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)
Oh, there was one of Raphael’s and another that he was certain came from Yindi’s dark blue wings. She’d been with Suyin since her ascension, was still in China. Add in the chaos of war, and it must’ve taken the craftsperson years to gather the feathers.
Aodhan appreciated both the vision and the work involved. It also made him wonder if there were other bags, each a singular creation with a different harmonious array of feathers.
“Sir.” A woman with skin of ebony, her lips cherry red and her tightly curled hair cut close to her skull, beamed at him from his side. “I am overcome to have you in my shop.”
She was breathtaking in the way of certain very old vampires, her cheekbones striking and her eyes unearthly in their size. Her body was willowy under her figure-skimming and ankle-length black dress, her shoes glittering silver heels that still only brought her up to his shoulder.
Her power was a deep hum beneath the surface.
19
Aodhan didn’t have to interrogate the proprietor; a vampire old and savvy, her voice a rich thickness with a lilting accent, she gave him what he needed at once. Their entire inventory for the relevant time—five pairs—had been bought by Pierre St. John, a vampire with whom Aodhan was well acquainted.
“The gloves were gifts for his most senior staff,” the proprietor told him.
She also shared that the other boutique in the city that sold Céline’s work had received only two pairs during the time period in which he was interested. “I have had the pleasure of meeting Lady Céline,” she told him. “It is my great honor that the lady favors us with her work.”
Aodhan completed his task in a matter of minutes, but then voluntarily spent five more inside purchasing that artwork of a bag with the intent to send it to Eh-ma. It felt like a loosening of shackles that he could enjoy this pretty thing designed only to delight the eye, the maker’s painstaking work deliberately concealed under a creation of cheerful frivolity.
His purchase sent the proprietor into such a paroxysm of delight that, for a moment, she wasn’t a being old and perhaps jaded, the girl she’d once been surging to the surface. “To have the patronage of the one member of the Seven who is almost never seen anywhere but in the skies?” She spread her fingers over her chest, her nails painted a red to match her lips. “I shall be the envy of every single entrepreneur in my group chat!”
Her smug delight made him laugh—and that had her eyes going huge. “I almost believe I am hallucinating,” she whispered.
After returning to his suite with amusement yet alive in his veins, he stored the gift, then flew over to Pierre’s through the sepia tones of dusk. As he’d expected, the affable vampire gave him the list of names without problem—and every one of the giftees, baffled by the request though they were, produced their gloves when asked.
“Took a while, but I tracked down the other two buyers,” Illium said when he returned from his own hunt. “One’s in Europe right now, but his housekeeper was able to find the gloves in his closet, while the other located them stuffed into the pockets of his winter jacket. So we have no missing sets from the seven that came into the city during the window of time we decided on as reasonable.”
They’d been generous with that window; increasing it seemed the wrong way to go.
“We’ll have to widen the geographic search,” Aodhan said at last, and even though he’d been braced for this possibility, it was still a blow. Especially because they both knew many angels were highly mobile; the gloves could have been bought in Spain or Singapore as easily as New York.
But it was all they had.
“I have Céline’s contact details,” he added. “We can get the names of all her clients directly from her.”
But when he called, it was to be informed that she was at a gathering and out of contact for the duration. Aodhan could guess at the type of gathering—held by vampires and angels of a certain age, it was about rejecting the modern world. No phones, no access to electricity, basically nothing that hadn’t existed five hundred years ago.
Candlelight balls, intellectual salons, a bloom of artists who wanted to inspire each other and work in a space filled with artistic energy, or a tangle of hedonists bent on an orgy, the type of gathering depended on the participants and their desires.
“There is a peace in creating without interference,” Aodhan murmured to Illium after telling him that Céline was currently out of reach. “In prior times, I could work for days, weeks, months without interruption if I wanted.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think most of these candlelit types are like you, Adi.” Illium bit into a crisp red apple he’d grabbed from the dining area before flying up to join Aodhan in the office he’d used in his attempt to contact Céline. He’d also picked up two pastries for a pre-dinner snack, and now handed Aodhan his favorite.