Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
To Elena’s enormous pride, it had been Sam who’d helped found the Refuge’s first such establishment: the Refuge Tavern. It had come out of his love of New York’s wide array of neighborhoods within neighborhoods, all with their own thriving restaurant and bar scene.
He’d roped in three year-mates who were based at the Refuge.
The tavern’s first customers had been friends and family, there to be supportive of what they saw as the “younglings’ strange venture,” but word had spread—especially among the younger cohort in the Refuge—until the place was overrun.
Today, Elena, Raphael, Hannah, and Elijah sat in a corner booth of the tavern. Their conversation had nothing to do with being archangels and consorts, and everything to do with being the parents of smart and energetic little children.
What a life I’m living, Elena thought. Maman, you’d be proud of me. And you’d love Nixie.
A whisper of gardenias in the air, the ghostly kiss of a mother long gone.
At peace with the loss now, able to think of all the good times she’d had with her family, Elena leaned into her archangel when he put his arm around her, and she laughed at the story Hannah was telling about Aanisa’s attempt at a chocolate pie heist right from under the nose of the stronghold’s chef.
What a life…a beautiful life.
70
We are the repository of angelic history. Be that we could inscribe and contain millennia of priceless memories, but alas that is beyond us, so we must make choices—and I see that causes you as much anguish as it does me. I think, Andromeda, you have chosen the right path in your work.
—Jessamy to Andromeda (Once, when an Archivist was but an Apprentice)
Seven years on from the inexplicable ending of hostilities on Aegaeon’s part, the world remained at peace—if a bit bemused. Most people had no idea what had happened to the Archangel of the Deep to turn him from aggressive and enraged to pensive and inwardly focused.
Per Raphael, the Cadre still got the bluster and the arguing at meetings, but that some fundamental element had altered in the Ancient was obvious. No one could ignore that he’d stopped blowing up at Illium and actually listened instead of trying to talk over him.
One thing that Raphael had said about his conversation with Caliane at the time—about memory—lingered with Elena. “Do you think we’ll forget things?” The idea disturbed her. “I don’t want to forget all the people I loved as a mortal.”
“You won’t forget if you nurture those memories as you nurture your plants.” Fingers brushing down her cheek. “And you, my hunter, are the most stubborn being in all the universe—more stubborn than our child. If you want to remember, you will remember; of this I have no doubt.”
It was because of that conversation that Elena sat in her greenhouse on a floor that she’d seeded with grass soft and sweet, and began to speak her memories into a data crystal that would load those memories into the most secure storage system in the world—one accessible only to Elena and Raphael.
She’d asked her archangel not to listen, knew he’d honor her request—because he already knew her past. This was for herself, a speaking of memory to ensure that she’d never forget. An act she intended to do not once, but over her entire immortal lifetime, a new recording made each time she had a thought that linked back to the past.
Her first memory today was unexpected.
She’d thought to talk about her mother, Belle and Ari, and Jeffrey, going right back to the beginning of her history. But seated in this humid warmth surrounded by her plants, she found herself laughing as she spoke the story of the day Ransom had visited her here.
“He had his son in his arms. Hudson was only a few months old at the time—a happy baby who I teased Ransom already had his father’s charming smile. Turned out I was right. Kid was a heartbreaker when he grew up.”
Her own smile dug into her heart. “It was just the two of them. Nyree had an outing with girlfriends, so Ransom put his baby into a chest carrier and drove him over on his motorcycle. When I told him Nyree would lose her mind, he held up this baby-size helmet and said, ‘I drove like a fuc-er-freaking granny. The bean was having the time of his milk-high life.’ ”
Hudson, still in the chest carrier, had kicked his pudgy little legs, as if to confirm his father was telling the truth. He was a gorgeous baby with his father’s copper-gold skin and Irish green eyes.
“Also, who do you think bought the baby helmet?” Placing the tiny thing on Elena’s planting table, he’d looked around. “Nice setup. Demarco said I had to come see it, but I figured he only came to get brownie points with the tattoo artist. She likes plants, too.”