The laugh hadn't quite died in his throat when the atmosphere in the chapel shifted.
It wasn't sound that warned him, but pressure—a tug at the back of his ribs, like the air was folding in on itself as something divine pierced the veil.
He froze.
Each flicker of a candle bent straight upward and laterally frozen as if time held its breath.
"Cael?" Elara's voice was soft.
He said nothing. His wings twisted out, feathers humming with tension. He knew it—grace was coming, sharp and cold as winter light.
"Someone's found us," he whispered.
The following heartbeat snapped the silence. A streak of white fire sliced through the far wall of the chapel, sending stone and glass flying. The explosion revealed a smoking circle of marble where once an angel had stood—halo dulled, armor gleaming like the sun.
Cael took a step out in front of Elara before the dust could settle. The other angel's face focused—familiar, perfect, ruthless.
"Seraphine," he breathed.
She glanced at him, her expression impassive. "You've gone too far this time."
Cael's fingers clenched around nothing; he didn't dare bring power here. "I told you before, stay clear of my exile."
"You broke it yourself," her voice was like steel drawn from a sheath. "Heaven bled to the beat of her rousing. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Elara moved up behind him. He could hear her faster breathing, could sense the shudder that rattled her.
"She doesn't know," Cael said. "She has fragments of memory, that's all."
Seraphine tilted her head, her gaze softening so subtly as it landed on Elara. "Then mercy is the first that I have found. Others won't stop to ask."
That made him move. His wings unfurled, casting light and dark through the wound in the pews. "If you touch her—"
"You'll what?" she interrupted. "Fall again? There's nothing left of you to lose."
The words were like razor-sharp tips. For a split second, the chapel was completely silent aside from the sound of rain gradually falling once again through the ceiling that was open here.
Elara appeared from behind him. "Why are you doing this? What does Heaven want from me?"
Seraphine's eyes rested on her face, then the faint threads of gold that still shimmered just beneath her skin. "Heaven doesn't want. It's right. You're a reverberation that should never have been."
Cael's voice was soft. "She does exist. And so long as she does, I'll keep her safe."
The other angel's eyes softened just enough to be recognizable—pity, perhaps. "You always were too human for your own good."
Light started to swell about her, the harbinger of leaving or reckoning. Cael didn't wait to see which. He took hold of Elara's hand and led her to the back of the chapel.
"Run," he hissed.
They went as the initial shaft of divine light streaked through the air over their shoulders, changing stone to ash.