Putting the ring on my finger, I vanished, reappearing seconds later in a large, round windowless room. This was only the second time I’d been here—wherever in the world this was—but nothing had changed. The center section was taken up by five square smooth pillars, each about waist-height. Three of them glowed softly, one was actively dark, and the final column had no particular lighting effect.
One section of the curved walls was covered with custom-built shelving. The top shelves held a jumble of scrolls, the center section was lined with chunky leather volumes, and the lower ones contained more modern Moleskines and journals. The furnishings were a mishmash of periods: an antique desk with a hole for an ink pot, a modern rectangular cherrywood table with two chairs pushed up against it, and two vintage high-back chairs with tufted sage green upholstery.
Rafael appeared less than a minute after I did, alerted to my presence somehow. Pale and always wearing an article of argyle, tweed, and/or a bowtie, Rafael gave off a very mild-mannered librarian impression on first glance. Deliberately so. There was nothing soft or beta about him.
“Greetings and salutations,” I said. “Love the bowtie. Who knew they came in plaid?”
“I had so hoped to be free of you before our scheduled joyous reunion.” His posh British accent grated.
I slammed the book down on the table. “Why didn’t you mention this?”
Rafael blinked owlishly behind his round glasses. “Sir Conan Doyle? I assumed he was known throughout the Commonwealth. There was a popular television adaptation of his works for those of you who you are illiterate.”
Stuff like this was exactly why I’d nicknamed him Evil Wanker.
I flipped the book open to the interior title page and tapped the printing. “This.”
Rafael elbowed me out of the way, frowning as he read it. “Did you take this from Gavriella’s apartment?”
“No. Some of her possessions were found at the home of a Weaver who was shot dead. As was her brother at a different location. He worked for Chariot and was likely the one who kidnapped Gavriella. I found this book in a stolen lockbox at the Weaver’s house, along with photos of a younger Gavriella, and her phone. No laptop though.”
“Her last one died about six months ago and she never got around to buying a new one. I think she recycled the old one,” he murmured, examining the book.
“What does the message mean?” I said, impatiently.
“You have no inkling what this means, and yet you’re so agitated about it.” He handed the book back to me. “Why?”
“This copy was my dad’s.”
Rafael did a double take. “You’re positive?”
I gave a bitter laugh and showed him the sunflower drawing. “Seeing as I drew this? Yeah.”
“Do you recall me mentioning a longer conversation about the Jezebel history in your future? I believe it’s time for us to have it.” He grasped my elbow and tugged me into the space in the middle of the five pillars.
“Ouch. Watch it,” I said, limping.
“Sorry. Do I want to know how you injured yourself?”
“Probably not.”
The way he positioned me so precisely felt like I was being prepared for a sacrifice, perhaps by death rays that would shoot out of the columns.
Rafael pushed his glasses up his nose and walked clockwise around the pillars, touching his palm to the top of the three that were illuminated. The pillars lowered into the ground in a twisting motion, leaving three brittle scrolls on yellowed papyrus hovering where the columns had been. Each one was small but thick and bathed in golden light.
I sucked in a breath at the scent of a hot sandstorm from an ancient magic that flooded my senses. My mouth watered and I reached for the closest one, stopping short and pressing my fist into my stomach. Raw flayed pain twisted through my muscles at the strain of denying myself a taste.
“It’s the same magic as the angel feather.” I knocked Rafael to the ground.
“What in good heavens are you doing?”
We tussled, but I was stronger and I pinned him down. The magic that rolled off these items was weaker than that on the feather had been, but my body still throbbed in yearning, the pain in my ankle relegated to a very distant second.
“Saving you, asshole,” I said. “So you don’t become compelled.” The angel feather’s magic was so powerful that one person had died because of it and others had been brought close to ruin.
Comprehension dawned on Rafael’s face. “Ah. You refer to the feather. No, Ashira, while these scrolls are angel-made, they are not of an angel themselves. I’m unable to sense their magic. Their pieces hold no allure, though their contents are the reason you Jezebels exist.”
He was wrong. I was affected. The siren song urging me to dive into that magic was a rushing in my ears that almost drowned out his words.
I got up, drawn to the scrolls like a moth to the flame.
But my will won out and I hobbled away from the pillars, straddling a chair backwards. I gripped the top like a shield. A crack appeared in the wood and I loosened my hold a fraction. “What are they?”
“Three-fifths of the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh. A mystic text written by the archangel Raziel with all kinds of secret wisdom.” He paused. “Including how to bring angel magic into our world.”
Hysterical laughter got stuck in my throat. My organs were being knotted in spasmic longing over a how-to guide? “That’s how the original ten men of Chariot did it? They followed some instruction manual?”
“Essentially. Merkavah, the Hebrew name for Chariot as you know them, determined the Sefer was their ticket to holiness.”
I blotted the sweat beading on the back of my neck with my sleeve. “We’ve been taught that they were trying to achieve Yechida, the fifth and highest level of the soul in Kabbalah. The one that allowed them to commune with the divine, but that wasn’t it. They wanted angel magic to achieve immortality. Become gods on Earth, right?
