The Soul Sisterhood would spit in the face of the seraphim, but I didn’t have that luxury. It was impossible to deny that I could be one of them. But I was also bound to Azrael. I couldn’t just give and take lives the way they seemed ready to do. I would have to give something back. A reckless notion sparked in my mind.
My lord, I whispered in my thoughts, barely even comprehending what I was about to suggest. I understood right then that I was scrambling to find balance.
Your death wouldn’t repay the debt, Azrael chided. You understand the severity of the choice you made? The spasm of pain in my chest was his answer. Then there might be hope for your race yet, Alessia.
I took a shuddering breath as his presence evaporated. Unlike Raphael, a few brief moments in Azrael’s company were more than enough to bring the message home. Raphael was life. Azrael was his opposite. I had to wonder if that was why Kai and I butted heads. Speaking of the devil, he pushed through the door as I turned and balanced myself on an elbow. He took one look at my tear-splotched face and his expression turned hard.
“What have you been saying to her?” he shot at Basil.
Once upon a time, Kai would have had to bend his neck to look Basil in his permanently set plastic eyes. Now, Basil uncurled from the armchair. They stood almost head to head.
“I haven’t been saying anything.” Basil moved so that he blocked me from Kai’s eyeline. “She’s resting at the moment. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here.” There was a beat of tense silence before Kai snorted.
“Yeah right,” he said. “Just because you’ve got a new body, it doesn’t mean you get to run her life.”
“I’m her guardian.”
I sputtered. “Ah, I don’t know about that.”
I bit my tongue when Basil turned, his face contorting into a pained expression. He ploughed on, nonetheless. “I most certainly am,” he said. “Whether or not I have a physical body is beside the point.”
“Except it isn’t. We still don’t understand the real effects of what happened to you. There’s no telling if there’s an echo of Skander’s insanity in you.”
When Basil continued to block his way, Kai teleported so that he landed right beside me. In one smooth motion, he swept me up against him with one arm. In his doll days, Basil’s scandalised expression was nothing more than a downward tug of his sewn-on brows. Now thin lines bracketed his lips as his mouth pinched. His hands clenched.
If I didn’t do something, they would devolve into a fist fight. “That’s enough. I’m too wiped for this right now. Can you both leave?”
The plethora of emotions that slipped across their faces would have been funny if Kai didn’t have me in what could only be described as a death grip. I winced. He let go but remained rooted to the spot. “Oh, just get out of here.” I shoved at his hip. He raised a brow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have a white Christmas to plan? I haven’t had a Christmas present in six years.”
The edge of Kai’s mouth lifted. His gaze became inscrutable. I didn’t think I had the strength to blush, but I was wrong. The Fae lights flickered. Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught the faintest orange glow flash across Basil’s fingertips before he extinguished it. If Kai were fully human, he might not have noticed. But he wasn’t. His Nephilim senses alerted him to the flare of high magic.
“You’ve got your powers back.” The edge to his voice was unmistakable.
“So it would seem.”
“You didn’t say anything about that yesterday.”
“I think we were all a little busy to worry about that, don’t you?”
“That’s not up to you to decide.” Kai took a menacing step towards Basil. It was more than freaky to watch Skander’s face smirk in return.
I was going to tear my hair out. “Both of you, out!”
“There’s something private I need to talk to you about first,” Basil protested.
Kai planted his feet. Now there was no way he was leaving. Basil should have known better. After the way Kai had grilled us when Basil had first been discovered, Basil must have known Kai would latch on to this shred of information.
“You’ve got your memory back too, don’t you?” Kai said.
But Basil wasn’t paying him any attention. Instead, my doll turned former serial killer pinned me with his gaze. He rubbed the back of his neck. That small gesture was so Basil-like that the tightness in my chest unlocked a fraction. Though I wouldn’t outwardly give in to paranoia the same way Kai did, there was a part of me that had been holding my breath waiting for Skander to emerge.
“It’s still a little hazy,” Basil said. He dropped back down to the armchair. Pressing the pad of his pointer finger to his temple, Basil massaged the spot. He continued to do so as he spoke, as though the gesture was a security blanket. “I know the reason why your great-grandmother cursed me,” he said. Kai’s hand wrapped around mine. I hadn’t noticed him reaching for me, but now I was glad he hadn’t gone. Basil’s own hand fisted. “I was hired by somebody to murder your mother.” It was the last thing I had expected. My whole body seized up. Basil leaped into
