Archangel's Heart (Guild Hunter 9)

It was an ironic thing to say, given what Anoushka had done to one of Raphael’s vampires. Then again, the Queen of Poisons steadfastly chose to believe in her daughter’s innocence despite evidence to the contrary.

Her eyes lifted to Gian, who was icily furious at being told his little fiefdom wasn’t actually a fiefdom at all—but who was doing an excellent job of hiding it. His calm facade never cracked, but Elena saw the truth in the flatness of his gaze, the rigid tension of his body.

“What do you know about this man?” Neha’s question was a cold demand.

“He is new here.” Gian’s voice was as unshaken as always, a leader well on the path to luminescence. “Only with us for five years.”

Elena hadn’t realized Ibrahim was that new. In angelic terms, five years was literally the blink of an eye. The slender male wouldn’t have had time to gain the trust of anyone here—but neither would he have been drawn into whatever it was that was going on beneath Lumia’s shining surface. He wouldn’t have known not to do something.

Mouth drying up, she stared at him in horror. Raphael, he got us that map.

Raphael met her gaze, the blue of his eyes a metallic shade that denoted an anger so cold, it came from the primal core. You think that caused this?

I think it might be part of it at least. Ibrahim was being helpful probably without realizing that certain things are off-limits.

Then, Raphael said, there must be something on that map we’re not meant to see. Do you have it on your person?

Yes, it’s still in my crossbow bolt sheath. It had survived the rain thanks to the fact she’d closed the sheath out of habit—it had only taken losing a bolt onto the city streets to learn that lesson. She’d been lucky she didn’t accidentally hurt anyone.

Raphael turned to respond to something Neha had said, but his attention remained with Elena. Go with Aodhan, see if you can discover what it is that we weren’t meant to find. I’ll make sure your friend is safe.

“Aodhan.” Elena looked into the splintered shards of Aodhan’s eyes. “Let’s go back to the spot where Raphael and I found Ibrahim. There might be a clue there.”

To Aodhan’s credit, he didn’t question why she was leaving the injured man. He just held open the door for her, and as she strode past him, her wing brushed his chest. The contact was nothing momentous, not now, not between friends, not when Aodhan had given her permission in multiple small ways but she felt eyes boring into her back.

Sliding out a blade as if playing with it, she used the polished surface to catch a glimpse of who it was that was staring at her and Aodhan.

Gian.

And he wasn’t focused on her but on Aodhan.

It could be nothing, his calmly stifled anger directed outward at whoever happened to be in his line of sight, but that look . . . it made her glad Aodhan was going to be nowhere near Gian’s vicinity.

A second later, she and Aodhan were in the hallway and heading in the right direction. “Ibrahim found that historical map I asked for,” she explained to him after they were out of hearing distance and alone. “We need to figure out if there’s something in there we shouldn’t know about.”

“We’ll need a place to examine it.” He thought for a moment. “There’s a small library in the tower where Laric makes his home.”

“Let’s head there.” Elena had zero doubts that Gian would know soon enough where they’d gone, but it would take a little while for the message to filter back to the Luminata leader. Long enough for them to get a head start on whatever was happening here.

They passed a number of the sect in the hallways, their faces hooded and their hands tucked into the wide sleeves of their robes. None spoke. “Creeps,” Elena muttered after the most recent one had slithered down the corridor. “Why not look people in the eye, show your face?”

“I think your view has been impacted by what was done to Ibrahim,” Aodhan said quietly. “Laric does not cover his face because of a lack of courage.”

“Shit.” Elena blew out a breath, rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. These Luminata, though—they hide things.”

Aodhan didn’t argue. “I think secretiveness has become embedded into their culture.”

“What happened to Laric?” Elena asked. “Did he really come here to find luminescence?”

“He was in the sky when Caliane executed Nadiel.” Aodhan’s words were like rocks thrown into a still pond. “He wasn’t close, was attempting to land when he saw what was about to happen, but he wasn’t fast enough. The flames from Nadiel’s death crawled across the sky like the ‘most violent lightning fire’ according to him, and he was caught in the inferno.”

“Hell.” Elena couldn’t begin to imagine the pain Laric had suffered. “Why hasn’t he healed?” She’d seen angels heal from all kinds of things, including wings that had been sliced off.

“Even Keir can’t give him an answer to that.” Aodhan led her down a narrow corridor. “He is healing, but at a glacial pace. In the over a thousand years since Nadiel’s execution, he says the scars have become less rigid, freeing up the movement of his hands. But there is no outward sign of that softening, no indication the scars will one day disappear.”

Elena thought about what Aodhan was telling her. “He was caught in the backwash of an archangel’s death at the hands of another archangel. That violence of energy . . .”