Angelica (34 page)

Mahalah was watching him. “The Edori are rarely dedicated,” she said softly. “And not all the Jansai. If you were looking for possibilities.”

“I cannot believe it of the Edori,” he said swiftly. “But I would not put such depredations past the Jansai! There is a race that has not entirely forgotten its violent past, mark my words.”

“Jovah knows who the Jansai are, and he did not point to them for these crimes,” Mahalah said.

“No, he did not tell us anything useful at all.”

Now she smiled. “Yes, he did. He said he was aware of the situation and that someone—some woman—will make all right. Not a very complete answer, I will admit, but it does give me some hope that the god is watching over us and will not let us be destroyed.”

Gaaron sighed and stood up, arching his wings and rolling his shoulders. “In any case, I appreciate you giving me the chance to ask,” he said. “If I think of any more questions to which I would like obscure replies, I will be sure to return.”

“Bring Susannah with you next time,” she suggested. “I would like to meet her. We all would.”

“Perhaps I should have a party,” he said, not serious.

“Perhaps you should have a wedding.”

He glanced down at her, startled. “We will. We just have not made plans yet.”

“And what have you been doing with your time instead?”

He laughed shortly. “Mostly, running behind Miriam, smoothing over disasters.”

“And how is your sister?”

He was silent a moment. “Well, I hope. I have allowed Susannah to take her to Luminaux to live for a little bit on her own. Susannah thinks that it is the great shadow of my wings over her that causes Miriam to behave, to some extent, as she does. Perhaps when she is free of attention, she will find her own way. That, or bring down the whole city of Luminaux in one blue cloud, I don't know.”

Mahalah smiled. “She sounds thoughtful and wise, your Susannah. I am even more eager to meet her.”

“Soon, oracle,” he promised, bending over to kiss her on the cheek. “Very soon.”

He was out of Mount Sinai a little before noon, loaded up with provisions that Mahalah insisted he take even though he only had a short flight ahead of him. The air was chilly in the mountains, cooler still as he climbed to a comfortable flying altitude, but the sun was a bright, happy yellow, and the flight was enjoyable. He made good time, and landed on
the Eyrie's plateau without having paused once to rest.

He stood there a moment, taking stock. The paired voices of Chloe and Sela drifted down in high sweet harmony; children ran across the open area, calling out cheerful insults. Enoch stood off to one side, deep in conversation with a couple of farmers who appeared to have come to the hold to offer a petition. But nothing bespoke trouble or even urgency. It was as if his six-day absence had been unremarked.

But then Enoch broke off his conference with the petitioners and crossed the plateau to Gaaron's side. “Good, you're back,” he said.

“Is anything wrong?”

Enoch jerked his head in the direction of the farmers. “A little flooding south of the Corinnis. I've sent Lydia off to take care of it.”

“Any more reports of burned campsites?”

“Not that I've heard.”

“Any other trouble?”

Enoch spread his hands. “Zack causing problems again. He always seems to behave worse when you're not in the hold.”

“What's he done?”

“He and that other one—Jude. Took a couple of the mortal boys high up—then dropped them.”

“
Dropped
them? To the ground? Sweet Jovah singing, is anyone—”

“Not to the ground,” Enoch interrupted. “One of the angels dropped a kid, the other caught him. A game, maybe, except the mortal boys were screaming for help and
they
didn't seem to think it was a game. Nicholas and Ahio helped me stop them, and we've put Zack and Jude in the storerooms, away from their friends. No one knows what to do with them next, though.”

Gaaron nodded and ran a hand through his hair. Knotted from flight; he needed a haircut. “If Nicholas and Ahio are back, that must mean Susannah has returned as well,” he said. He was a little surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth.

Enoch looked surprised, too, at the change of subject. “Yes, they got here the day before yesterday.”

“Any word on Miriam?”

Enoch shook his head. “I haven't really talked to the angelica.”

Gaaron nodded. “Well, I'll deal with Zack and Jude once I find a few free minutes. Thanks for the report.”

He turned toward the tunnels, eager to find Susannah. Eager to hear of the trip, and how Miriam had settled in, and eager to tell her of all that had transpired on his end since she had left. Excited, almost, at the thought of seeing her again, of hearing everything she would have to say.

Esther caught him before he'd taken ten steps down the corridor, to repeat, though in much more lurid detail, the story of Zack's latest escapade. He kept an expression of courteous interest on his face, though he had to admit he was feeling neither courteous nor interested, and waited also through a recitation of other small woes.

“How's Kaski?” he asked, when the Jansai girl's name did not come up.

Esther sniffed. “Better now, though weak as a newborn. We could scarcely get her to eat at all while Susannah was gone, but the minute the angelica returned, the little girl seemed to come back to life. She even attended her classes again. Didn't say anything, though. I expect she never will.”

“I'll need to get Susannah's assessment of that,” Gaaron said, his voice grave. “Do you know where she is? The angelica?”

Esther gave a little sniff. “I suppose they're all in her room,” she said. “Susannah and those girls.”

Since Miriam was gone, and Chloe and Sela were singing, Gaaron could only suppose “those girls” indicated Kaski and Zibiah. He was a little disappointed. He had hoped to have a long solitary conversation with Susannah—but an informal one, something he didn't have to engineer. Well, perhaps Zibiah would offer to take Kaski off to her classroom, and he would have a free, unstructured moment with his bride-to-be.

Perhaps you should have a wedding,
Mahalah had said.

Gaaron pushed the thought away, and strode purposefully down the hall. The door to Susannah's room was partway open, and even before he got close enough to see around it,
he could hear laughter coming from inside. It was infectious; he couldn't help smiling. There was a soft
thud
and more laughter, as if someone had been the target of a thrown pillow. “My hair!” someone shrieked. “You've messed it all up!”

Feeling momentarily as he had while dining with all the acolytes at Mount Sinai, Gaaron sounded the door chime. More gales of laughter inside and some scrambling sounds as the women presumably assumed more decorous poses.

“Is that you, Nick?” Susannah called. “Just come on in.”

Gaaron pushed the door wider and took a few steps inside. “No,” he said, suddenly feeling a little ridiculous. “It's just me.”

For a moment he was the target of four sets of eyes and had the distinct impression that he was completely unwelcome. He was confused himself, because there were two Edori in the room, and Susannah was the only Edori who was supposed to be at the Eyrie. Meanwhile, Kaski shrieked and dived for cover, barricading herself behind pillows and blankets so that he could not see her face. The others fluttered over her—Susannah, Zibiah, the other Edori woman—and Zibiah's lacy white wings fanned out to provide additional protection from Gaaron's eyes.

“I think perhaps I shouldn't come in,” Gaaron said stiffly.

Susannah was on her feet and hurrying across the room, her hands outstretched. “No, don't be silly, she's just a little theatrical. Gaaron! I didn't know you were back.”

He took the proffered hands and peered down at her, thinking she did not seem very happy to see him. At any rate, there was a look of constraint across her features, and her eyes were tired. “I just arrived. Met by Enoch and Esther with tales of disaster in the hold. But I wanted to see if you had returned safely.”

“Indeed, yes, a couple of days ago.”

He nodded across the room where the Edori woman was slipping behind Zibiah's wing to comfort the Jansai girl. “I see you have a friend.”

Susannah looked over her shoulder toward the bed. “You remember Keren, don't you? We ran into her in Luminaux,
and she was very eager to come for a visit.” She turned back toward Gaaron. “I didn't think you'd mind.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. Someone to keep you company.”

She smiled. “You have no idea how impressed she's been by everything at the hold. The water room alone is enough to keep her happy for weeks. She washes her hair twice a day. I've told her it will all fall out if she keeps that up.”

He was beginning to remember Keren now, the vain, pretty girl who had sat before the Edori fire and asked him about opulence at the Eyrie. She had been one of the dozens who shared Susannah's tent, along with . . .

Along with Dathan. Along with Susannah's former lover. If they had encountered Keren in the blue streets of Luminaux, no doubt they had caught up with the rest of the Lohoras as well.

He dropped her hands. “I'm glad you had a chance to see some of your Edori friends again,” he said, his voice sounding stiff and formal even to his own ears. “She is welcome to stay as long as she likes. I hope she makes friends here.”

It was not his imagination; Susannah looked as if she felt just as awkward as he did. “Yes, already Chloe and Zib and Sela have sort of adopted her, and Nicholas keeps promising to take her to Velora for a day. I'm sure I'd better go with them, though, because I'm afraid she'll persuade him to buy everything in the market for her. She could beggar the hold in one day.”

He offered a perfunctory smile at that. “And how is Kaski? I heard she suffered during your absence but that she has revived upon your return.”

She glanced behind her again, where whispers and giggles were beginning to emerge from behind Zibiah's spread wings. “Yes—I was very distressed to learn how poorly she did while I was gone. I'll have to work on that—making her a little more self-sufficient. But I don't know, Gaaron. She is a problem I am not certain how to solve. She doesn't belong here and she's not happy here. Although clearly she cannot return to her own home.”

“We will come to a solution,” he said gravely, though at the moment he had little interest in Kaski, or Keren, or
anyone else in the entire hold. “Not today, perhaps.”

“No,” she agreed. She looked over her shoulder once more, then moved toward the door, and Gaaron followed her out into the hall. “How was your own journey?” she asked in a low voice. “I hear you went to visit the Archangel.”

“I and about fifteen others,” he said. “To discuss the influx of murderous strangers into our midst.” He shrugged; suddenly he felt tired. “We discussed it for hours and resolved nothing. Oh, except some of the Manadavvi think we should begin developing weapons so we can protect ourselves from harm.”

“Weapons! What kind of weapons? Oh, Gaaron, I'm not in favor of that at all.”

He smiled a little bitterly. “Neither am I, though I seemed to be the only one in the room who remembered why technology was prohibited in the first place. I do not think we are in any immediate danger of producing war toys, but I would not be surprised if Constantine Lesh returns to his estates and begins reading up on tools of destruction.”

“We must find a way to stop that,” she said quietly.

“There are a lot of things we must figure out how to fix,” he said.

She nodded and leaned against the wall. Her hands were behind her back, as if she braced herself. Against the rosy beige stone of the corridor, her dark skin looked exotic and mysterious.

“You look tired,” he said abruptly.

She attempted a smile. “Do I? I am, a little.”

“Maybe you have taken on too much, bringing Keren back here and trying to mother Kaski as well. I'm sure they all sleep in the same room with you every night. That can't be restful.”

“They do, but I like to have them there. I miss sleeping with all my Edori family around me at night.” She paused, as if wondering how he might interpret that, and hurried on. “It's not—Keren and Kaski are not what is keeping me awake. I have—dreams—sometimes. Or rather, the same dream, all the time. I used to have it now and then, when I lived with the Edori. It's not—it's never been a frightening dream. But lately it comes almost every night, and I wake
up when it ends. I find it hard to fall back asleep sometimes.”

“Maybe you should talk to Esther,” he said. “She acts as our apothecary here. She might have some drugs that would ease you back into sleeping.”

“I know a few of those drugs myself, and I could buy them in the Velora market,” Susannah said. “It's just . . .” She paused, and shrugged. “Perhaps I will,” she said finally.