The pilgrims approached him with awe, some with tears. They knelt before him in a perfect line. The Celestial opened his arms to each of them in turn. Rone’s insides turned to lead.
“My children, my friends,” the Angelic said. “Welcome to the Lily Tower. Welcome to the home of the Celestial.”
Rone winced—his hand had been forming a fist. He forced his fingers open. A small amount of blood welled up from three crescent-shaped cuts at the base of his palm.
Sandis touched his elbow. He held a finger to his lips, urging her to be silent.
The Angelic addressed the group of pilgrims just as the priests before him had, congratulating them on their journey and speaking of his god. Then he talked to each person individually, his words too soft for Rone to hear. The pilgrims thanked him, blessed him, cried against the backs of his hands. It took a long time—the Angelic did not rush, even as he reached the last of the pilgrims. The priest who’d guided them in looked around at one point, perhaps realizing two people were missing from the group. But he did not interrupt the ceremony to go searching for them.
Rone’s skin itched more and more with each passing minute, but he didn’t scratch. He barely breathed. Sandis leaned close to him. He almost wanted to brush her away. He almost wanted to hold her hand, if only to remind himself that he wasn’t doing this alone. Not like last time.
Finally, finally, they finished. The pilgrims rose, bowed to the Angelic, and were guided back down the stairs. They would all be fed, and those who had come from afar would be granted board for one night. The Angelic watched with a warm smile as the pilgrims left. Once the last one disappeared from sight, he turned back for the curtained hallway behind him to retreat to his quarters or study or whatever lay beyond this space.
Rone pushed his way into the room. He didn’t try to mask the sounds of his footsteps. The Angelic turned around, his white brows pulling together in confusion. He opened his mouth to say something, but Rone spoke first.
“Hey, Pops,” he said in his most jovial, sarcastic tone. “Miss me?”
Chapter 12
A slight widening of the eyes. That was it. The only reaction his father gave him.
Rone’s fingernails dug back into the crescent cuts on his palms. “I know what you’re going to say.” He tried to make the words lighthearted, but each passed his lips like the tip of a razor. “Oh, Rone, you’re taller. Puberty’s been good to you. Yes, well, thank you for that.”
Sandis touched his wrist—a featherlight touch that was barely there—and looked between him and the Angelic. “Your . . . father?”
The Angelic squared his shoulders. “All men are my children, my friend. I am sorry if you traveled here with the other pilgrims and lost your way. If you entreat the priests, they will give you a room, and you may return here to worship on the morrow.”
The enamel on Rone’s teeth threatened to chip, he ground his molars so hard. “Not here for the Celestial, Pops. Here to talk to you.”
The Angelic shook his head. “Dear child, my schedule is very full. Please, seek out one of the priests.”
He turned away.
He turned away.
Sandis’s touch tightened. She stepped in front of Rone, as if to go after the Angelic, but stopped at the length of her arm, unwilling to let go. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Oh, don’t you know?” Rone’s eyes pierced his father’s back, and he spoke louder than was necessary. His voice had a slight echo in the spacious room. “Once a high priest accepts the election for Angelic, he becomes . . . what did you call it? ‘Father to all.’ He disowns his real family for the glory of the tower.”
It was just like before. Why would Rone think anything had changed? Though his father had been elected to the position, he’d chosen to accept it, despite the fact that doing so would cut him off from his real family. From his wife of thirteen years. From his twelve-year-old son. They were left without a father and a husband, and his abandonment had been financial as well as emotional. They’d gone from being comfortable to having no income.
Rone had taken the best-paying job available: cleaning the sewers. Still, he and his mother had moved out of their small house and into a grubby apartment in the smoke ring after selling everything of worth they had to pay the rent. And his father hadn’t come back. Hadn’t sent money. Hadn’t done anything.
Rone hadn’t believed it at first, of course. His father had always been a stern man, but he was his father. He wouldn’t just leave them as if they were nothing. So when Rone was thirteen, he made a “pilgrimage” to the Lily Tower against his mother’s wishes. To see his father. To have the reassurance that, though God had claimed Adellion Comf, the Angelic still loved his own flesh and blood.
Rone had been little better than ignored. Cast away when he grabbed his father’s robes in tears. Chastised by the other priests. He’d left both his hopes for his family and his faith in the Lily Tower that day.
The Angelic didn’t pause at Rone’s truthful accusation. He pulled the curtain aside and stepped down, almost gone— Anger like lava bubbled up Rone’s throat. “Mom’s in Gerech.”
The Angelic stopped. It was a strange sort of relief. Maybe Kurtz’s suggestion that they come here hadn’t been completely insane.
Slowly, Adellion Comf turned back around. Glanced at Sandis before settling a weary gaze on Rone. “What has she done?”
His voice sounded like that of a man burdened with the weight of another’s sin. A small rivulet of warm blood ran down Rone’s palm.
He forced his hands to relax.
“She hasn’t done anything, other than survive when the man who swore to the Celestial to protect her abandoned her for his career.”
A vein pulsed in the Angelic’s forehead. Good. His soul wasn’t completely dead.
“Rone,” Sandis murmured.
He ignored her. “She’s been framed.” He’d leave out the fact that she was being framed for his crime. “Theft. From one of the wealthiest families in Dresberg, so of course they’re paying off anyone with power to ensure she’s punished to the highest degree.”
The Angelic closed his eyes for a moment, and in that brief span of time, he looked twenty years older. Like if Rone touched him, he’d turn to pale ash inside that white-and-silver robe of his. Then some other priest would take the position, abandoning his family just as Adellion Comf had abandoned his.
The Angelic opened his eyes. Straightened. “There is nothing I can do for her.”
Rone lunged forward, breaking Sandis’s hold on his wrist. “That is pig fodder, and you know it!”
His father’s eyes hardened. “Do not raise your voice in this holy place, my friend.”
“I am your son, not your friend.” Rone jutted a finger toward the Angelic’s chest. “Are you really going to stand here and tell me you don’t care? That you’ll let her rot half to death, until a noose finishes the job? You know that’s what they do in Gerech! You have power. You can intervene. Grant her sanctuary. Pay them off. Do something, damn it!”
Rone knew the answer before the Angelic even spoke. He saw it in the coldness of his expression. The stiffness of his lip and shoulders. The tightening of his breath.
He would do absolutely nothing.
Mom was going to die.
Rone stepped back and plunged both hands into his hair, pulling on the curls until it hurt. His bad shoulder protested the angle. “Damn you. Damn you and your Celestial.”
The Angelic turned away.
“S-Sir.”
Rone spun around. He’d forgotten Sandis was there. He expected his father to ignore her, to storm off in his righteous indignation, but he didn’t. The coldness remained on his face, but he stopped to listen.
Sandis eyed Rone. Walked silently to close the gap between her and the leader of the Celesians. “Sir, if you do not . . . care for . . . that”—she swallowed and glanced at Rone guiltily—“then perhaps you might listen to another matter.”
The Angelic sighed. “Quickly, child.”
“The occult underground is spiraling out of control.”