“Not after I realized he wanted me dead.” A false smile for the benefit of those who watched, but the woman with mischief in her voice was gone, washed away on the waves of memory and the cruel reality of life. “I was a child. It broke my heart to realize the handsome man Neha took me to meet every week hated the sight of me. I didn’t understand then that she was using me as a weapon.”
Jason had always dealt in information, until gathering it was part of his very nature, but he wished he’d remained silent this night and allowed Mahiya’s eyes to laugh awhile longer.
“Are you close to your father?” she asked, rifling the pages of his own memory.
“Here, son. You use the string to pull it forward so. Do you see?”
“I was.” Before his father had been eaten away from the inside out, the progression of what Jason thought of as a disease so slow and stealthy that no one who had seen him had realized the true depth of the demons he fought. “He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Her fingers alighted for a fleeting instant on his forearm, and he felt the touch all the way to his bones.
“It was a long time ago.” He’d learned to live with the ghosts. “Tell me about Anoushka,” he said, closing the door on the memories. “Of her relationship with Eris.”
“I think they may have been close when she was young,” Mahiya said slowly, the scent of her a subtle blend of exotic flowers and some bright spice that fascinated. “But when I knew her, she held him in contempt, considering him weak and spineless. I never saw her betray that to Neha, however.”
No, Jason thought, Anoushka had been too smart to alienate her mother that way.
“We’re here.” Mahiya halted before the Palace of Jewels.
What appeared to be a thousand candles flickered along the outer wall, in alcoves and on special stands, each flame refracted by the diamonds that studded the palace, until the entire building was ablaze, an astonishing work of art. “This,” he said with utmost honesty, “is stunning.” No wonder Neha preferred it over larger, more ornate palaces.
“Yes.” Mahiya’s reply was soft. “It fascinated me as a child.”
Something there, a hitch in her voice. But he had no chance to follow up on it, because they’d been seen by the guards. Opening the doors, the two vampires bowed deeply as they passed. Jason was unused to such subservience—Raphael’s Tower functioned in a far different fashion—but he was no longer the uneducated boy-man who’d made his way to the Refuge by shadowing other angels.
His father had chosen an island out of the way of angelic sky roads by design, and so it was the rare angel indeed who had passed over Jason after he was alone. He’d tried to hail them, but he’d been too small and weak to fly up high enough to catch their attention before they were out of range. So he’d survived, grown stronger . . . and after a while, he’d stopped his attempts to alert others to his existence, and simply waited—until he knew he was strong enough to fly for a full day and night without failing, should there be no islands where he could rest.
In the interim, he’d lived in silence.
“It’s a shame the boy’s a mute. The instruments he makes are things of such virtuosity, you’d think he’d learned from Yaviel himself.”
Jason had never been mute. He’d just needed to remember how to speak. And he’d done that by watching and listening. Those skills would hold him in good stead tonight. The room in front of him was warm with candlelight, a table of honey-colored wood polished to such a high sheen that it glowed like amber set upon the carpet, the seat cushions of the matching chairs a rich claret. It was a contrast to the pale colors chosen by the guests, the conversation muted, for no one was yet ready to dance on Eris’s grave.
Save perhaps a man Jason identified as Arav from the way he’d made a place for himself at Neha’s side, a charming, elegant companion as the archangel played gracious hostess. Jason knew she hid a terrible sadness behind that persona, but in itself, it was no lie.
“I have never been to a court as gracious as the one Neha keeps.” Dmitri played a knife through his fingers, one of three he’d brought back from Neha’s territory. “She truly believes in giving honor to a visitor.” He threw the knife at Jason.
He threw it back as Venom added, “Though she might have that guest neatly executed while the court sleeps.”
Venom’s response was as accurate as Dmitri’s—Neha was no two-dimensional caricature. No archangel was, and to believe otherwise was to set yourself up for a nasty surprise. Jason had no intention of falling prey to such blindness. Some mortals might seek to see divinity in the archangels, but Jason saw them for what they were—creatures of violent power who’d had millennia to hone their every lethal edge.
Right then, the Queen of Snakes, of Poisons, turned, met his gaze.
Jason inclined his head but didn’t move toward her, and she returned the greeting before shifting her attention to the guest who stood in front of her.
“The vampire heading this way,” Mahiya said sotto voce after the silent exchange, “is Rhys, one of Neha’s trusted inner council.”