Page 68 of Lost Feather
If Mikhail saw that, he would be so pissed. When I’d asked about them, he’d explained that the Novices at this point were more like seeds than Protectors, and were super vulnerable. Each one had a little bit of pure soul material in it, but in their first life on Earth, they were born like normal humans. They lived that life—usually cut short, though not always—to learn how to navigate the earthly realm, and to develop sympathy and connection to their future charges.
After that first mission, though, most Protectors were inserted into communities or families that needed more short-term help, and would return to Sanctuary each time their job was done. So the four balls of light were like sleeping angel babies, waiting to be born for the very first time.
And now my glitter had contaminated them. I did not want Growly to see this.
I grabbed a pair of tweezers off a table, and tried to pick the little turquoise and pink flakes off as carefully as possible. The balls felt the tiniest bit soft, like boba or stress balls or something. My fingers itched to feel them—but Mikhail had told me never to touch anything on his work table with my bare hands.
I worked for a half hour, humming as I did. The song in my head was one Rumple had sung to me a lot—especially when the pain had been really bad between lives, while I was learning to carry the new weight around. For some reason, this song had always made me feel stronger, and more… competent, though the lyrics were in some language I’d never heard. The tune was super catchy, though.
I was almost done cleaning the Novice globes, but one final piece of glitter would not come off, and just moved around as I tweezed. “This is a lot harder than plucking eyebrows,” I whispered. “Okay, come on. Work with me here.” I set down the tweezers and licked the tip of my cleanest finger. “You can’t stay on the nice clean soul, okay, little glitter? I’ll put you in the box with all your friends.” I dabbed it once. “You perfectly shiny—” Then once more. “Lovely—”Ugh, it wasn’t coming off!“Come on, stubborn glitter baby!” I licked my fingertip again and dabbed it a tiny bit harder, moving my finger in a quick flicking motion. “Gotcha, you little devil!” With the last rub, I felt the material of the soul bend a tiny bit, but the glitter came away. “My precious!” I cackled, holding the glitter overhead in a perfect imitation of Gollum in Mount Doom. Minus the falling.
“What are you doing?”
Gavriel’s voice shook the entire room, and the speck of glitter fell off my finger and back onto the sphere.Crapola! Where did he come from?I shoved my hands behind my back and scooted away from the table. “Cleaning?” I squeaked. “I have to come here every day to cut off my soul smut. Mikhail said it’s not safe to do it anywhere else.”
He stomped across the room, and I flinched instinctively when he loomed over me. His lips tightened, but he leaned back. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not going to hurt you, Novice.” I was about to thank him for making that clear, when he went on, “But I don’t care how inappropriate Mikhail has been with you, you call all High Angeli by their titles, not their names. Understood?” I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. Gavriel was in amoodtoday. “Get away from this table.”
I scurried off as commanded, watching as he pulled back a small tapestry that hung on the wall. Weird. How had I not noticed that before? Behind it was a golden porthole-looking thing that led to a gleaming, golden tunnel. Not big enough for Gavriel, or even Sunny. I could probably squeeze through, I thought. A strange feeling—like I was being drawn to the space he’d uncovered, pulledthroughthe gap—had my feet almost slipping across the floor. I grabbed hold of the edge of the table, watching as Gavriel gently—almost reverently—picked up the tray of souls and angled it up, sliding all four of the balls out the hole.
“What are you doing?” I gasped. “Did you just throw those away?”
“Of course not,” he growled. “That cohort was ready to go to Earth. Mikhail would have sent them himself, but he is on a mission.”
“A mission?” I parroted. Gavriel turned, his expression as heavy as a thousand thunderclouds. “I just meant, I didn’t know he went on missions all that often. He told me… Anyway.” I decided to stop talking. Gavriel’s face was turning a very peculiar shade. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to question you, High Angelus.”
“So you do know the difference in our stations.” The glance he gave me was turbulent as he turned and walked toward the main exit. When he got to it, and realized it was still locked, he went scarily still. “How did you get in?”
I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “Mikhail’s way? I mean, Maker Mikhail. You don’t have a key?”
“The main lock only responds to the Maker’s hand.” He moved swiftly toward the hidden entrance to the tunnel.
“How long will Mik— High Angelus Mikhail be gone?” I asked, feeling sick. Missions could last years. Decades. “Why didn’t he say goodbye?”
“He didn’t have time,” Gavriel said stiffly, standing beside the small door. “He’ll be gone as long as it takes to remember who he is. What we are.” He sniffed. “I still can’t understand it. Why he would…” He clenched his jaw, cutting himself off, and began to step into the dark, narrow corridor.
“You sent him away,” I called out, stopping him. “He didn’t want to go, did he?”
Gavriel didn’t turn to answer, but his great golden wings rustled with tension. Anger. “I sent him away to gain some perspective. I don’t know what you did to… seduce my best friend. We need him here more than ever. But you are his weakness. I don’t know what you are, or who you are, but I will find out if you are deceiving us. And if you are working against the balance, against Sanctuary, I will unmake you, even if it hurts Mikhail for me to do so.”
“But I wouldn’t hurt him, or anyone. I’m not strong enough to, anyway,” I said, my heart shattering inside me as he vanished. “I’m nothing.” The naming chime hummed softly next to me, and I picked it up, holding it to my chest as I worried and wept.
CHAPTER27
Feather
Tears were useful when it came to carving away smut. I’d only worked for a few hours when I rubbed the cloth over my face, and was shocked to find my skin was smooth. I picked up the small hand mirror Mikhail had given me to use when I had to carve at parts I couldn’t easily see, and sighed. My eyes were swollen from crying, but they were green and pretty. My eyelashes were long and a darker shade of silver than my hair, almost pewter. My nose was small and straight, and my lips puffier than I’d expected. My cheeks had an interesting shimmer on them, like expensive makeup, and I admired it for a minute before getting back to work. My arms were not as filthy as the rest of me, so I concentrated on my lower back.
I tried to cheer myself up by thinking about Mikhail’s kiss. I missed him in a way that seemed ridiculous, given how little time we’d had together—well, when I wasn’t in agony.
But that moment, when his lips had met mine, had ignited a raging furnace of need deep inside. And an unquenchable thirst to know him better as well, to find out how many secrets an angel that old might have. To unravel them one by one and learn every little thing about my big Growly.
I tried to shake my funk. He would come back from Earth soon; he hadn’t wanted to go, and he was older than Gavriel. He’d figure out a way to get back here, and I wanted to be ready when he did. I wanted to be clean for that. “I’m not his weakness,” I muttered as I scraped away a particularly thick clump of smut from the base of my spine. “And I didn’t seduce him. How could I? I look like I live in a mud bath.” Not that Mikhail had cared. I lifted a hand to my lips, still feeling the kiss, days later.
While he hadn’t seemed to mind kissing me while I was dirty, I had a feeling—if what Sunny had said was true about the possibility of merging in different ways—he’d prefer the extra padding under my toga to be gone if and when we got around to that. She’d finally admitted that merging was sex, but when Sanctuary inhabitants did it, it wasn’t just body parts touching. It was souls.
“That’s why you can’t do anything like that with Mikhail, Feather. Or even with a higher-level Protector like Righteous. Their soul light would burn you—literally, might burn you out. Unmake you.” She held onto both my hands, like she could press the importance of her warning into my flesh. “You’re risking your life if you do it.”
“Isn’t there some way?” I fought not to squirm away. What I wanted was obviously very much taboo.
