Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (42 page)

Rafe suddenly seemed to realize that he’d gone too far. That he’d said too much. I sat on the ground with my arms clutched around my bent knees and my face buried in them. I didn’t believe what Rafe had just said. It was outrageous, just like Rafe. But, unfortunately, there was also no way to refute it, and it highlighted all of the insecurities I’d thought I’d long since banished.
Was Ari only interested in me because I was Karanos Onyx’s daughter?

“Do you think Jezebeth told Ynocencia the truth at first?” Rafe asked softly.

“Jezebeth . . . ?” I said, shaking my head, confused.

“The drakon your father had executed in Timothy’s Square at the beginning of the semester.”

“I know who Jezebeth was,” I snapped.

“You asked why Ari would hide, what would he have to gain. Why did Jezebeth pretend to be Ynocencia’s husband? Did you really think he was trying to steal her farm? Isn’t it much more likely that he simply wanted a life that he hadn’t been born to? Not unlike you, Nouiomo. Until recently.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Look,” Rafe said, sighing, “I think we both know I’ve got no love for the Joshua School or the Divinity. And, as an Angel, I don’t feel particularly beholden to the Council either, except that as a resident of Halja, I generally follow the rules. But you tell me. You’re the future Maegester. Is Ari breaking any rules by not telling anyone?”

I didn’t answer. Jezebeth hadn’t been executed for his duplicity. He’d been executed because he was a murderer. But then, Jezebeth had only pretended to be a Hyrke. He hadn’t put his name on the List and tried to train as a Maegester.

Rafe shrugged, interpreting my silence as “no.”

“So keep his secret. I don’t care. I’ll keep it too.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“Revelare Lucere will wear off eventually, just like any other well-cast spell, if that’s what you mean.” It wasn’t, but Rafe couldn’t answer my question anyway.

“When?”

“When will it wear off?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know. A day maybe. At the most.”

Would Ari come back then?

Did I want him
to?

*   *   *

L
ater that night, Fara met up with us. She’d checked in on Zella. As I’d suspected, the woman was in labor, but wanted no part of Fara or her spells. Considering the fact that Zella likely associated Fara with what had happened in the keep, I didn’t blame her. In any case, Meghan was with Zella and had assured Fara that the mother-to-be was in no real danger.

Fara declared her oath to Ari broken. Angels were under no obligation to guard demons. The post-Apocalyptic treaty terms were clear. Angels were only required to serve Host warlords and their descendants. Not “the demon horde rabble,” as Fara had put it. She’d clapped her hands together too, as she’d said it, as if
just like that
she could wipe Ari out of existence—swish him away in the wind, brush him off her hands, and be done with him.
I should be so lucky,
I thought, fighting back tears and hating myself for it.

Personally, now that the effects of Rafe’s calming spell had worn off, I wasn’t doing too well. The revelation that Ari had really been a demon, that he’d had a lot more than just the “drop of demon blood” most future Maegesters have, that he’d been fooling me, as Jezebeth had fooled Ynocencia, messed with my mind. It wasn’t, necessarily, the fact that he had shifted into a horrifying-looking beast (although I’d never forget the image of him biting the hellcnight’s head off). And it wasn’t, necessarily, the fact that he hadn’t told me (although that was huge). It was the fact that I should have known. Looking back there were myriad clues, and I’d willingly ignored each and every one of them. Oh, sure, I could blame my own ignorance. Any knowledge of magic gleaned in childhood was used for the sole purpose of avoiding detection, not ferreting out other waning magic users who might be hiding secrets of their own. No, it was my
willful
ignorance I blamed.

When I’d first arrived at St. Luck’s, Ari had been the one who’d been ranked
Primoris
. Why? Because his magic was so much stronger than everyone else’s. And what had Ari done before enrolling at St. Luck’s? He’d been a demon executioner. Apparently, one of my father’s favorites. And yet he’d never once requested the services of a Guardian Angel. Why? Because he didn’t really need one. He’d told me himself, he’d chosen Fara as his Guardian
for
me
.

“So what’s our plan now?” Fara asked. “Just wait for the Boatman and catch a ride back to New Babylon?” She looked unhappy. I couldn’t tell if she were reflecting on recent events or future ones. A trip back to New Babylon with the Boatman would take far longer than the trip out here, be much less comfortable, and just as dangerous.

“We can’t leave,” I said quietly.

Rafe and Fara spoke at the same time.

“Wha—?”

“You’re not suggesting that we stay here . . . indefinitely, are you?”

“No,” I said. “But there are two reasons we can’t leave with the next Boatman—or I can’t.” I swept my arm in a wide gesture encompassing all of the Shallows. “What do you think would happen to these people if we left them here, without an outpost lord?”

Comprehension dawned for the Angels. It might not happen right away, but eventually a
rogare
would figure out that there was no patron demon protecting the Hyrkes here. It would be a slaughter, and there was no way I was leaving the settlers here to face that alone.

“So you—a first-year MIT who’s spent most of her life sequestered in the tiny village of Etincelle—are going to be the new defender of these people?” Rafe said. Again, that appraising look. Like he was seeing me for the first time or just wondering what I was really made of.

“Not forever,” I said hastily. “Just until the Council can send someone else out, or figure out a way to relocate everyone here.”

“They’ll probably refuse,” Fara said.

I sighed. “First things first. The other reason we can’t leave is that I think there’s a second hellcnight hiding here.”

“Really?” Fara asked, her eyes wide. “Do you feel another demon?”

“No, but we were attacked by two hellcnights on the way here. And the hellcnight that Ari killed earlier wasn’t Grimasca. Grimasca has three parallel scars slashed across his face.” I told them what Sasha had said during class in the beginning of the semester and what Burr had told me the day before he died. They’d each had conflicting stories about how the scars had gotten there, but each agreed that Grimasca’s cheek was marked. “And that hellcnight’s cheek wasn’t,” I said, pointing toward the keep.

“That means he wasn’t Grimasca, just an ordinary garden-variety hellcnight.”
As if there were such a thing.

“So you still think Grimasca is behind all this?” Rafe asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I only know that, one, Vodnik is dead. He was killed by the hellcnight in there, or the hellcnight’s partner, at some point in the past—most likely out in the Meadow the day the fishermen disappeared. And, two, I know that one hellcnight is dead. The one in there. And, three, I know there
may
be another one hiding here who may or may not be Grimasca.”

The Angels sat silently, contemplating the fact that our demon fights for this assignment might not be over.

“How long has it been since you cast Demon Net?” I asked Rafe.

“Not since the Meadow earlier today.”

“You should cast it again. I won’t be able to feel another hellcnight hiding here if it’s one of the ones that attacked us from before.”

He did as I asked. Thankfully, Demon Net didn’t take as long to cast as Revelare Lucere had.

His gaze met mine. He looked grim and somber. I couldn’t help remembering the lines from the song he’d sung to me the night we’d made tea together on
Cnawlece
.
Sleep, my baby . . . sleep, baby do. Grimasca’s coming . . . and he will eat
you.

“There’s a demon hiding under the keep,” he said. “But it might be Ari.”

I’d almost forgotten that Rafe could only sense a waning magic user’s presence with Demon Net, not their identity.

“No, I would feel Ari’s signature if he were anywhere near, but I don’t. The fact that I can’t feel
this
demon means it’s one of the hellcnights that attacked us on the way here. So . . .” I said, blowing my breath out and clapping my hands together. I could hardly believe I was thinking about doing what I was just about to do. I eyed the dark, half-sunk, water-filled, lower windows of the keep and finally said, “Who’s willing to crawl in there with me?”

Rafe scoffed. “You have to ask? I gave you an oath. Of course I’m in.”

I turned to Fara. She leaned down and whispered something to Virtus. She scratched him behind the ear and pretended to listen to something he said. I tried not to roll my eyes. Over the course of this trip I’d grown to genuinely like Fara, but she could be . . . well . . . different. But then, who of us wasn’t? She looked up at me.

“I’m in, but Virtus is going to wait with Russ. If anything happens to us, he knows Russ will take good care of him.”

Right.
Well, I put the odds of our surviving at fifty-fifty. And, since cats didn’t like water anyway, Fara’s plan was actually more thought out than mine.

So that was that. We were going in.

T
he three of us stood in front of the keep deciding which opening we were going to wade into. The sun had set long ago and the Shallows were completely dark. A slight, damp breeze stirred the far-off trees and my hair. I licked my lips and clutched Burr’s knife, wondering crazily if I should give the Angels some sort of “eve of battle” speech. I still wore the clothes Meghan had generously given me when we first arrived in the Shallows: loose linen pants and a slim-fitting tunic with a low-slung belt. I’d managed to keep the boots I’d been wearing when
Cnawlece
sank. I debated unlacing them and taking them off—they would make swimming more difficult—but I couldn’t be sure we’d be swimming instead of wading so I left them on. I took the belt off, though. No need for that extra weight. And I tore the long bell sleeves off of my shirt. They’d only get wet and get in my way. I didn’t necessarily need my hands to throw magic, but having my hands free would help me to focus.

Rafe immediately followed my lead and shed his belt. Fara shed her glamour, which weighed nothing but the
potentia
she might need for other spells. She stood before us clothed in simple canvas pants and a nondescript shirt, not unlike the clothes we had on. She still had her scars but they looked less shocking now. Maybe it was because our circumstances weren’t quite as drastic as they’d been before, or maybe it was because I’d seen them already.

Rafe cast the spells I’d come to think of as the “Pierce Triumvirate” (Painfall, Damage Cascade, and Hemorrhage) over me. He then cast Impenetrable and a cloaking spell before I stopped him and told him to shield himself and then preserve his
potentia
.

I turned to Fara, motioning. “Come on, then. Don’t be shy. I hear you’ve got some spells I might be interested in too.”

She looked confused. “Clean Conscience?”

“No,” I said quickly, barking out a laugh. “Not that one. I meant Ascendancy. And I know you also have an AIR Boost. If I remember correctly, you learned them for me, so let’s see how they work, shall we?”

She grinned and cast me up. Her spells felt different from Rafe’s. They seemed to have an expansive feel rather than a focused feel. I didn’t know whether the different feelings were because they were different spells or different casters.
How had my life come to this?

For most of my life I’d wanted to be a Mederi, to have waxing magic. I’d given up that dream last semester. For the most part, willingly. (Oh sure, there were some days when I still wanted a garden, but I’d genuinely tried to make my peace with the magic Luck had given me.) So it was fairly shocking to realize that my life had come to the point where I also willingly let two Angels cast me up with the most deadly spells imaginable while I shaped my own death magic into a fiery filleting knife so that we could crawl into a dark, watery hole in order to drag a demon out of it—or possibly kill it. I mean I’m the type of girl who obsesses over writing assignments, class attendance, and due dates for library books. I don’t think of myself as a monster fighter, defender of justice, or people savior.