weren’t the only ones to whom she owed an apology. This girl wasn’t the tough but stable little sweetheart who’d held Elena’s hand the last time they’d seen one another. Anger lived in her now. But it would have to wait until she could put her arms around Eve and hold on tight.
“Take him the phone.” Jeffrey and Elena might never heal the fractures between them, but she wouldn’t add to his torment.
Jeffrey Deveraux had already lost a beloved wife and two cherished daughters. The man who had married Eve and Amy’s mother, Gwendolyn, wasn’t the same Jeffrey who’d blown bubbles with Elena in a sunny backyard or the one who’d fought for her right to see her dead sisters’ bodies. She’d needed to know the monster hadn’t made Ari and Belle like him, so Jeffrey had taken her to them. He’d held her hand. And he’d cried.
He hadn’t been the best father, but he didn’t deserve the horrific pain of thinking he’d lost a third daughter.
“Father,” she heard Eve say, “someone wants to talk to you.”
Elena could imagine her father’s raised eyebrow at anyone calling him on his daughter’s phone, knew he was most likely removing his wire-rimmed spectacles as he considered whether to take the call without asking for further information. CEO of a mega-empire with fingers in every pie in the city, Jeffrey was not a man who liked a lack of control.
Today, however, whatever he saw on Eve’s face had him coming on the line. “Jeffrey Deveraux.”
“It’s Ellie.”
The silence this time was piercing.
“We’ll talk more later. Tell Eve I’ll call back to let her know when she can visit.” Elena hung up with that—she felt cowardly for it, but a girl had her limits. She’d just emerged from a chrysalis that wanted to consume her like a tasty snack and her body was falling asleep around her; she wasn’t ready to deal with Jeffrey and the complicated history that tied them together.
An echo of memory, the scent of his aftershave suddenly bright and clear. He’d given her his scarf so she wouldn’t be cold. She’d accepted it because it wasn’t only pain that lay between them but a thousand childhood moments of happiness and family. Her and Jeffrey, they’d never be easy with one another, but at times, they managed to meet halfway, the recriminations and the hurt held at bay.
The brush of a slender hand on her brow. Sleep, azeeztee. Maman is here to watch over you. Don’t worry about your papa—I will make it right.
Even mostly asleep, Elena knew her mother was dead, that this was the phantom of a memory . . . but she decided to believe. Just for this fragment of a moment when she was hurt and tired and beginning again. “Maman . . .” The phone slipped unheeded from her fingers, her body crashing into sleep.
Lightning danced over her skin, her veins a glowing network hidden by the sheet.
12
Raphael knew why it was only Dmitri who’d come up to the balcony outside his and Elena’s living area. He and his second, they had a unique relationship. Raphael might’ve been several hundred years old when he first met Dmitri, but Dmitri had been a married man by then, a farmer confident in his skin and open in his love for his wife.
The two of them, they’d always met as equals.
As he stepped out onto the balcony, his second turned and looked at him with dark eyes that gave nothing away . . . but he strode across the space to meet Raphael halfway. They raised their right hands, clasped each other’s forearms, leaned in for the embrace of warriors. “It is good to have you back.” Dmitri’s voice was potent with emotions unspoken but understood. “I’m putting in for ten years’ vacation leave starting today.”
“That bad?” Raphael asked as they drew back.
“Charisemnon keeps trying his luck, Neha watches in enigmatic silence, Michaela’s disappeared into her mountains, and China’s lost so many people without explanation that large swathes of it are silent.”
“Michaela?” he said, picking out the most intriguing detail among all that Dmitri had recited.
His second folded his arms, biceps taut and skin a bronzed hue that would hold its color even in the heart of winter. “Jason’s confirmed she’s in her stronghold near Budapest, but she hasn’t been seen in flight for at least five months.” A shrug. “No one’s dared misbehave in her territory yet. Her generals have orders to kill at any sign of insurrection. That’s it. No other punishment. Straight up beheading. It’s efficient.”
Raphael couldn’t disagree with the admiration in Dmitri’s voice. It was a simple and effective way to keep a territory in control while the archangel in charge went dark. “It’s not unknown for archangels to go under for months at a time.” Even members of the Cadre occasionally needed time to simply exist.