CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I got us both hot teas from the break room and then we sat down across a table in one of the empty interrogation rooms. She took a sip out of one of the few plain mugs I was able to find. She held the mug with her hands curled around it, fingers through the handle as if it wasn’t there.

She lowered the mug and smiled. “You remembered how I liked my tea.”

I smiled back. “Of course I did, I could probably order food for you at almost any restaurant, unless your taste buds have changed completely in the last twelve years.”

“You were always good when it came time for kitchen rotation,” she said.

“You weren’t bad at it either.”

“You were the better cook,” she said.

“I was; do you remember the time that Levanael set the kitchen on fire? They wouldn’t let him cook after that.” I laughed, but she didn’t.

“That is not his name,” she said.

I suddenly didn’t feel like laughing either. “I know they stripped him of his angel name when they cast him out. He goes by his birth name of Jamie now.”

“It is forbidden to speak to anyone who was cast out,” she said.

“I am no longer of the College; I don’t have to abide by their rules.”

“So you see the exiles?”

“Exiles, no, not exiles, just Jamie. How many other exiles are there?” I asked.

She looked down into her mug. “Enough.”

I would have pushed about that one-word answer, but there were other things I wanted to know more, and I knew that her time here was limited. She would have to be back inside the walls before dark unless she had special permission.

“Why are you here, Suriel?”

“To help you and your coworkers,” she said, and she raised her bright blue eyes to me; her delicate face was unreadable, and that let me know she was lying or at least not telling the whole truth.

“You have a silver badge that marks you as third in line of all the Infernalists at the College, Suriel. Someone that senior would not have been sent out alone like this for anything. They would have sent at least one of the College Sentinels to be your bodyguard.”

“I have enough authority to come out alone, and enough power to protect myself, but I am expected back soon.”

“How soon?” I said.

“They do not like us out much after dark,” she said.

“Why did you use your authority to come here alone?”

“I heard that it was a police matter, and then I heard your name, Zaniel, and I had to come and see if . . .” She took another drink of tea, as if the sentence was done.

“If what?” I asked.

“If the angels still spoke to you, if they still answered your call, and they do.”

“I did not fail my training, Suriel.”

“When you left the College, Zaniel, we all thought you would be back. We all believed you would find the outer world corrupt and come back to us. When you did not return, the elder teachers told us that you must have been flawed all along and that the angels no longer spoke to you for fear your flaw would spread to them.”

I stared into my tea mug but didn’t want it anymore. “I was flawed, am flawed, and I didn’t use my magical gifts until other lives would have been lost; only then did I risk reaching out to the angels again.”

“And when you called, they answered just as they always had,” she said, her voice soft.

“Yes,” I said, and looked up to meet her eyes. They were staring at me like two blue diamonds of righteous intensity. Suriel never looked away, never flinched, but there was a tiredness in her eyes now that might have been more. Was that doubt in her clear blue gaze for once? Of course, she doubted me, how could she not, how could I not?

“What happened at the College was not your fault, Zaniel,” she said.

“You thought it was at the time; in fact, you were shocked and disappointed in me, you said so.”

“I didn’t know the full details then,” she said, but she looked down as she said it, which wasn’t like her, or hadn’t been like her years ago. Did I really know her now, or she me? How much had the years changed us? She felt so familiar to me, but in a way we were strangers; just thinking that made my chest ache as if there was more than one way to have a broken heart.

Charleston came into the room looking larger than normal with Suriel in the foreground. “Havoc, there’s an escort here from the College of Angels.”

I had one wild second of thinking they’d come for me, but the next thought was they had no power over me anymore, and I knew why they were here before Suriel said, “They’ve come to escort me home.”

“That’s what they said, but they look a lot more”—and Charleston seemed to search a long time for the right word before saying—“athletic than the normal Angel Speaker.”

“They are Sentinels; they do not travel openly outside the College often,” she said, and then she stood.

“What do you mean, openly?” I asked.

She shook her head as if she didn’t want to have the conversation in front of Charleston. I stood up and asked, “Can you give us a few more minutes alone, please, Lieutenant?”

He nodded. “I’ll keep them busy as long as I can, but talk fast, they don’t seem very patient.”

“Give me five minutes,” I said.

He just nodded and left us, but he looked back once, and I knew he’d ask me later. He was my boss; he had the right.

“We’re alone, now what did you mean about the Sentinels not going openly into the outside world?”

She came to stand beside me and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I have seen Sentinels dressed like outsiders leaving the College. I am told they are checking on some of the failed Angel Speakers, but when I asked why that would be necessary, the answers I was given were not satisfactory.”

“How long have the Sentinels been going outside like that?”

“Not long, or not long that I have seen.”

“Why do you think they’re going out?”

She shook her head. “I am not certain. I have suspicions, but only that.”

“Tell me.”

“It is my home, Zaniel, the only one I remember. I will not betray it to someone whose loyalties lie elsewhere. I saw the look between you and your lieutenant; I know you will be duty bound to report what I say, so I will say very little.”

“I wish I could tell you that your secrets are safe with me, but the Sentinels are dangerous, Suriel; they should not be roaming outside, they are meant to protect what is inside.”

“That is why I am telling you this much, because you are a policeman, and it is your job to keep safe what is out here from anyone that would cause harm—anyone, Zaniel.” She grabbed my arm tight, as if she was trying to tell me more with the touch than just her words. I stared into her eyes, trying to understand, and then I realized she was afraid. Suriel had been fearless once, but she wasn’t now.

“Suriel,” I said, and I was going to ask what was wrong, but I heard Charleston’s raised voice outside say, “We are not holding Master Suriel against her will, she came out to help us with a demon problem.”

I heard that deep purring voice and knew who it was: Harshiel, of course it would be him. “Show her to us and we will believe you.”

“We don’t hold innocent people against their will,” Charleston said.

“We understand that, Lieutenant Charleston,” said a second, much less aggressive male voice. Turmiel was here to soothe and balance Harshiel’s usual belligerence. His nickname at the College was Harsh, and he’d never outgrown it.

“I demand to see Suriel,” Harshiel said; his deep voice sounded like a musical growl. He sang bass in the choir at the College, as Jamie and I had sung tenor, though none of us had been true Angeli Cantor, Angel Singers. That was one of the rarest gifts of voice among us; no one from our year had been so blessed.

“You don’t get to demand anything here,” Charleston said, and if his voice wasn’t as deep or as musical as Harshiel’s it had the ring of authority that the Sentinel’s lacked.

“Standing in my way would be a mistake, Lieutenant.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Turmiel’s voice. “No, we would never do anything so disrespectful and so against the orders we were given.” There was a note of warning in the last words, and it wasn’t aimed at Charleston.

Suriel let go of my arm and started to walk toward the doorway, but I caught her arm, turning her back to look at me. She let me draw her back toward me so I could whisper, “What are you afraid of, Surrie?”

She smiled at the nickname, I think. “That what I have devoted my life to has been corrupted.”

“What does that mean, Surrie?” I whispered.

Turmiel yelled, “Harshiel, no!”

We were moving toward the doorway together; Suriel called out, “Harshiel, don’t you dare do anything rash. I am coming.” She sounded like a scolding teacher to a pupil. The Harshiel I knew wouldn’t take that from her, or anyone that he didn’t see as superior to him, which meant almost no one. I felt magic breathe along my skin and prepared to fight.