Lucifer flexed his fingers, studying them. In one smooth motion, he was on his feet.
He wasn't as tall as she remembered, but the way he surveyed her made her feel like a child again. Perhaps most unexpected was the rush of fondness she felt.
Issa knew this angel.
He'd saved her from Michael and kept her warm in his wings more than once. Despite her disjointed memories, his presence felt warmly familial.
The feeling seemed mutual because Lucifer's lips curved ever so slightly. "Hello, child." He glanced behind him, eyebrows rising at the sight of his flaming wings. "Why," he said. "You even gave me wings." Angelfire followed his every step. It flared high, spiralling around him in a complex geometric lattice that shifted and shimmered like the stars. "Actual heavenly wings." His skin was radiant as he channelled more glory from the Heavens. "You've outdone yourself."
Issa stared at his effortless web of angelfire. It was like peering into another universe. Lucifer's control made hers and Edvardiel's glory look brutish and clumsy.
"I keep my promises." She barely had the energy to sit up, let alone stop him if he chose to fly away.
Lucifer's eyes flickered over to where she was kneeling.
More butterflies fluttered frantically from her puddle of blood. Issa tore a piece of her robe, pulling it tight around her bleeding arm as the world continued to spin.
"That you did." Lucifer looked down at her. His eyes no longer swirled—they were a deep brown and human—but his gaze was cold. "You may be nicer than your mother, child, but you are certainly not as clever. You should have healed yourself before transferring my soul."
His tone made her bristle.
"Whatever, seraph," she snapped.
Then she paused. They were falling into a rhythm that felt too familiar to be new—this was not the first time he corrected her nor the first time she resented him for it.
"How often did you babysit me?" she blurted.
That made him laugh.
He stepped away and sat himself on Jacob's rock, making no move to help her. "Often enough to know your poor habits." He shot a contemptuous look at her makeshift bandage. "Seraphs can heal themselves."
Issa clenched her jaw. Every muscle in her body was screaming. With great difficulty, she closed her wound. Her light-headedness got worse but she made herself straighten and sit back on her heels.
"You're provoking me," she accused. "Like you provoked Edvardiel."
Lucifer's lips curved once more. "Did you not heal yourself?" he challenged. "Did Edvardiel not fly? Did he not find his glory? We Seraphim are proud and headstrong."
We.
Unlike Michael, Lucifer saw them as one of his own.
Issa's eyes prickled. She looked down at the blood and blinked several times, clearing her throat.
"Edvardiel and I are getting engaged," she said. "The ceremony is in two days. You should come."
She expected Lucifer to scoff. She expected him to tell her he wasn't coming. But he only dropped his gaze. He was staring at his hand, where the Edenium ring gleamed around his finger.
His wedding band.
"Do you know how Edenium is made?"
He removed his ring, holding it up to the weak light of the crescent moon. A human would see nothing in this darkness but they were seraphs and to their eyes, the gold glinted, its shade unnatural, unearthly and so very familiar.
As Issa stared at the shadow it painted over Lucifer's features, she heard the echoes of screams. Her small hand was swallowed by a much bigger one as Adam dragged her through the chaos. Two angels battled in the skies. Michael wielded his amplifier sword, his eyes burning with fearsome rage. Lucifer was a shadow, facing away from them. A burst of angelfire sent Michael tumbling backwards. Gold rained down on them, droplets of it drizzling onto her face.
"Angelblood," she breathed.
"Very good." Lucifer smiled his alien, empty smile. He turned the ring between his fingers. "The hatred of the Fallen—frozen forever in time. Mine and Eden's rings were made from Samael's blood moments before he died. Edenium has to be given willingly, you see, and Samael gave us his blessing."
Samael. Eden's father. The original wielder of lightning.
Lucifer picked up the abandoned dagger—the one that looked identical to Yassper's, the one smeared with Issa's blood—and opened his flesh. Dark red blood bubbled from the wounded skin. Lucifer paused for a second before murmuring, "That's why it no longer burns." Then he carved deeper, deeper until he reached the shining gold of angel bone. He twisted. Blood splattered onto the ground but Lucifer barely flinched, his gaze intent and unblinking as he burrowed deeper into his own bone.
Finally, gold dripped from the depths of the dagger.
Lucifer caught it in his palm. His hands glowed as he weaved in a way Issa couldn't understand, manipulating matter in a way only an angel could. The substance grew brighter and brighter until it looked like he was holding sunlight in his hands. Issa shielded her eyes and when she looked again, a thumb-sized vial lay on his palm.
He held it out. "Take it."
She didn't know if it was her dizziness but the fire in his wings seemed dimmer.
"What is that?"
"Consider it my wedding gift." He knelt down so that they were at the same eye level. His robe was sullied with his now human blood and when he knelt, it soaked up hers too. "Edvardiel will know what to do with it."
Issa's dizziness was getting worse. "Give it to him yourself."
"The situation is more dire than I thought," Lucifer said. He gestured at the oldest bloodstain on his robe—the one she'd seen when she'd unearthed his bones. "Eve is dead."
"So?"
"So, my child, we now know how Hell broke loose." The light from the vial flickered in his brown eyes. "Earth's guardian is dead. The question is, how did she die?"
Wasn't it obvious?
"Michael," Issa slurred.
Lucifer laughed. "If Michael could kill Eve, she'd have been dead long before she had you. Angels cannot harm anything earthly."
That made her head spin in a different way. "But the Nephilim…"
"I told you that you'd do better in Heaven."
Issa steadied herself against the nearest headstone. "You left me in Hell."
"I searched for you."
Her vision blurred with tears. "You didn't."
"You were very attached to your father. You summoned him many times. When I could not find you, I assumed that you had summoned him again."
"He tried to kill me."
"He tried to kill all the Nephilim."
"I'm his daughter!"
It was the tea. The tea that helped her create his wings was ripping her from the inside out. She was on the ground, retching, as Lucifer looked down at her with eyes that were both human and seraph.
"You have been poisoned, child."
She was in agony.
She'd been poisoned her whole fucking life. First by her mother against the angels, then by her father against the humans and after that by the queen of hell herself. The poison she'd taken to bring him back was the least of it. She tried to speak but her lips wouldn't cooperate.
He understood anyway.
"I am sorry," he said. "And I am… thankful you have found each other. You have both done very well despite our mistakes." He touched the headstone she'd been leaning against. The one now tarnished with their bloody handprints.
Eden.
"I have always wondered what it is like to feel with a human heart," she heard him murmur. "Now I know."
The last thing Issa remembered was a flare of warmth before everything faded away. When she opened her eyes, sunlight was streaming through the trees. A wall of angelfire encircled her, burning high, but Lucifer was nowhere to be seen.
She sat up.
Something glinted in her pool of blood. Lucifer's vial. The moment she picked it up, the angelfire died and the puddle dissolved into an army of glittering golden butterflies.
"Lucifer?"
Her heart sank.
"Lucifer!" she said. "We had a deal!"
Of course he was gone.
He'd asked for a human body and like a fool, she'd given it to him. Now he had human blood to access the gates and also wings to escape.
She swore and rubbed her eyes, feeling as though she'd been hit by a train. No, as though she'd fallen off a cliff. Scratch that, as though she'd been hit by a train and then fallen off a cliff. Shakily, she got to her feet and spied the squashed pie and potatoes from yesterday.
"Jacob." Her blood turned cold.
She should've gone after her friend first. She should've waited until she was well enough to transfer Lucifer's soul. She should've been more careful. Now Lucifer was gone, she'd poisoned herself, and Jacob… what the hell had happened to him?
All of this was her own damn fault.
She was in no condition to walk, how was she supposed to look for him? Come to think of it, she'd been out all night—had no one come to look for her?
She leaned against the headstone, her stomach heaving again when she heard the rustle of footsteps.
"Issa?"
Issa recognised Rosalie's voice before promptly emptying the meagre contents of her stomach to the ground.
Rosalie stepped sideways, narrowly avoiding being puked on. "What are you doing here? Jacob told us you went looking for engagement clothes. Said we all had to stay away since it was going to be a surprise."
"You met Jacob?" Issa leaned against Eden's headstone, winded. "Is he all right?"
Rosalie's expression turned surly. "I guess. He's got nothing left to smoke. I told him to help decorate but last thing I saw, he was fast asleep in the main hall."
Issa wondered how he'd managed to get there. How he'd found the energy to cover for her.
"Have you seen Alice?" Rosalie asked.
Issa shook her head. She thought back to the dinner. Alice hadn't been there either.
Do you know what I do to disobedient children?
Issa's heart stilled as she remembered Lilith's threat.
I take away their favourite toy.
The orb. Maybe the Garden had been infiltrated after all.
"Do you think something happened to her?"
Rosalie shook her head. "Alice likes to disappear every now and then. I'm sure she'll eventually show up." Then she shot Issa a suspicious look. "Why are you here? Have you been drinking?" She sniffed in Issa's general direction.
Yes, she wanted to say. She'd drunk poisoned tea for nothing.
"I've been… practising." Issa gestured towards the skies. "Glory and all."
There. That was truthful enough.
Rosalie relaxed. "Oh. I thought you were having cold feet."
If Issa hadn't just spent the night reviving a seraph only to have him bail on her, she'd have laughed. She'd never have cold feet when it came to Edvardiel—she was waiting for him to have cold feet about her.
"I need some help." She swayed where she stood. "I don't think I can make it back on my own."
"Me?" Rosalie's brows shot up. "Nah, you're not dying this time. Summon your fiancé."
Issa shifted her weight.
"What? You can summon angels. He's got enough angel in him to hear your call. Should I show you?"
"No, I'll do it." Issa already knew it would work. After all, she'd accidentally done it before.
She exhaled.
It was time to come clean, Lucifer or no Lucifer. Her grip tightened around the vial in her hand. The misty gold curled like clouds within the glass.
She had proof now.
An early update to celebrate the end of my 24h shifts this month! Had three in eight days and in the last one my CPR pager went off the exact minute I was about to go home. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chappie, would love to hear your thoughts :)