Warning: Violence and disturbing content.
Edvardiel nodded at the ground, where the tiny pinprick of the antique shop was. "There it is. Go down. Slowly," he added hastily, clearly remembering the fiasco at the church, and they glided down and landed lightly on the broken cobblestones.
"It looks worse every time I come here," Issa said, looking at the antique shop. The windows were now completely blown out, jagged pieces of blood-soaked glass strewn on the ground. The cathedral painting lay in a heap over the broken glass, and Issa realised with a jolt that she hadn't thought about Yassper in a while.
Edvardiel visibly steeled himself. "Let's do this. Can you open it for me?"
Issa stepped forward and reached for the vibrating threads, pausing only when she felt his growing dread. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes," he said, his jaw set as he watched the humming threads in her fingers. "I know my wings fell somewhere but I can't remember where." He turned to look at her. "You should stay here and pull me out after."
Issa shook her head. "It's safer for me to go in with you. Having me there will ground you and help you tell what's real and what isn't."
"What if you get sucked into it with me?" he asked. "What if we get your fears instead of mine?"
"We're already living in my worst fears. So don't worry about that." She examined the threads in her hands, frowning as she heard the strange buzz. The hum was off—higher—and she swore to herself. "We might have a problem though. I messed with it the last time, I'm not sure if this is going to work like it should."
"Messed with it how?"
"I… well, I pulled a couple of threads loose. I figured no one deserves to be trapped in something like this."
Unexpectedly, Edvardiel chuckled.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing." He smirked. "That's very thoughtful for someone heartless."
"Oh shut up."
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said. "Open it and we'll see."
She hadn't expected his accidental command. She didn't think to resist. In a flash, her hands had torn open the void. A strong gust of wind encircled them.
"Shit! I told you to watch your directives!"
"Sorry, I forgot—" His forgot sounded more like forgoooot as the void sucked them both in.
Their surroundings flickered and the antique shop disappeared. Issa landed flat on her back, surrounded by endless brightness.
She leapt to her feet. "Edvardiel!" she called out. "Edvardiel!"
Damn it, where was he? They weren't supposed to go in together. He'd been supposed to go first and she was supposed to come in after him. Now they were lost in his dreamscape.
Issa looked around and saw only light and more light. Was this supposed to be Heaven? The place made the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. Something about the light and silence made her feel like she would lose her mind if she wandered around here too long.
"Edvardiel!" she tried again. Her voice echoed in the eerie silence. She waded through the mist and the light and saw a figure standing in the distance.
Edvardiel's back was to her and his fists were clenched.
"There you are," she said, relieved.
"Here I am," Edvardiel murmured.
"Where's your beach? Why are we here?" She could feel the distress rolling off him in waves.
"I guess my fears have changed," he said. "I'm no longer afraid of rotting on earth alone." He laughed shakily. "Welcome to my home, Issa. This is where I grew up."
Issa frowned. This was not how she'd imagined Heaven. "Where are we exactly?"
"It's called the Room of Light," Edvardiel said. "Heaven's prison."
"Heaven has a prison?" Issa mentally compared the bright, airy space with Lilith's bloody, scream-filled dungeons. "I suppose it's still better than Hell." Truth be told, she wasn't sure. The longer they stood there, the more she felt like her mind was dissociating from her body. "You grew up in a prison?"
"I'm not good enough for them, remember?" Edvardiel said. His breathing was fast and shallow and his hands shook. "They called me an abomination. How can such a thing have wings? How did it enter Heaven?"
"It?" Issa repeated.
"It's understandable. There was no one like me here," Edvardiel said. "The other angels emerged fully formed. But I used to be smaller than that little girl you rescued." He put his hands together as though holding a bundle. "This small? Or was it this small? I'm not sure. My memory from that time is defective."
Issa struggled to put his words together. "You mean when you were a child."
"I learned that word when I came to earth," Edvardiel said. "Child. Children. I wandered around for a long, long time. Angels are forbidden from contact with humans, you see, and I didn't dream of stepping out of line. I used to sit on that beach, wondering if I was doomed to walk the earth aimlessly forever."
He was rambling.
She'd never heard him say so much in one go. She took his hand. "Edvardiel. We should go."
"And then I figured it out," he said, as though she'd never spoken. "I figured out why they hated me so much. I figured it out when I saw that I bled red instead of gold. I wasn't one of them—not really."
"Edvardiel," she said gently.
"Don't you see, Issa? I'm not really an angel."
He was completely out of it.
She wasn't about to argue with a madman. Or a mad-angel. "I see." She nodded sagely, holding his hand in a death grip as she fumbled with the threads with her free hand. It was tangled and it wasn't opening.
"Do you?" He sounded sad.
Issa worked at the threads furiously but whatever she'd done before, combined with the rough way she'd torn the void open, seemed to have damaged them. The hum was dissonant now, and the threads stuck to each other like glue. "Fuck," she muttered. "Stupid threads. Fucking open already…"
She let go of Edvardiel to use both her hands and thunderclouds rolled above them, dark and ominous.
"It can't believe it fucking rains in Heaven."
A clap of thunder seemed to snap Edvardiel out of his reverie. The glassy look in his eyes cleared as he stared up at the clouds. "No, it doesn't." Even his voice sounded different, lucid and sharper. "This memory isn't mine."
He was right. The threads slipped out of Issa's grasp as the brightness cracked open like an egg and the skies poured with rain. A familiar cathedral loomed over them.
It was Cologne. She was going to watch Yassper die all over again.
Everywhere, people were screaming and running. One of the shadow people ran right through Edvardiel, who started.
The void was coming for her. But Issa wasn't planning to stay. This was too dangerous, she realised it now. They had too much darkness in their past—too many weapons for the void. It would tear their minds apart.
She walked away, towards the threads as they fluttered in and out of her reach. Edvardiel followed her, staring at the humans as one by one, they were felled by maces, curved blades, arrows, and spears. Blood ran like a river and the flood of rain was a thick red as it drenched them to the ankles.
She seized the threads and managed to open it halfway. The entrance whined, half-formed and its edges stiff. "Go, quickly." She gave Edvardiel a shove and was about to go after him when her surroundings blurred and shifted, confusing her. What had she been doing?
The skies were starry and clear. It was one of those rare, beautiful nights.
She was stretched out with her head on Yassper's lap. "You have any family, Yassper?"
"I do." His voice echoed strangely as he lay on the ground, gazing up at the stars, a hand running through her hair.
"Want to tell me about them?"
Yassper's face turned sombre. "If my two daughters are alive, they'd be forty-two and forty-five this year."
"Where'd they go?"
"Somewhere they'll never be found by the likes of us, I hope." Yassper looked down at her. "You, little bird?"
"I don't remember," she said. "I wasn't lying about that."
"Maybe it's for the best," Yassper murmured. His hand tangled in her hair, and she climbed up to kiss him. It was an intimate kiss, with her exploring as much of his mouth as he did hers.
They hadn't started out like this. He'd been her mentor, something like a father. Then as more and more years passed, they'd become fast friends. She couldn't remember when they'd first kissed—was it when she'd found him bleeding out after a siege? Or was it after her first time in the dungeons?
It was hard to draw boundaries when you lived in a world without lines.
As she lost herself in his scent, something niggled in the back of her mind. She pulled back, frowning.
"We're going to Cologne tomorrow," Yassper said. "Did you sharpen your blades?"
"I always do." It had been twenty-three years and he still nagged her about silly things like that.
Twenty-three years.
Something tugged at her memory.
Twenty-three-year bond. The museum. His single remaining blade.
Tenderly, she stroked Yassper's stubbly face, watching his deep-set eyes as they fluttered shut.
"You're not real," she whispered.
The stars and the fleeting peace disappeared. She was staring up at the cathedral yet again. Lightning flashed, thunder clapped, and it kept raining and raining.
Issa saw Yassper swing his blade, taking the head off a dark-haired woman. Dark hair like his. She saw the anguish on his face. As he watched the fountain of blood, his anguish turned into numb defeat. He turned away and walked towards the cathedral, looking up at the shattering angels as the stone collapsed.
"YASSPER!" She was already running but her Keeper barked at her. "Acolyte! Stay in line!"
The memory replayed.
Issa saw something odd. It hadn't been Yassper running to kill the woman. It had been the woman herself running towards Yassper. Yassper—a large, menacing Acolyte wielding double blades.
Issa couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before.
The woman was screaming. Issa struggled to make out her words amidst the rain and the other dying humans. "Father! FATHER!"
Yassper turned white. She saw his veins glow blue as the ocean, his body vibrating as he fought the poison with everything he had. "Maryam."
His daughter ran to him, her arms outstretched, her trust in her father absolute—
"Issa, wake up."
Edvardiel's voice was sharp and her eyes jerked open. That was why Yassper had killed himself. That was why. That was…
Her cheeks were wet and she took several deep breaths, working to numb herself from pain that wasn't hers. She refused to be a dead empath. Yassper couldn't be the first to kill someone he knew—
"Issa?" Edvardiel's hands were on her shoulders. "Can you hear me?"
It was the woman's face. Dark hair and dark eyes with soft features. Like Yassper's. Like…
"Alice," she breathed. No wonder the girl had smelled and looked so familiar. How had she not made the connection earlier? How many generations had it been?
"Issa?" Edvardiel's hands shifted from her shoulders to grasp either side of her face. "Come back to me. Issa."
She covered his hand, still shaken. "Edvardiel." She looked around at the brightness. They were back in his memories. In the Room of Light. "Why are you still here?"
"I couldn't possibly leave you behind."
Of course he couldn't. He was a damn empath.
"I'll… I'll get us out." Her muscles felt weak as though she'd been fighting. Edvardiel helped her up when the white mists swirled into colours, transforming and solidifying into a figure.
"Edvardiel," he boomed. His features were strong and ethereal, his eyes alight with glory.
Issa's reaction was immediate and visceral. That face. That voice. "I know that man."
"That's not a man," Edvardiel said, his breathing uneven again. "That's an angel. Michael."
Issa couldn't stop staring at the king of angels. His face was regal, his eyes bursting with glory and his great wings were spread—pure white and majestic. "I have a mission for you."
Edvardiel's eyes were becoming unfocused as he stared at Michael.
"Go to earth. Find the angel named Lucifer and kill him."
Edvardiel seemed to forget that she was there as he turned to the angel king and knelt. "I will, Sire. Thank you."
Michael stared down at him. "Succeed and you shall be rewarded. Now go." His gaze shifted to Edvardiel's back with what looked like distaste. "That is if you can even fly. Those wings look unkempt. Have you never used them?"
"No." Edvardiel barely managed to breathe out the word.
Michael's expression grew scornful. "I should have known."
"Sire, I—" Edvardiel reached for his robes but in a flash of displeasure, Michael vanished.
Edvardiel remained kneeling, staring at the air where he'd disappeared and Issa marched up to him, grabbing his hands between both of hers. "Edvardiel," she said. "Can you hear me?"
He stared right through her.
This was not good. She couldn't pull someone out of the void if they weren't lucid. "Edvardiel. This isn't real." She gave him a shake. For fuck's sake, were they going to keep ping-ponging between his hallucinations and hers?
The air shifted, the scene changing, and the threads danced out of Issa's reach once more.
A towering golden gate emerged from the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it came into view. Issa saw three angels afloat outside it, all wearing forbidding expressions, one of them with a flaming sword.
This was it.
This was the memory he'd been looking for and Issa wasn't sure she wanted to watch.
"Seraph," she said, her grip tightening around his arm. "This is the worst idea ever."