Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“I agree. She would’ve never gifted an item that utilized both tanned hide and fur.” Aodhan stared at the gloves. “Marco doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to keep a gift from another woman, but perhaps he was tempted by the luxury of the item?”
Taking the gloves, Illium examined them with care. “I don’t see any scratches or other marks that say these have been worn, but we wouldn’t see that if he took care of them.”
“Is there a maker’s mark?”
Illium flipped both gloves halfway inside out, found no silken tag.
Frowning, Aodhan considered the luxurious materials and what looked to be painstaking hand-stitching. Not a mass-produced object. An artisanal creation. And no artist would mar their work with what they’d see as an unsightly label. “There.” He tapped the inner part of the wrist edging, which, unlike the glove itself, was a deep, almost black-green; the thread used was a contrasting pale green. “That’s the mark.”
“Really?”
“I can’t believe you’re questioning me on the subject of gloves. You, the man who refuses to countenance wearing them.” His chiding words were soft. “Even if you’re in danger of frostbite.”
“I’m a warrior angel. I’ll wear gauntlets and wrist guards, but I draw the line at gloves.” Illium turned the gloves the right way out again. “You know who it is? The maker?”
“Céline,” Aodhan said, having placed that particular mark in the interim. “An angel of around six thousand, if I’m recalling correctly. Last I knew, she was based in Bordeaux.”
Illium already had his phone out. “Two boutiques in the city stock her gloves. It’s a place to start. We strike out, we go wider.”
Aodhan agreed. “Unless she has changed her method since I last heard, Céline makes each pair by her own hand, has no assistants in the work itself. So even if we have to trace every pair of gloves made just prior to and during the time since the stalker began to importune Marco, it won’t be a high number.”
He considered it further. “Given the stalker’s obsession, I don’t think these would be hand-me-downs—they would’ve been bought specifically for Marco.”
“We visit the boutiques in person?”
“Yes. No clerk wishes to anger a wealthy client, but they won’t dare lie to the faces of two of Raphael’s senior people.” Aodhan scanned the other items laid out around the room. “We should go through the rest of this first; it’s possible we won’t need to rely on the gloves.”
Nodding, Illium continued on from where he’d stopped—and found a small box full of bejeweled men’s rings. He held one up to the light. The green glowed with a piercing luminescence. “Real, I’d wager.”
He picked up another ring inset with a stone that could’ve been yellow or orange, depending on the light, but held more clarity and depth than either color on its own, and showed it to Aodhan. “This is a sunset diamond; I’d stake my wings on it. So named because no one could agree on whether to call them orange or yellow—and because of how the hues turn changeable depending on the light. Priceless after that archangelic tantrum a millennium ago that destroyed the area where they were most often found.”
“Did you take up a new hobby and forget to tell me?” Aodhan raised an eyebrow; neither one of them had ever been the kind to bejewel themselves or to take much interest in such fashions.
The crease in Illium’s cheek made his breath catch, his chest swell. Because this man with his wicked smile and playful heart, this man strong and loyal and kind in ways most of the world would never understand, was his.
“An art enthusiast gifted a stone like this to Mother three centuries ago when she decided to create a portrait of his family of her own volition. The color is distinctive—there’s no other gemstone like it in the world.”
Family portraits by Eh-ma were even rarer than these stones; perhaps she’d taken commissions when young, but that time was so long in the past that no one remembered it. Today, the Hummingbird created only what she wished.
“She set the diamond into a chunk of stone and uses it as a paperweight to this day.” Illium’s shoulders shook. “My mother makes her own rules.”
Aodhan’s eyes widened. “I’ve seen that paperweight. Eh-ma told me she just liked the way the stone sparkled in the light. I never even considered it might be a diamond.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought back his own laugh, glad for this small moment of light in the darkness. “What’s a sunset diamond worth?”
“All I know for certain is that it’d have been well beyond Marco’s budget,” Illium said. “I think it’s out of our budgets, too. The person who gave it to Mother was eons older and wealthier than us, and even he treated the stone like a treasure equal to the value of a portrait by the Hummingbird.”