Chapter 2

Which House will rise and which will fall?

The secret finances that lead to fame or destruction!

For your eyes only – only two copper!

Entering the echoing atrium of a desolate manor after a fruitless night, Alisandra kicked off her boots. Though she was Lady of this house, owner of both edifice and grounds, no servant approached to provide house slippers or a cup of tea. The lights glimmering in the servant quarters were a pretext, and the well-trimmed hedges along the road hid the tangle of wilderness along the bluff.

Sebastian assured her that their front was sufficient, but surely the neighboring estates noticed how little traffic the manor hosted. Surely those neighbors gossiped over lunch about the sad state of an august bloodline. House Mishkan, a tarnished star, clinging by its fingertips to an empty manor on Lumia’s noble hills and a few estates in the country.

Alisandra did not even own a quarry or a textile mill. No serfs, no Guild sponsorships, and only a single small college dormitory in her honor.

Shameful, ailing, and soon to be memory.

She stored her favored boots in the coat closet beneath her dusty, fur-lined coat. It lingered here, last winter’s fashion statement. What she became did not need its warmth.

The young angel caught herself yawning at that though and chuckled wryly. “What curse is this? Are not angels above such mortal worries?”

Angel or no, she swallowed another yawn.

Slamming the front door, she padded barefoot through her halls. She extinguished the lights in the servant quarters, peeked into Lynne’s empty sanctum, and knocked at Sebastian’s study.

No answer from either quarter; the older angels remained about their chores.

What does Sebastian do all the night long?

Alisandra passed the Archangel’s room without knocking.

She knew where he would be.

Taking the spiral stairs to the solar two at a time, she caught glimpses of the horizon through the narrow windows. The wide horizon glittered with the anticipated dawn across the frothing ocean, and a low ceiling of thin clouds marched into the east.

Reaching the landing, she paused at the solar door, ready to knock.

“Welcome home, Lady Mishkan,” Archangel Gabriel called through the door. “You’re late.”

The Lady Mishkan twitched in annoyance and shoved the door open.

Rows of neat flowers lined the solar, well-tended and blooming even this late in the year. Most of them were fancy weeds – no sign of the exotic eastern flowers in current vogue.

Gabriel waited at the windows, arms crossed and wings relaxed. He filled the solar from floor to ceiling – and wall to wall if he spread his pinions. He carried with him always the aroma of mountain wind, morning dew, and the scent of trees she had never been able to quite place.

Eldest. Wisest. Archangel.

Bird-brained layabout.

If not for those wide, white wings, a stranger might mistake him for the quaint and oft-absent retired Lord of a failing House.

Gabriel offered her a sly sideways grin.

“A miscreant like you had best show respect,” Alisandra warned, picking her way around bags of fertilizer and stacks of pots. “I could have you evicted. Think of the gossip that would bring!”

She stopped beside him at the window, and they waited together.

“I have absolute faith in the wisdom of the good Lady of this House.”

“Then you truly are a fool.”

“How does the artifact fare in your hand?” he asked, concerned.

“Heavy.” Alisandra needed to learn many things as part of her divine apprenticeship, but the heaviness of the artifact sword across her belt puzzled her. The blade lifted easy but weighed heavy, a mountain ever dragging against her step.

“It should not be easily held,” he agreed. “But Thea’s laboratory still stands. Your control improves.”

“Sebastian told you already?” The angelic tattle tale!

“My sources are vast and mysterious,” he teased, twitching a wing. “Of course they would notice when a grand Lady asked to borrow the blade for training at such an odd hour.”

Despite herself, she flushed. “I need to acclimate to the burden.”

“A feat best accomplished by drawing the blade at a crowded scene?”

“The mortals were in danger. Thieves they might be, but Thea was…”

“If you require the Hand of God to face Thea – or any other threat – then the fate of mortal thieves is the least of Lumia’s worries,” he reprimanded gently. “To lie about your intent…to chase thieves with an artifact of power drawn…is this wisdom?”

Alisandra exhaled through her nose like an annoyed pony. Am I an angel or an eight-year-old? “No, Archangel.”

He nodded, accepting her apology. “That said…you saved two mortal lives, and Lumia survives another night. It might even make the end of the week.”

Her flush deepened. Sniffing loftily, she accused, “You tease me.”

“An Archangel’s prerogative,” he replied, slipping his hands from his pockets. “I have not a penny to my name, you see, and I live at the suffrage of a tyrant. I must pay my way by jest.”

“You’ll starve then.”

He nodded amicably.

The glow of dawn swelled.

The Archangel stretched to his full height, six and a half lanky feet, and stretched his wings. Soft white pinions brushed across Alisandra’s back, sending shivers down her spine. His right wing curled around her, an embrace that smelled of summer and tickled like down.

A handful of feathers shed from his wings. As the sun crested the distant sea, the first rays caught each pinion, and they one by one disintegrated in a shower of diamond sparkles. Each tiny explosion sang as it vanished, a note in a harmony of Light. Together, they bathed the solar in a rainbow kaleidoscope.

Amidst the rainbows, Alisandra offered the Hand of God to the Archangel.

He accepted, turned, and proffered the sword to the dawning sun. Then he drew his fist over the length of the blade. Finishing the sweep, he opened his palm and cradled the pommel.

A ray of sunlight caught the Hand of God, and it vanished into his wings.

All safe and sound in the Archangel’s soul, Alisandra thought to herself. Does he feel its weight even now?

She wondered but dared not ask how many other artifacts lingered in his deepest reaches.

“So. Any news on my diary?” the Archangel asked, dusting his fingers.

“No. Sebastian has a name and ancillary information, but I found little of note at both the scene of the crime and the domicile.” The hay loft had stunk of cattle and unwashed men, and the little, hidden safe had held what a common man might consider a tidy sum. “This Donovan could have stolen their combined life savings, but he refrained. Was it loyalty or convenience that stayed his hand?”

“Close. A thief’s loyalty is ever only a matter of convenience. What did Sebastian have to say?”

“That this man lived the sort of life that could be abandoned with an hour’s notice. He found the lack of evidence distressing.”

“As well the angel of witness should.”

Gabriel let his wings droop as the song of dawn ebbed.

Alisandra steadied her stance and clamped her hands behind her back, awaiting orders.

Thin clouds moved across the low sun, and the birds began to warble in the garden.

She cleared her throat.

“Lynne will track down the murderous thief.”

Alisandra started. “I was first upon the scene!”

“Because you raced ahead.”

“I saved lives!”

“Is that not enough?” he asked placidly.

The Lady Mishkan clenched her fist and fought the urge to punch the window. The same strength that allowed her to wield the Hand of God lent her blows unnatural strength. She would shatter the windows with a tantrum. “Archangel. Why do you refuse to assign me matters of importance?”

He paused, considering his words. “You are but a year Bloomed, and we do not understand this Donovan and his conspirators. We seek understanding and clarity.”

“If you worry for my safety, I can take the Hand of God!”

“Artifacts of power are a crutch. I want you to find your aspect, not hone your swordplay.”

She flushed, stung. “I will go with Lynne, then.”

“The angel of oceans needs some time away from the manse, and she is more than capable on her own. I trust her to track Donovan and settle the matter.”

“Then surely she will be able to handle me as well.” If anything, an investigative adventure with Lynne sounded like an excellent break from her normal routine.

The archangel sighed. “You try my patience some mornings. Is it not enough to bathe in the dawn?”

“The dawn comes every morning.”

“Your own Light grows as well.”

“Do not try to flatter your way out of this! If I cannot go with Lynne, then what may I do?”

He gently pulled his right wing inwards, bumping her into his embrace. “Sleep, Ali.”

Did he force the yawn upon her lips or merely release what lurked? She burned to continue the argument, but she knew from years’ experience that she rarely won arguments against the Archangel even when rested. “…and when I wake?”

“There are enough troubles in the world to busy any hand.” He released her with a smile.

The matter closed, the Archangel moved to his writing desk. He opened his latest project, a compilation of folk songs, and tapped a finger upon his latest pages.

Morning shadows played across the solar, framing the Archangel like a portrait, and the flowers in their pots hummed happily at the new day.

“Very well,” she muttered, biting her tongue. Shall I rescue cats from trees then? The papers would gleefully print me on the front page: Alisandra Mishkan, Lady of a House, dirtying her skirts to rescue strays!

She stomped to the exit and entertained the idea of slamming the solar door. Alas, that would only crack the frame. Damnation, her newfound strength made it impossible to even punch a pillow without spraying goose down across the room!

Despite her thoughts, a wiser spark of memory floated into view.

Lynne once counseled, Never go to sleep angry, Ali dearest.

Exhaling slowly, Alisandra forced herself to release the ball of annoyance in her belly. Turning, she offered a conciliatory wave.

“Have a good morning, Father.”

Archangel Gabriel glanced from his notes and smiled as warm as the sun. “You will find your battle yet, Ali. In time.”

***

SECRET INVENTOR LAB IN THE HEART OF LUMIA!

What bizarre byproducts of genius lurk within?

Page three to find out!

As the Archangel communed with the dawn, Sebastian and Lynne returned to Thea’s ruined laboratory. They found the scene abuzz, constable wagons crowding the street. Enforcers swarmed like hornets at the perimeter of the facility, defending their territory from the reporters eager to snap yet more photographs.

“Ah, the only thing faster than light: the speed of gossip,” Sebastian noted. “Mass media rises from its grave to torment us once again.”

Lynne frowned at the older angel. He did sometimes say rather odd things.

The morning editions already stocked the corner stores, heavy on headlines and light on facts – always a popular combination. If no one at the time of print could name which Inventor, which Inventions, or why a silent work crew toiled to swiftly patch a hole blown through several buildings…a good reporter never let such trifling matter as facts get in the way of a good story.

“Do you wish to change clothing?” she asked, waving a hand at his suit. She had changed into the utterly generic, brown cotton peasant dress. One among thousands, she could be anyone’s mother headed for another dreary day in the kitchens or textile mills.

“Of course not!” he replied. “House Mishkan must be seen to be involved in affairs of the city.”

“I care not for other Houses,” Lynne replied, “and stand frankly amazed that you tolerate their skittering.”

“Ah, but that is the game. A House too weak to even field spies invites only trouble.”

“And House intrigue is the challenge you desire, angel of witness?”

“Our great Archangel exhorts us: embrace the world of men. Live as mortals might.”

“Such is the advice of the unmarried bachelor in direct service to a pretty young woman,” Lynne teased. “If you wish to live humbly, Sebastian, you had best procure a cute little mistress for parties before the rumors begin.”

The angel of witness winced and adjusted his lapel.

She leaned closer, grinning like a shark. “Are you having trouble finding one? I can make you one…”

Sebastian coughed. “Let us be about our business.”

He slid nimbly from the Mishkan car.

Lynne tapped a fingertip to her chin. “He really does need to find a little love.”

Yet how were beings of eternity to find love when all they cherished would slip through their fingers?

Shoving away dark memories, she followed Sebastian to the crowd of reporters. From this vantage, the laboratory provided very little fuel for the gossip mill. A set of windows, curtains tight. A regular procession of constables, carting out bits of metal towards waiting wagons under tarp. Miles of bright yellow warning tape.

Thea is so fiercely private, Lynne reflected. What new surprises hide beneath her mien?

The edge of a tarp fluttered in the breeze, revealing a severed metal hand, and the reporters frenzied for blurry photos before the fabric settled.

Stuck in back and obstructed from view, one journalist instead spotted the angels. “House Mishkan? House Mishkan! What do you think of these revelations?! Why did you hide a laboratory in Lumia? Why are you sponsoring a hidden Inventor?!”

Blatant quote-baiting. They ignored him.

A moment later, a constable noticed the reporter harassing his betters and chased the man away.

Sebastian took the constable sergeant aside and spoke privately for a few moments. When he returned, the constables opened a path for them through the chaos.

“Let us retrace their steps,” Sebastian suggested.

They ducked the warning tape and circled to the back of the building. The service door remained ajar, its lock left picked, and they picked their way over the scattered pallets into the cramped hallway.

Sebastian spread his arms, inhaling dust, and nearly smacked Lynne in the nose.

She caught his elbow an inch in front of his face.

“I sense the rush of tides and spray of sea salt,” he remarked, glancing back. “A thousand years of depths and currents.”

She released his arm. “I have watched men grovel for a hint of those currents.”

“Yes, they did. If you reminisce so loud, I will be unable to follow our quarry.”

Lynne sighed, stilled, and drew upon meditations taught by a better woman than she. Let Sebastian work untroubled by my own baggage.

Sebastian trailed his fingers along the walls, walking the echoes, and led Lynne into the showroom. “The youth tarried here, playing with the toys. The sycophant and the Redeemer moved beyond with purpose.”

She shooed away constables as they approached, letting Sebastian work in peace.

“The sycophant dreamed. He saw himself lauded and hailed as a man of wisdom.” Sebastian shook his head. “Petty dreams, enflamed by jealousy of his master.”

“And the master you call Redeemer?”

His eyes glowed faintly. “Fragmented. Occluded. No whispers of fame and fortune. I reach for his past, and I find the shredded edges of a fate torn free. Whatever he was before, it is long dead now.”

She tapped her cheek, thinking. “Are we sure he lived at all?”

The angel of witness nodded amicably. “A possibility already considered. The sycophant’s memories revealed a man called Donovan who ate, slept, and relieved himself in the woods. Perhaps that is no guarantee. Yet if he does not live, he is invested with a great deal of care to impersonate the living.”

“Perhaps his creator would want to lay a false trail and erase the doll itself?” A thin thread of reason to follow, but she had little to work with.

“Would you send a marionette into this place?” Sebastian asked.

To face Thea, dolls against dolls…

“Very well,” she huffed. If you have already considered all the possibilities, witness. “Let us assume he is a mortal man.”

The dolls were gone, but the workshop still stank of oil. Empty workbenches stained like surgical tables and strange outlets in the walls that provided signals unknown to current man.

“I hope she remembers to clean those,” Lynne said, flicking a finger at the outlets.

“In another day, there will be no sign she ever worked here,” Sebastian agreed. He trailed his white gloves over the benches and examined the sheen of oil on his fingertip. “The walls ache at the violation. Her refuge violated…”

This thief is a foe to demons and angels both, Lynne thought. Foolish mortals scamper underfoot, never realizing the monsters they set themselves against.

“Do we need to worry about the demons taking retribution?”

“Always,” Sebastian said.

“Has Mirielle set herself against us in this matter already?”

“Not in this, no. Her intentions are altogether more–”

The angel of witness hissed, a hand snapping to his forehead at the explosion of pressure against his temple.

A slight demon in Livery black stood at the door to the hallway, her eyes glowing neon red. She had pencil-straight black hair, a rounded face, and pert lips. Faint patterns pulsed on her cheeks like circuit diagrams, but few would recognize their meaning yet.

Yet.

Lynne rounded on her heel, mists flaring in a cloak behind her.

“I gave command that you depart,” Thea the Illuminated hissed.

“Yes, and we return to seek the Redeemer once more,” Lynne replied. “Have you found him?”

She doubted as much. The demons were too busy accumulating riches and puppets for their little project.

“The investigation proceeds.”

What a shock.

“Then you have not,” the angel of oceans replied, condescension as thick as her mists.

Thea glowered, and all the outlets began to crackle. “This is an internal matter.”

“Do you presume to know every thief in Lumia?” Lynne demanded. “Perhaps your grand vision encompasses every child born this century and all their deeds?”

“No, merely those who kill my creations and steal my works.”

“What about those who steal from the Archangel?”

“Perhaps you should invest in your security.”

Lynne’s mists began to writhe behind her, darkening like storm clouds. “Remember to whom you speak, child. The Archangel is not here.”

Thea took another step forward, her expression placid as ever. “A washed-up shadow of a better woman? I am aware.”

Lynne slammed her heel against the floor, and peals of thunder echoed above. The waves in the harbor quickened their beat, and the birds sought shelter. “If you think you are ready, young lady, then face the depths!”

Sebastian interposed himself between angel and demon. “Ladies, please, spare your fury! I have overstepped my bounds, and I will admit the error. I will withdraw my inquiry. Lynne, Thea, remember Gabriel’s words. Let us debate as mortal men and women do!”

A storm blew from the east, defying Harvest, black with fury and alive with lightning. Constables and reporters outside the laboratory shouted, racing to finish their work before the clouds unloaded hail that could brain a man.

“Let us abandon them?” Thea spoke placidly, but she clenched her fists in her skirts. “Let us pretend to ignorance? Let us contemplate the flower while the urchin starves? What wisdom does meditation bring for those who no longer dare?”

Despite the storm, the laboratory slipped adrift, cut away from the world. The men outside shouted from miles away, and the first patter of rain fell in other places. They teetered on the edge of an abyss, vast and empty…

“Remember Gabriel’s words!” the angel of witness begged. “If you war, you will tear Lumia apart!”

Thea hesitated.

“How long will it take to rebuild?” he demanded of the demon. “You will lose a generation in minutes.”

The demon slowly unclenched her jointed fingers.

He turned his tongue to Lynne. “And what will you say of the Tempest scouring Lumia into the sea? Will you own that legend as well?”

A statue of two faces, swirling incense, and the wails of the bereaved.

For one terrible moment, Lynne turned her stormy gaze upon Sebastian. She was a goddess and a power, and she would not abide the whining of this cretin that dared…

But then she remembered what followed the worship and the glory, and she too hesitated.

Sebastian always did know her weak points.

Lynne exhaled, forcing her mists to dissipate. Outside, the storm abated, and the harbor quieted.

Shocked sailors and bedraggled fishermen offered frantic, heretical prayers for the mercy of the sea anyways.

“My apologies, Thea,” she said, stiff as fresh cuffs. “We should have asked permission.”

Thea regarded her for a long moment. A chance hovered in the air between them, something of a softer time. All she needed to do was apologize for her words, and perhaps they could find the peace that a better woman would want for them.

Lynne could not swallow the stone of her pride to speak the words, though, and the demon spun on her heels.

“Be gone,” the demon tossed over her shoulder, marching away.

Once more the outside world echoed through open doors – no longer teetering on the edge of the abyss.

“What little trail might have remained is gone,” Sebastian grumbled. “This place reeks of stubbornness now.”

“I’m sorry. She demanded we yield like the weakest of mortals, and…I lost my temper.”

Not for the first time.

He forestalled her with a hand. “I bear some culpability as well. Ever my aspect urges me to pry where I have not sought leave.”

Lynne laughed softly. “No matter how time passes, we are still a ship of fools. Have I truly ruined our trail?”

“It may have been a lost cause to begin, but it is gone.”

“Then we must pursue an alternative approach.”

“What do you propose?”

“Ruhum is an island nation,” she remarked lightly. “This Donovan either remains in the country or he does not.”

He nodded, her intent clear, and turned towards the waterfront.

“Not here,” she corrected. Far too many vessels choke the harbor in this season. “Some place where I can hear myself think.”

“For that, we must drive,” he warned.

They left the building, now watched only by a pair of bored constables from under a precautionary umbrella, and started the Mishkan car. Sebastian navigated through the city, passing the heavy inbound traffic with ease, and turned south onto a lonely road.

Once outside of Lumia, the road deteriorated to flattened dirt and gravel, and they managed a bumpy speed barely double the country carriages. They steadily rose, climbing the sharp southern cliffs, until the sea heaved beside them from the bottom of towering white bluffs.

In time, the King’s Academy finally appeared at the highest, southern-most edge of the cliffs. This school once hosted sons of noble Houses, providing them the training to direct the galleons which they would inevitably command in war. Now the forlorn and overgrown academy hosted a thousand seagulls. The savage, grey view meant to sharpen the resolve of military men now served only the birds.

Ruhum no longer had a king, that lineage long lost, and the Conclave no longer felt the need to maintain His Majesty’s Quite Expensive Academy. After all, it was hardly fashionable for a young man to spend a decade in the salt-spray navy when the merchant class was perfectly willing to buy the commissions instead.

They drove off the remains of a vagrant camp. At Harvest, demand for labor was the highest, and even drifters found work in the fields.

“This place will topple into the sea,” Lynne breathed, absorbing the ramshackle bell tower. “You had best warn me when that day approaches.”

Sebastian nodded. “I would never deny the ocean her due.”

“My waters are patient,” she agreed. “They await payment.”

All things faded into mist. Lost to mortal minds, they found peace in the forgotten.

Lynne remembered when the men from this Academy swore to kill her with their oath of initiation, and now the flags of that era moldered to dust. Every year, those wars inched into myth the same way the waves inched further into the bluff.

She followed the path to the rotted garden at the apex of the cliff. There had been a retaining wall once, but now the garden simply slid off the edge.

The waves below made the cliff shudder like a breathing thing.

“We will all be free if we are but patient,” she promised herself, leaning forward to stare down the precipice.

She remembered the mortal thrill of a steep drop to a sudden end.

The wind caught her back and nudged.

Lynne let herself slip from the solid ground, and she savored the moment of anticipation between land and sea.

Then the frigid waters swallowed her. Darkness even in day, undertow dragging her by the weight of her dress, secret worlds of crab and octopus…home.

Her world.

Even before she Bloomed, Lynne had loved the ocean beneath her sails, between her toes. Her aspect rose as easily as breath on the first day of the rest of eternity.

Do you dare the seas, Donovan? She spoke in tide and spray to the whales and the sharks. Or has some stolen tidbit, by witch or diary, warned you of my control over the waters?

So many bustled across on her waves. Hopes, dreams and fears all mingled. The sailors of Lumia whispered the Stormmother chants, prayers for safe passage and easy weather, and the chant was not a complete blessing until every passenger was named.

Even the Inquisitors cannot overcome a sailor’s superstition, she thought. How they fear and love the sea in equal measure…

Lynne forced her thoughts away from the past and listened for his name, attentive as a mother at the park.

There! A sailor stood on the deck of a caravel, one hand on the mast, and prayed names softly. The sailor did not fear the specter of heresy, but he whispered the names softly to avoid the protests of Lumian passengers.

Two dozen men on that caravel, but only one passenger. That passenger demanded that they offer prayers to no god, and of course the captain agreed. If a sailor happened to say the blessings in secret, what could the captain do about it?

Lynne chuckled to herself.

“Hello, Donovan,” she whispered to herself and the curious fish around her toes. “I could drown you right now. Claim you as mine. Where do you scurry at such speed, little shadow, and why shouldn’t I end your quest in the black depths?”

Ah, she forgot herself. The sea brought her power, but with that power came heady memories.

If she were to send her terrible storm, the caravel would share his fate.

If the caravel survived the storm, its crew would spread the stories far and wide…

Disrupting the slow decay of legends across time.

Gabriel would ask me if such a thing was wisdom, she knew.

As if she cared what Gabriel had to say.

It was not in honor of Gabriel that she would abide by the edict. Play the huntress instead of harnessing the storm.

The caravel ran with the hells’ own speed, hurtling south as fast as the currents would carry. Easy enough to see by their heading that Donovan meant to make port at a city Lynne knew well.

Despite breathing water, Lynne felt her mouth dry.

For a moment, she scrambled to find an excuse against this duty.

But Alisandra would ask why I flinched away from such a trivial hunt…

The angel of oceans summoned her resolve.

You will be in and out like a ghost, Lynne. Unheard, unseen, disturbing nothing.

Lynne flutter kicked and erupted from the water with sufficient force to soar up the face of the bluff. She landed in the garden and sucked the water from her clothes with a flourish of her fingers. Then she marched down the bluff to the car.

Sebastian waited, seated at the crumbled academy wall, with a few late blooming flowers picked in a neat bundle. “Any success?”

“He heads for the oldest extant city in the world. For Wave’s Lament.”

“Unfortunate.” The angel of witness paused. “That may represent trouble. Shall I…?”

She shook her head. “I have accepted this task, Sebastian.”

Briefly, she considered inviting the young angel on this quest. Some time for them to bond again…

Bond, surely, and for a keen child to ask painful questions.

Better to explain after the fact.

“If you would, look after Alisandra.”

“She’ll miss you.”

Those words sent a twinge through her heart, but she ignored it. She needed to steel her resolve if she was to return to Wave’s Lament. Face only the future.

“Well, I suppose at least I’ll finally find out if they ever finished my monument.”

***

Sebastian parked at the darkest, seediest tavern on the Lumian waterfront just before dark.

Before he even finished wedging the car between two wagons, three men who believed themselves stealthy circled closer to observe the noble vehicle with great interest.

Ignoring the prowlers, the angel of witness turned to Lynne. “If anyone should attempt to rob you…”

She arched an eyebrow innocently.

“Please be gentle with them.”

“Are you prying in my future again, Sebastian?”

A dark alleyway. Her hand on her hip. Three men, a gun. She frowns with a touch of petulance. “Really?”

A dark alleyway. Finger to her lip. Three bodies, swollen and drowned, wait for the rats.

He inhaled gently, steadying himself in the here and the now. The ripples of what-might-be were neither ordained nor reasoned. His Sight might reveal the fragments, but the potential futures swelled in a combinatorial explosion to outnumber the stars. Even an angel could go mad trying to chart a course through that storm.

“Too many to count, as always. Pray attend to Donovan carefully. I dislike that he speaks the old tongue.” The tongue of mage kings, bindings, and wars better left forgotten. “I dislike that he was wise enough to step softly until he struck even more.”

“Even if he manages to decode the diary, we have dealt with upstart mages before,” Lynne reminded him lightly.

Ah, but she is still so young…

“There are more dangers in the world than spells of fire and binding.”

That diary was a key to ancient and terrible places.

Compulsively, he glimpsed the futures again. He saw muggings – or a nice stroll in the quiet dark – and no hint of what harm Donovan might bring.

Lynne waited. “You pick for futures the way a child picks their nose.”

“Merely checking.”

She flicked his nose, flooding his mind with visions of the deep sea. “The world is more fun down here.”

He inclined his head. “As you claim, lady of mists.”

She rolled her eyes and tapped him on the cheek. “I despair of leaving Alisandra to your tender mercies, watcher. Do try to turn your powerful eyes to futures that do not end in fire and death every once in a while.”

A crown of tyrants reborn in the rubble and blood. The Hand of God usurped, and the ancient born anew.

He hissed between his teeth as if struck.

“Are you alright?”

“F-fine, Lynne.” Half-formed visions tumbled in his head like loose washers. Dread without context; future without present. “Just the usual dreams.”

What use were these fragments? They tormented his meditations, the most tantalizing and least useful power of his aspect.

Better to release the future to heaven. Only madness waits in trying to chart the seas of that-which-might-be.

Better to live as mortals might, neither owning nor knowing what only God could decree.

“If you say so.” Lynne slipped from the car. “Goodnight, Sebastian.”

“Travel well, Lynne.”

She sashayed into the darkness beyond the bustling bar – to be mugged and laugh at the muggers – or to be mugged and drown the upstarts – or to encounter no one but stray cats.

A journey far beyond a simple hunt began with this day …

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut. Enough, old man. It is not your place to decide her path.

He refocused on the present, ignoring the tantalizing hints of what Lynne might face. They were illusions, mercurial as that woman’s mind. Instead, he rolled down the car window and dropped a wad of silver bills to the pavement.

To the three men who skulked, he called, “The choice of where to spend this belongs to you alone. Try to find a better use than booze.”

Though he rather suspected the lesson would involve the impermanence of wealth in the hands of fools.

Puttering behind wagons, he wove through the dusk traffic. Lumia shrieked with stories, thousands of lives crammed into every city block. Each one dreamed, hoped, and feared. The bars throbbed with music and money; the tenements stank of exhaustion and despair. One young man searched for love under electric lights; another stared at his soot-covered knees and contemplated the tatters of his aspirations.

The torrent could drown Sebastian if he allowed it.

Noble children flaunted their wealth, and robber barons forced their workers to toil into the night.

He rubbed at his face, fighting a malaise older than the matter of a thief. “The rich and the poor, locked in their war of economics. Would you enlighten them, angel? Would you narrow their roads to a single path and thus quell the roar of choice?”

Much better to offer new roads to those constrained by luck to a single path.

Such as offering a trio of drunk gangsters the chance to do something more than drink and fight.

He drove by rote, reviewing his chores. The strikers in the eastern tenements would benefit from an anonymous donation to pay their food and heat as the weather waned. Another tip – with financial incentive – might lead the constables to a particular meat factory in need of inspection. A painter of talent and no means would benefit from a chance invitation to a premiere social gala.

So on and so forth, the lightest fingers upon the scales. Meetings in darkened alleys, faces occluded, and the implications that he worked for this or that powerful figure. Meetings in tea houses, quiet words to buoy spirits where money could not pave the way. Dead drop packages, left to be found by those who needed a stroke of luck with all their hearts…

He dared no more.

Every House played this game, the seas of intrigue stuffed to the gills with self-styled sharks. If he chose poor targets, that was merely another sign of House Mishkan’s poor judgement. What sensible House left its coffers open before the familiar complaints of orphanages and halfway houses for the rabble?

Sebastian chuckled wryly. “Ah, such a tight grip on our fortunes. If only we could buy wisdom!”

For ourselves or our charges.

He poured forth charity, and addicts traded it for drugs. He funded shelters, and battered women fled home to the men who blackened their eyes. He educated promising youth at the colleges, and they sank into the shallow safety of moral relativism. Each of these paths led to obvious catastrophe, and yet mortals chose to leap open-armed into the fire time and time again.

He could teach them better…

But gentle touches on the scales of fate risked no great cataclysms…

As he pulled into the Mishkan estate, his mind drifted to older days. A tiny, struggling nation at the edge of the world. A savior, born to these people, who found his aspect in fire and wished only to help…

Quell the fires in the mountains. Grant the land the bounty of volcanic soils. Teach the people to live beyond the shadow of a campfire. In return, they will call you a god. The God. One above all, and the rest heretical…

Aure would not have wished his namesake Inquisition on Ruhum.

Then again, mortals so rarely listened to the ones they labeled God.

Sebastian planted the Academy wild flowers in the garden and then swept the manor’s perimeter for signs of more intrusions. He found no surprises amongst the wards. The loudest sound in the entire estate was Alisandra’s snoring.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against her doorframe and listened.

She dreams a childhood memory, safe in her father’s wings. Alisandra before she bloomed, mortal girl with mortal fears. She who walked with angels held no awe for them. She was only beginning to understand that not everyone’s father could fly and not everyone’s butler could read minds.

How mortified the Lady Mishkan would be if she realized anyone could see her dreaming of such childish things. If she understood that they were all naked before judgement.

Together, Archangel-father and princess-daughter rode the gaily painted wagon through the estate’s quiet paths. Summer flowers stood tall as steeples, and they spilled forth waterfalls of rainbow-colored pollen.

Alisandra shrieked at the torrent of ruby and gold.

Gabriel laughed, raising a wing over her head. The pollen stained his feathers, but he only laughed.

Alisandra opened her mouth to speak, paused, and frowned. She began to cast about, searching.

The angel of witness withdrew gently.

“There is no shame in such dreams, young angel,” he whispered. “Do not rush for the Chorus. Your aspect will come in time.”

She would discover the nature of her transfigured soul in due time.

The angels could not afford to repeat the mistakes that made demons of Thea and Mirielle.

Sebastian turned his attention to the simple manor chores for the day. He cleaned the dishes, swept leaves from the veranda, tidied the artifacts displayed in the hallways, and reinforced the roaring conduits of magic that protected the estate.

The evening paper arrived on the doorstep, blaring: Secret lab of Lumia!

Given that Thea had demanded control of that matter, he left the media to her.

Retiring to the library, he plucked a heretical text from the table. Newly printed, found at black market, it amused him with its silliness.

If five candles and a tin of sea salt could command the world, do you think this power would stay hidden? Silly mortal, do you have any idea how many nights I have spent sanding down the faintest traces of a language millenia gone?

Greater powers than he, too, laid their Wills against the return of that dread time.

Alisandra slept dead through the night, drooling into her pillow like any mortal.

The Archangel visited for a brief chat and then departed into the skies for a leisurely flight over the sea.

As dawn broke, Sebastian set the stove for breakfast and fetched the morning edition of the paper.

ELECTIONS!

Lumians rise to demand equality!

One man! One vote! One city!

Lumia’s future shattered in his hands, splintering into chaos and discord on churning waters.

This was not foreseen.

“Aw, hells.”