Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Still going to strangle you. But she was full-out grinning now. You still haven’t told me where you are.
I am not an imbecile, hbeebti.
A snort escaping her, she did burst out laughing then—surprising Mist, the slinky gray cat that was Greta’s.
“Sorry, Mist.” Elena crouched down to scritch the cat behind his ears. “He’s too clever for his own good.”
“I know.” And there he was, crouched opposite her, his wings spread on the carpet behind him, and his eyes twinkling. “Am I still in mortal danger?”
“I know where you sleep,” she threatened, but it was without temper. “I’m looking after myself, Archangel.”
Raphael exhaled. “I know, Elena-mine. I just feel so helpless that this one thing, I cannot help you do. You must carry our babe all alone, take the entire risk of it.”
Rising to her feet when Mist wandered off, she tilted her head to the side after he closed the distance between them. “What aren’t you telling me?” They’d loved each other too long for her not to read him like an open book.
So she knew this wasn’t about the mortal cells in their baby’s body—cells that had all but vanished from the baby’s bloodstream. What remained was of a ratio similar to those in Elena’s bloodstream. Which made sense to everyone only in that it meant their child was about as explicable as Elena.
Raphael took her hand, tugged her against him, nuzzling his face into her neck. It was a sign of vulnerability he’d show no other, only did it in this hallway because it was otherwise empty.
He was hurting, she realized. Deep inside, in a place he’d never shown her. Distressed, she stroked his hair. “Archangel?”
36
The Legion Building in Manhattan is an astonishing feat of horticultural engineering that must be recorded in our histories. As such, we have requested and compiled papers on the topic by ten eminent scholars across multiple fields, with two specialist photographers providing a visual reference.
—Archival document in the Angelic Library, Refuge (After the War)
“Walk with me, hbeebti.”
They walked out into the vibrant colors of New York in fall, and ended up in the section of forest next to the Tower that was simply called Legion’s Home. Because that was what it was, born of the skyscraper the Legion had turned into an indoor forest in their years in New York. The building had long since disintegrated, the last pieces removed when they became unsafe to leave in situ, but the forest had been permitted to grow as it would.
It had come through snows and heavy storms undamaged, and the massive canopies of the seven giant trees that ringed the forest protected what was underneath so well even in the depths of winter that the area below remained clear of snow and ice, seeming to maintain its own temperate climate.
In the center of it all grew the Legion tree, a tree far taller than many a skyscraper.
The entire place was enough of a natural wonder that scientists—mortal and immortal—had asked permission to study it over the centuries. Many papers had been written about it, without anyone ever being able to explain how this wondrous place existed. To keep it safe and protected—for it was the Legion’s home—it had never been opened up to the public, and Tower residents knew to treat it like a treasure.
No parties in the Legion forest, no masses landing in the branches.
This was a place for contemplation and wonder.
Today, Elena and Raphael walked under the canopy of the nearest tree and deep into the temperate interior. As always, the leaves rustled in a soft undulating pattern, tree to tree.
Not a breeze.
A specific and familiar pattern no one else had ever caught or reported.
Nobody would ever convince Elena that it was anything but a warm welcome to their aeclari by the Legion. She didn’t know how the Legion had embedded their love for Elena and Raphael into the trees, but that it was there was a beautiful truth.
“I told you that I was a guard in the angelic nursery once,” Raphael said after they’d been inside the tranquil green silence for several minutes.
“I was young—guards are not much needed at the Refuge, as all the strongholds have powerful angels who will come to the assistance of the Medica if called, but it makes the parents feel better to know their newborns are protected, and so soldiers of two or three hundred often stand watch there.”
“I remember Izzy doing it for a few years while he was based at the Refuge. Sam and Tarielle, too.”
There hadn’t been a significant number of births since the baby boom immediately after the War of the Death Cascade. It was as if once the population was balanced, the clock had slowed down to a glacial pace. Just enough births for a watch to be kept.
Izzy and Sam had both sent her photos of them cradling babies in their muscled arms. Izzy’s smile had been a beam of sunlight, while Sam had reminded her more of Raphael with children—a quiet, protective intensity to him.