Page 106 of White Lights
“That sounds ominous,” Simon says, glancing at Dez.
“I’m certain it was,” Yael says.
Dez sips her martini, feeling like a new knot has just been tied in the heavy net slung over her. “What happens now? To death? Is someone going to take Samael’s place?”
“Someone is,” Yael says, nodding slowly.
“How does a new Angel of Death get chosen?” Simon asks.
“They don’t get chosen. They win.”
“Win what?”
Yael sips her drink, meets Simon’s and then Dez’s eyes. “The Crimson Pinion.”
Dez and Simon share a glance.
“A red feather?” Simon says.
“It’s not just ared feather, asshole. It’s what makes the Angel of Death the Angel of Death. And ever since Sam left, none of us can find it. Which is why everyone here is competing, warring really, to get their hands on it.”
“What does this war look like?” Dez asks.
“Don’t worry, the last-years are handling it,” Yael says. “Not me, but the others.”
“Why not you?” Simon says.
“Because,” she says, exasperated, “I lost my protégé. And a mentor without their protégé, in these times? You might as well stick me on top of a Christmas tree.”
“That can’t be true,” Dez says. “What does a protégé have to do with it?”
Yael doesn’t answer, only polishes off the rest of her drink and gazes out the window at the snow.
Dez thinks of all this time she’s spent with Rafe this month. Their mentor-protégé relationship. What she thought it was about. What it’s really about. Yael says a war is coming, and Dez doesn’t understand who the armies are, what the fight’s about. But earlier tonight, Rafe said things between him and Dez would change. That tomorrow they’ll be on the same side. If she decides to stay here, she can turn to him with these questions. She can count on him for answers.
She can trust him.
Simon clears his throat. “Esther wants to start a campaign to bring Alice back to Acheron.”
“Don’t bother,” Yael says, rising from the couch.
“Why not?” Dez says. “Now that we know the truth, there’s no reason she had to be expelled to cover up—”
“They’ll never bring her back,” Yael snaps.
“Yael,” Dez asks again, “what do the protégés have to do with this war, this Crimson Pinion—”
“I’ll leave that for your mentor to explain to you,” she says darkly, moving toward her bedroom. “If you stay.”
“Do you believe her?” Dez says to Simon.
“My brain exploded tonight, Dez,” Simon says, splayed out on the couch. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“For what it’s worth, Dez,” Yael calls from her bedroom, “I hope you’ll stay with us. If only to give Rafe what he deserves.”
DEZ FALLS ON HER BEDand runs the evening over in her mind. She can’t make sense of anything. She aches inside and out.
Rafe told her he’d been at the hospital with her brother and that Mo had watched her film inside his mind. He said Mo was at peace when he died. Dez wants to believe it. She wishes she could.
