That she has a will of iron, that she loves Jason with all her heart—and that there is far more to her than either one of us will ever know, she said as he turned his attention back to Jason. Nothing strange about that. Only you know all the pieces of me.
As Elena knew him, he thought as he and Jason came to a halt on the cliff above the Hudson. So many discussions he’d had with his spymaster on this very spot—Jason didn’t like being confined when he could be under the sky. “The princess,” he said, “has sanctuary here as long as she needs it.”
“Thank you, Sire, but I think she can safely live in the wider world.” Jason settled his wings. “She’ll have to be careful, but I am of the belief that threats aside, Neha is too proud to break her word. As for Mahiya’s mother, it’s a relationship she alone can learn to navigate.”
Raphael agreed with Jason about Neha. The archangel wasn’t mercurial like Michaela—honor meant a great deal to her, her own something she guarded. “Does the princess have somewhere to go?”
“Yes.”
Raphael let the breeze brush his face, weave its fingers through his hair, and waited, knowing Jason had something else to say to him.
“Sire.” Jason continued to look outward, toward Manhattan, his tone calm. “I release you from your promise.”
Raphael had lived a millennium and a half, had memories strong and weak. He remembered the exact day each of his Seven had sworn fealty—Jason had been so young, and yet there had been a contained strength to him that had spoken to Raphael. He had known the boy would become a man of tempered steel. And he had known that steel had a fatal flaw.
“I ask only one promise for my service.” Words Jason had said, his skin smooth and bare of the markings that would begin to appear in another decade. “I was not . . . formed correctly. Part of me is damaged and may one day shatter. When it does, I ask that you execute me cleanly rather than allow me to erode from the inside out.”
Raphael had never asked Jason about his past, but he had put the pieces together, understood that his spymaster had survived a childhood that would’ve left many too broken to function, and that he had scars that might never fade. Scars . . . and fractures. So he’d made that promise, and he had hoped never to keep it.
Now, a cool wind kissed his skin, his blood, the weight of the promise lifting from his shoulders. “I am glad of it, Jason.”
He continued to look out over the water, and just when Raphael thought Jason might speak again, he gave a near imperceptible shake of his head and kept his silence. Raphael didn’t know if Jason had found peace of a kind at last, or whether that peace was only a glimmer on the horizon, but he hoped the black-winged angel would never again have cause to seek such a promise from him.
For even an archangel could mourn.
* * *
Mahiya was in Elena’s greenhouse, gazing in wonder at the lush yellow flowers of a plant with wide leaves of spring green, when the door opened. She didn’t need to turn to know who stood in the doorway—her very skin seemed to sigh at his presence, her need for him a pulse deep within, for he had not touched her since before the battle. “I think this is my favorite place in all of this land I have yet seen.” Everything bloomed with life here, and there were no hidden aspects, no subtle politics.
“You can have a garden now if you wish.”
Her smile burst out of her. “Yes, I can, can’t I?” It was a wonderful thought, and one she’d put into practice as soon as she found a place to call home. Is your offer of a loan still open? Though he’d been physically remote, she hadn’t lost hope, for never once had he shut her out of his mind since the day he’d allowed her in.
Of course. “I have a house that may suit you until you decide otherwise,” he added on the heels of the mental confirmation.
Turning, she leaned her back against the bench that held the pot with the yellow flowers, the plant waiting to be transplanted into the larger pot beside it. Jason stood just inside the doorway, his wings caressed by the curling green of a vine that poured from a hanging basket. He should’ve looked too hard, too dark for this place, but somehow, he fit.
Wild, she thought, he is as wild a thing as these plants. They were only temporarily tamed by the greenhouse—left on their own, they would sprawl and spread until the glass walls were a sea of green. Jason, too, was only tame when he wished to be, a storm held fiercely in check.
“Is the house vacant?” she asked this compelling mystery of a man who had once sworn a blood vow to her. No . . . wait. “Jason, who releases the blood vow?” His task had been for Neha, but it was Mahiya’s blood through which the vow had been made.
He went so motionless, she could almost believe he was not there. “The party to whom it is made.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. Then I release you.” She didn’t want him tied to her by a forced bond of any kind. “Is that all I need to say to do so?”
“Yes.” His stillness didn’t abate. “Caretakers alone live on the property,” he said, answering her earlier question. “Trusted vampires recommended to me by Dmitri—they would be glad to see the house come alive again. They prefer to make their home in a separate building, but it’s mere seconds away on foot.”
“The property, is it nearby?” The gleaming city across from the Enclave wasn’t right for her, but she didn’t want to be so far from it that she couldn’t nurture the fledgling friendships she’d made—with Elena, with a vampire named Miri who worked in the Tower, but who had been at the Angel Enclave house several times this past week. For a woman who had never been free to have friends, these were cherished gifts.