Illium’s golden eyes gleamed beneath the blue-tipped black of his eyelashes. “Oh, yes, I’m definitely coming to dinner.”
Elena wasn’t an idiot. “What are you expecting Naasir to do?”
Illium dived toward the water at breathtaking speed, came up at a steep angle. “Word is,” he said, “Naasir’s bringing you a present.”
That didn’t sound ominous . . . until she considered who they were talking about.
Illium shot up to the sun before she could question him about Naasir’s gift-giving proclivities.
Elena kept to a more lazy flight homeward. Montgomery had promised her double chocolate fudge cake, and, whatever Naasir’s present, it couldn’t hold a candle to the butler’s double chocolate fudge cake—Montgomery made it himself from scratch, guarded the recipe like a dragon with his treasure.
When her phone rang, she answered it with a smile. “I was waiting to hear from you,” she said to her younger sister Eve. “How did the exam go?”
“It wasn’t as hard as my friends and I thought it would be,” Eve said, voice ebullient, and the two of them fell into an easy conversation.
Landing on the snow-covered lawn of her and Raphael’s Enclave home not long after she and Eve said good-bye, she watched Illium come down fast and neat. Aodhan dropped out of the sky at a slower pace, the early evening light fracturing off him in dazzling sparks.
“How’s the wing feel?” she asked, having noticed the last-minute correction he’d made to keep from toppling sideways.
“Significant weakness, but I must continue to exercise it at this stage of the healing process.” He stretched both wings out to their full breadth, folded them back in again.
Never, she thought, would she get used to the impossibility of Aodhan, to the feathers and hair that seemed coated with crushed diamonds that refracted light in endless shards. “Just make sure you don’t push it too far.” Hunters and Tower personnel, they both chafed at being grounded. Aodhan hadn’t mentioned pain, but she knew it had to be bad.
The immortal ability to survive brutal wounds came at an agonizing price.
“Don’t worry, Ellie.” Illium bumped a fist gently off Aodhan’s jaw, his skin warm gold against the sunshine-touched alabaster of Aodhan’s. “I sicced Keir on him two days ago when he refused to listen to reason. You haven’t seen a set-down until you’ve seen Keir delivering it.” A wince. “Poor Sparkle.”
Aodhan did something she didn’t quite catch, and suddenly, Illium was on the ground, flat on his back in the snow. The shocked look on his face was almost as good as Aodhan’s studiously blank one. “Shall we go inside, Elena?”
“How about helping me up first?” Illium scowled and held up a hand. “Now my back’s all wet.”
Aodhan hauled him up with his good arm. “Poor Bluebell.”
Elena’s lips twitched. It was starting to become clear why Aodhan and Illium had become friends. Aodhan might be quiet, but he could hold his own against the blue-winged angel—who remained the only person Aodhan could bear to have touch him. Elena didn’t know what had traumatized Aodhan to that visceral depth, but she knew the silent battle he fought each and every day.
“Your scars exist, but it’s your courage that defines you.”
She’d said that to him a week past, received a piercing glance in return from the haunting fracture of his gaze. “I’m afraid, every instant, that the darkness will suck me back under.”
“But you keep going, Aodhan. Any fool can jump unawares into danger—you know exactly the risk you’re taking, and yet here you are.”
In front of her, he brushed the snow off Illium’s feathers and said, “Next time you call me Sparkle, I’m dumping you into the Hudson.”
“I can swim.”
“Come on,” Elena said with a grin. “Montgomery will be waiting.”
The three of them had just taken the first steps toward the house when there was a wash of wind. Jason and Mahiya landed to Illium’s right a second later. The spymaster’s black wings were dramatic against the white of the snow, his facial tattoo vivid even in the gray light, but it was Mahiya’s spectacular wings that caught the eye. Jewel green and wild blue with strokes of black, the pattern was akin to a peacock’s spray.
“Elena,” Mahiya said with the gentle smile that held an inner glow. “Thank you for having us to dinner on such short notice. I’m afraid we couldn’t resist the temptation.”
“I’m starting to worry about Naasir’s idea of a gift.”
Jason stirred. “He once brought an angel a bucket of piranhas and told the angel to stick his hand inside to retrieve his gift.”
“But he didn’t like the angel,” Illium put in, “so you should be safe. I don’t know why the angel in question whined to everyone about it—he only lost a few fingers.”
“At least there is nowhere for Naasir to find a live wild boar here.” That came from Aodhan, Illium nodding sagely beside him. “In his defense, he had been told to bring meat to the fire.”
“Gee, don’t try to reassure me all at once.” Leading them inside, she discovered Montgomery had set up a table in the formal dining room.
Elena and Raphael didn’t normally use this room for anything but meetings with archangels or other highly ranked individuals, it was so grand. However, it took on a different air with so many of the Seven in attendance. They sprawled over the elegant furniture, dug into Montgomery’s food, spoke with the ease of men who’d known one another for centuries.