The air was torn open like a curtain around her. Light radiated from her skin, golden threads tracing the contours of her veins and creating patterns he hadn't beheld since the day Heaven scorched him out of its gates.
He should have stopped it.
He tried to.
Cael pressed his wings to his back, suppressing the urge to throw himself at her. Every inch of the chapel resonated with the same song — the song that used to ripple through the halls above, had once filled the halls above, that had called him a guardian, that had condemned him just as quickly for breaking that vow.
"Elara—"
His throat tightened at the utterance of her name. He had never said it like that before; it was too much like a prayer.
The light grew stronger. Dust rose from the floor, coiling into soft whirls. She was at the heart of the circle, shivering, her eyes glassy with half-forgotten woe.
He stepped closer, despite himself. Every one of his gestures pulled a memory from him as well — the scent of jasmine and smoke, the ring of laughter across a globe that had collapsed.
Liora.
He watched her fall again — not this body, not this time, but the first. Saw the blood on the marble, the moment his grace was ripped out of him in a shatter that broken the firmament.
Cael pressed his palms to his eyes. The memory clawed at him.
He had promised himself he would never allow it to show again, but she was all her tattered pieces and then some.
When he lifted his head, she was looking at him, now scared. The light was dimming and she was a human once more — tiny, trembling, living.
"Were you just talking?" she whispered.
He swallowed. "An error perpetuating itself."
She moved forward hesitantly toward him. "You said you wanted to keep me safe."
"From Heaven, yes. Not from remembering. Remembering is much crueler."
The words hung between them. It was obvious to him that she didn't know, not yet. But she would. The pattern always found its way.
Cael turned away, toward the broken altar. The chill of the stone beneath his palms anchored him.
If she continued to remember, the Host would detect it. And when they do, the reckoning will take her — and hold them both.
He closed his eyes, steadying his voice.
"We can't stay here. The city will wake soon."
"Then where?" she asked quietly.
"In some hidden-away place. I'm like me."
He did not see her face, only felt the slight warmth when she pressed a hand to his wing — hesitant, defiant. The feathers twitched, pain mixed with almost a sense of relief.
Cael exhaled. "Don't touch me when I'm trying to forget."
"Maybe you're not supposed to forget," she murmured. For the first time in a long time, he laughed — a soft, empty, lovely laugh.
"That's what got us damned the first time."
The laugh was not yet out of his throat when the air shifted in the chapel. Rather than sound, he felt pressure—an urge pulling at his rib cage from the inside, the way the air bends when something divine rips through the veil.
He froze. Every flame on every candle had shot straight up, then held still, as if time had taken its own breath.
"Cael?" Elara's voice was soft. He didn't reply. His wings opened just a little, the feathers vibrating with tension. He could feel it—grace coming, as bright and icy as winter light.
"Somebody has found us," he whispered.
The next heartbeat cracked the silence. A shaft of white hot fire sliced down through the back wall of the chapel, tearing a semicircle around the doorway with fragments of stone and glass. The blast created a circle of smoking marble where an angel had been – halo dimmed, armor shining like morning.
Before the dust settled Cael pushed in front of Elara. The other angel's features solidified – familiar, perfect, merciless.
"Seraphine," he breathed. His eyes ran over him his expression unreadable. "You've gone too far this time."
Cael's fingers closed around nothing; he dared not draw power here. "I told you before—stay out of my exile."
"Hey, you broke it yourself," she said, voice like steel drawn from a sheath. "Heaven felt the pulse of her awakening. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Behind him, Elara shifted. He could hear her from miles away, the tremulousness in her breath, and soon as he closed in on her, he knew – the tremor passed through her.
"She doesn't know," Cael said. "They just remember bits and pieces, that's all."
Seraphine tilted her head, her gaze softening almost unnoticeably as it landed on Elara. "Then it is mercy that I have found first. Others won't stop and ask."
That made him turn. His wings stretched wide, casting beams and shadows among the shattered pews. "If you touch her—"
"You'll what?" she interrupted. "Fall down again? There's nothing left of you to lose."
The words found placement, as keen as blades. For a breath, the chapel was completely silent except for the sound of rain starting to fall once more through the gaping roof.
Elara moved from behind him. "Why are you doing this? What is it that Heaven wants from me?"
Seraphine's gaze rested between her eyes and then over the slight remnants of the gold which still flickered within her skin. "Heaven does not want. It amends. You're an echo that shouldn't be."
Cael's voice was quiet. "She does exist. "I will protect her, for as long as she exists – and as long as she exists, you will not lay one finger on her – you hear me?" ("But she does exist…" The stranger smiled, but there was a shadow behind it. "And so long as she does, I'll protect her.")