The Wondrous and the Wicked (33 page)

She felt a hand touch her shoulder. Nolan again whispered in her ear, but not with a sarcastic remark.

“Come with me.”

How does a moth resist a flame? Gabby stole a glance at Mama and Constantine on the sofa, whispering in conversation as other chatter built within the library. Gabby followed Nolan as he weaved his way toward the door and out of the room.

He didn’t take them very far—just across the hallway and into Constantine’s formal dining room. The long table had a crisp yellow linen runner topped with an enormous vase of hothouse flowers that looked freshly cut. Gabby wouldn’t put it past the old man to have a hothouse on his property somewhere. The world was going to pieces and yet the French aristocracy still required fresh jonquils, lilies, and white roses.

She was shaking her head at the bouquet when she heard the door shut.

“Don’t pretend that you wouldn’t have done something equally stupid had I been the one tied up in your room,” she said, unable to turn and meet his eyes. She touched one silky petal of an over-bloomed rose.

“Had you been tied up in my room …,” Nolan began, and Gabby instantly regretted her choice of words. He surprised her, however. “I would have used my sword against anyone who stood between us.”

She peered over her shoulder. Nolan hadn’t shaved in days, and the new black scruff covering his chin, cheeks, and upper lip had a funny effect on Gabby’s stomach. She wanted to rub her hand along his cheek and then work her fingers through the waves of his hair.

“You see? Stupid,” she said.

A smile pulled on the corner of his mouth, but he fought it and stayed where he was, four chairs down the long table from her.

“I know you want to come with us when we use the net against Axia,” he said, visibly steeling his body for her reaction.

“Don’t start this again, Nolan.”

“What is it you’re trying to prove?” he asked.

“Nothing!” Gabby heard the transparency of her lie and
leaned against the table. Had she not been wearing a corset, she would have slumped. “It’s only … I know I can be useful. I don’t have special powers like my sister and brother, and maybe I won’t ever be as good with a sword as you are, but I
can
be useful.”

Nolan made his way to her side. He made no attempt to touch her. “For what it’s worth, I trust Rory when he says you’re a damn fine swordswoman for the amount of time you’ve been training. I’m not saying you’ll never be ready. I’m just saying you’re not ready right now.”

She was watching his legs and his dirt-smeared tall boots rather than looking him in the eye. He scuffed his feet closer to hers.

“And hell, lass, whoever said you had to be useful to be necessary?” He traced her jaw and, hooking his finger under her chin, guided her gaze up to meet his. “You’re necessary to me, Gabby.”

For some reason, those words left her more breathless than when he’d told her he loved her.

“Maybe I worry about you more than the others,” he conceded.

“I worry about you, too,” she said. “If they take you to Rome and put you in that … that
reformatory
or whatever it is they call it … Nolan, what will we do?”

He held both of her cheeks now, his thumb passing over her scars as if they were not even there. Even she had forgotten about them until then.

“Don’t worry about that yet,” he said. “I’m not. We still have the end of human civilization to focus on. And then next in line is keeping that angel blood out of Hathaway’s hands.”

His attempt at humor to lighten the moment didn’t hit its mark. Gabby shook her head, dislodging his hands.

“I don’t know if I want to be Alliance, not if it’s led by people who would order assassinations, or force gargoyles into submission, or use angel blood to make themselves powerful.”

Other than Nolan, Vander, Rory, and Chelle, she didn’t trust
the Alliance at all. She held more trust for Hugh Dupuis and his gargoyle, Carver, than she did for the Directorate.

“I know. They’re not what I thought, either,” Nolan admitted. “But the Alliance isn’t broken, Gabby, not yet. We can make it better. Together.”

She didn’t know what to say. Being together with Nolan sounded wonderful, though it was dampened by the idea of the Directorate being a kind of horrible extended family they would need to invite to holiday dinners.

Nolan stood so close she could feel the rise of his chest when he breathed.

“We haven’t been alone since your bedroom in London,” he said, bringing forward a rush of blush-inducing memories and images. He smiled when she squirmed against the table.

“We aren’t alone at all. There are at least twenty dangerous men across the hall, not to mention my mother and sister and a trio of very protective gargoyles.”

“Don’t try to dissuade me from kissing you, Lady Gabriella Waverly.”

“Fine. I give up.”

“It’s your resolve that really won me over, you know,” Nolan said, shushing her ready reply with the hard press of his mouth.

The fact that they were in Constantine’s dining room and could, at any moment, be interrupted by any one of a host of intimidating people—Mama topped the list, of course—did not stop Gabby from turning to hot liquid underneath Nolan’s lips and hands. She thought of the last bleak month in London and pulled herself closer, clinging tighter to his shoulders.

He lifted her feet from the thick carpet and set her down atop the polished oak table. Nolan rubbed his open palms down Gabby’s corseted waist and then along the round flare of her thighs.

He groaned and shifted his mouth to the curve of her neck. “You make it difficult to be a gentleman.”

Gabby threaded her fingers through his hair as she’d longed to do earlier. “I thought you enjoyed challenges.”

He laughed, his hot breath waving out over her skin.

At that unfortunate moment, the door to the dining room clicked open. Gabby froze and Nolan turned his face out of her neck, but he didn’t release her from her tabletop seat.

Rory took in the scene he’d interrupted with a brief twitch of his brow, as if he was an expert in such displays.

“Your timing is horrible, cousin,” Nolan said as Gabby wriggled off the table and smoothed her skirts.

“At least I’m not her mother,” Rory replied. “Ye should come back to the library. Quick.”

Nolan started forward, reaching for his broadsword. “Demons?”

Rory shook his head. “Angels.”

T
he perfection of the library floor reflected Luc’s face with disconcerting mirrorlike quality. He closed his eyes, loath to see himself in the humiliating bow Irindi’s sudden presence had thrown him into. Marco and Gaston had also crashed forward when her burning light had daggered through the room. Lady Brickton had screamed in alarm, and a confused murmur had gone up among the rest of the humans as the three gargoyles had grunted and fallen. The humans couldn’t see or feel the angel’s presence, though the fire in the hearth had guttered and no doubt they each felt an unexplainable density in the room, like a storm about to break near the top shelves of Constantine’s library.

“What’s happening? Luc?” he heard Ingrid say.

“Stay back,” Vander cut in. “They only bow before an angel of the Order.”

Smart bastard.

Irindi’s hollow voice bellowed. “Why have you summoned me, Luc Rousseau?”

He took a moment to understand. He’d tried to summon her the day before, when he and Ingrid had still been hiding out at Hôtel Dugray. She was showing up
now
? Here? In front of all these humans? Not for the first time, Luc questioned whether the Order understood or adhered to any sort of plane of time at all.

“We need your help.” Luc spoke into the floor. “The fallen angel, Axia, is leading demons of the Underneath against the humans and possessing the minds of demon-blooded humans—”

“We are aware of our fallen sister’s actions,” Irindi intoned. Luc waited for her to continue, to assure him that they were going to stop her.

No such assurances came.

Luc turned his cheek as far as it would go, attempting to see the silvery contours of her glow. “You are the only ones powerful enough to stop her.”

He felt a nudge against his head and found himself staring into his reflection once more.

“We cannot interfere with human dealings. It is not God’s way,” she said, compassionless and cold. No wonder her presence sucked the heat straight out of the fire in the grate. “The paths humans take are their own to traverse.”

Marco spoke from Luc’s immediate left. “If that is the case, what the hell are we doing here?”

She ignored him. “This Eden has been slowly crumbling since mankind discovered the ability to sin. Every new plague feels as if it is the end of the world. It is not. Humans adapt. Let this plague pass and allow God’s children to evolve.”

Luc gritted his teeth. “Allow countless humans to die? Be enslaved? Made into demons?” He pushed against the solid block of light and heat pushing him toward the floor. “How are we to protect them?”

A hushed murmur swept through those behind Luc. The humans only heard one side of the conversation, but Luc was certain they were easily inferring the rest.

Until Irindi’s reply came. No one, least of all Luc, could have expected it.

“It is not your duty any longer to protect, Luc Rousseau. You have atoned for your sin.”

He stared at his reflection, unable to speak. Unable to think. Luc peered out the corner of his eye toward Marco, who had turned his face toward him. Gaston, on his right, was also looking his way, limited as their movements were.

“I … I don’t understand,” Luc said.

“You, by your own free will, chose to save the life of one of God’s devoted servants, a human who was not under your divine protection. A human for whom you feel nothing but the shameful sin of envy.”

Luc blinked at his reflection and swallowed his confusion, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

“And yet, you chose to protect this man from harm,” Irindi continued. “It was a decision born of the one thing God holds most dear: forgiveness.”

Luc still couldn’t make sense of it. Whom had he saved? Whom had he forgiven?

“Luc Rousseau, you have earned our Lord God’s forgiveness. Stand,” Irindi commanded.

Stand. He couldn’t
stand.
What was she talking about?

He heard Lady Brickton’s voice from somewhere behind all the noise in his head. “What is going on? Why have they gone quiet?” Then Gabby’s voice saying, “Shhh, Mama.”

Luc sucked in a breath as the invisible block pressing between his shoulders and locking him into a reverent bow slowly lifted. Stone by stone, the weight lightened, and Luc’s knees began to straighten. He kept his eyes on the floor, his chin tucked into his neck, even when his back became a long, straight line again. He was standing. Luc was standing in an angel’s presence and yet he couldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t look at her. He wasn’t ready.

There were many sounds coming from behind him—gasps, mutters, questions—but it was Marco’s and Gaston’s stooped figures Luc could not ignore. They were still bowing. They had not been forgiven.
He
had. Luc raised his eyes and nearly crashed back down onto his knees.

She was beautiful.

Luc didn’t know how, but Irindi had changed. Her entire presence had shifted. Her light, something that had always been harsh and blinding, had become a soft, golden embrace. The once-searing heat that accompanied that light, a reminder of the punishing burns Irindi had lashed him with, now felt like a warm bath.

Luc stared, transfixed, at the flickering silver glow of Irindi’s form. She was like the center of a flame, trembling and impossible to touch. He held out his hand to try anyway.

“Luc?” Ingrid’s strangled voice pierced him. He dropped his hand.

Looking around, he saw that he’d taken at least five or more strides away from Marco and Gaston. He didn’t recall moving.

“Luc, what’s happening?” Ingrid asked, her voice cleaving through what remained of his trancelike state.

“Come.” Irindi beckoned.

Luc took a step back. “I can’t.”

He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not when Ingrid needed him most. He couldn’t leave her ever.

“Don’t be a fool,” Marco grunted where he remained prone.

“I’m not,” Luc said, his mind clearing as Irindi’s summoning warmth began to cool.

He couldn’t leave Ingrid. He couldn’t leave the Dispossessed, not when Axia and her demons were sharpening their teeth on the human world. The gargoyles had chosen him to lead. He was
elder.

“You wish to remain cursed?” Irindi asked. She hadn’t needed
to. She knew every thought streaming through Luc’s mind. Every emotion.

Remain cursed, or finally, after centuries of denial, be allowed entry into God’s kingdom. A place he had once dreamed of constantly, wondering what it looked like and who might be there. His parents? His sister, Suzette? And then he’d met Ingrid and he hadn’t given God’s kingdom another envious thought.

“I do,” Luc answered.

He felt the cold clench of his stomach and the sensation of falling as Irindi’s glow sputtered.

“Very well,” she said, and then her light flickered out completely.

Ingrid watched, unblinking, as Luc spoke to the angel that no one else—at least no one else standing—could see. The air was humid and thick within the library, and a sudden wind outdoors had started gusting against the tall, mullioned windows. Ingrid’s skirts hung like wet canvas around her legs. She’d noticed the fire’s flames shorten to cautious licks as well. Was this what it felt like to be in the presence of something holy?

Ingrid didn’t like it.

Nor did she like it when Marco and Gaston both leaped to their feet, each of them immediately rounding on Luc.

“What were you thinking?” Marco snarled.

Luc remained composed, though he swiftly glanced Ingrid’s way. Marco followed the direction of Luc’s gaze and laughed. The sound was harsh and mocking, and without his having to say a word, Ingrid knew Marco believed Luc had made a horrible mistake.

“I am all curiosity,” Gabby’s Daicrypta friend, Hugh, said from where he stood at the empty birdcage. That he was Robert Dupuis’s son had stunned and frightened Ingrid at first, but now
that she’d met him, she understood why her sister had placed her trust in the man.