“Is there any way we can wriggle out of this ball?” she said to Raphael on the eve of their journey to Amanat, the two of them in bed after an unexpectedly playful loving that had flowed on from a sparring session where they’d worked out the tension that had had them in its clawlike grip for days, as they waited for the other shoe to drop . . . only for the ordinary rhythm of life to descend upon the city.
It wasn’t peace—it was New York—but it certainly wasn’t a war. “I know you don’t want to leave the city.” Neither did she, an itch on the back of her neck that said, this odd lull aside, the Falling and the disease had only been the beginning.
“To not attend,” Raphael said, his wing warm and strong under her body, his voice exquisitely familiar in the moonless dark, “would be seen as a sign of distrust in Illium, Aodhan, and the squadrons that guard the Tower.”
Comforted by the steady beat of his heart, she drew lazy designs on the muscled heat of his chest. “Will that matter if the city is attacked by frothing-at-the-mouth reborn while we’re eating bonbons in Amanat?”
“You have such a vivid way of putting things, hbeebti.” His fingers stroking the sensitive inner edges of her wings, the act an absent one that made her deeply happy in a way she didn’t consciously understand. “But no hordes will descend upon the city during the span of the ball.”
Stretching out her wings in a silent request, she sighed as he stroked outward. “You sound confident.”
“The one behind these attacks is no doubt Cadre. No other angel could’ve gained such abilities even in the Cascade.”
Elena nodded, having seen Jessamy’s research on the results of the last Cascade. Any information was fragmented at best, but the historian had been able to tentatively confirm Caliane’s recollection that it was only the archangels who’d been fundamentally altered. “I get your point,” she said. “Whoever it is, is caught in the same trap.”
Raphael moved her hair aside to massage her nape, his other hand folded behind his head. “He or she must attend the ball or it’ll not only be an insult to the sole Ancient awake in the world, but a sign the archangel in question does not trust those he would’ve otherwise left in charge. Then there is the other factor.”
“Wait, don’t tell me.” Bones having melted as a result of the way he was touching her, she revved up her brain and struggled up onto her elbow so she could see his expression as she tested her understanding of how archangels saw the world. “It would be considered extremely bad manners,” she said in the frigid tones of some of the stiffer old angels, “to attack a city while its archangel was at a ball thrown by an Ancient. Why, really, you might as well have been brought up by mortals, if you’re going to act that way.”
“Absurd, is it not?” Laugher in the intoxicating blue, his hand a possessive weight on her lower back. “Yet those rules of Guesthood are part of what keeps the world stable. Any archangel so ill-mannered as to step outside them in such an unspeakable fashion would find themselves ostracized. Eternity is a long time to be friendless.”
“Put that way,” Elena said, leaning down to steal a kiss just because she could, “it’s not absurd but totally rational. How else would anyone ever have a party, with the way certain archangels are always trying to backstab others.”
A smile curving his mouth, her archangel nodded. “Even Lijuan couldn’t bear such a shunning. She might be able to compel obedience through brute force, but she’d lose the respect that is as much her lifeblood as power.” Fingers idly caressing the lower curves of her body. “Can you guess the true irony of this particular situation?”
Screwing up her face, she was about to say no when it hit. Laughing so hard she had to wait until she could catch her breath enough to shape words, she said, “Lijuan isn’t invited”—not after trying to murder Caliane and her son—“but she’s such a stickler for the old ways, the others know they’ll have her on their ass if they break the rules.”
“Exactly.”
“I wonder if there’s an Angelic Etiquette handbook some—” Breaking off, she touched her fingers to Raphael’s right temple.
“What is it?” Incisive intelligence in his gaze.
“Wait.” She switched on the lamps that bathed the top half of the bed in a gentle light. Leaning back down, she went close to Raphael’s face, rubbed her thumb over the spot, his hair brushing against her fingertips. “There’s something on your skin.” Unable to let it go, she got out of bed to grab a wet facecloth.
Raphael was in the bathroom doorway when she turned from the sink. Asking him to bend down so she could wipe at the tiny speck, she tried twice, the second time with a dab of soap on the cloth in case he’d somehow been touched by the tip of a permanent black marker . . . except even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew she would’ve noticed it earlier.
The speck hadn’t been there before, and now—“It’s not coming off.” Her voice sounded even, despite the horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Shifting into the bathroom, Raphael examined his face in the mirror. Elena came up beside him, wanting to believe it had been a trick of the light. It hadn’t. So tiny, the speck would go unnoticed by most, but it shouldn’t be there. “Maybe it’s an insect bite,” she began, trying not to think about dead vampires and disease.
“No, we heal too fast for a bite to have any impact.” Expression grim, he turned to her. “Can you see it now?”