Ryan. And seeing as how I almost killed you, I figure we’re about even now.’
He coughs as he pulls himself more upright against the wall, and that familiar fringe of straight, dark hair falls into his eyes.
‘All I can remember is a bunch of steeples and …’ he frowns, ‘people? Am I right? Were there people up there? All rushing up to meet us, then blam, I hit something. Lights out. Then I wake to find you watching over me. Like some kind of angel …’
He looks at me sideways, deliberately casual, to gauge my reaction.
As I look down, discomfited by the intensity of his gaze, a strand of my own straight, dark hair falls across my face. Ryan bridges the gap between us, loops it gently behind my ear, briefly tracing down the line of my jaw as if he can’t help himself. His touch is so shattering, so damned human, that some cold, hard part of me feels as if it is giving way.
‘You feel so real,’ he rasps.
Self-preservation is instinctual in me now and I move out of reach, warning him raggedly, ‘Don’t.’
‘Or what?’ He sighs, leaning his head back against the wall. It’s so cold in here that his breath streams out white, like a cloud, or a soul departing.
‘You know, I’ve had my own freaky theories about you for some time now,’ he murmurs. ‘I went away and did my research like you said to, between dealing with a mountain of self-pity and anger and … grief.’ He shoots me another glance. ‘I don’t know how it’s possible … how you’re even possible. You’ve made me question everything I’ve ever believed in. I deserve a little more … clarity.’ His voice is strained. ‘I think I’ve, uh, earned it.’
Warily, from the safety of my corner, I meet his eyes.
‘For what it’s worth,’ he says, ‘I feel like everything’s new again between us. Like we’ve been given permission to … start over.’
‘Permission?’ I laugh despairingly. ‘In what universe could someone like you and someone like me make any kind of sense? Who “permits” this?’ I look away from the tenderness in his gaze, the hurricane inside me begging to be set free.
‘You need to explain things to me,’ he insists. ‘I need to understand who it is that I’m —’
‘Dealing with?’ I cut in.
Something flares in his eyes, and I’m instantly ashamed of my own cowardice because I know what he was about to say, the words he was going to use.
‘You could put it that way,’ he says, stung.
I look down at my hands, wanting to touch him, to tell him I don’t deserve his love. Maybe I’ve never really known what love is; after all, I chose as my first love someone who soon after became … the Devil.
I shudder. Ryan catches the movement and frowns.
‘Trade?’ he says so softly, I almost miss the word.
For a long while I don’t answer, seeing landmines in every direction, seeing ancient history that could only cause Ryan pain, the last thing I would ever want for him. All the while, I struggle to keep my nausea at bay, to contain that sensation inside me of building, of escalation.
‘You promised.’ Ryan takes a shuddering breath. ‘It’s because of you I got broken in the first place.’
‘And I fixed you!’ I reply, turning on him like a wounded animal. ‘So quit complaining.’
‘I was broken the moment you left me the first time.’ His voice is very quiet. ‘Damn straight, it’s up to you to fix me. And you haven’t even begun to mend the hurt you caused. You can’t hide from what’s between us forever! You deserve … love as much as anyone does.’
It’s as if the word is ripped out of him. He’s unaware that I’ve already read his heart like a map, like the constellations.
‘Let me in,’ he begs, murmuring again, ‘you promised.’ ‘What?’ I say, struggling to hold myself together, to hold myself apart from him. ‘What did I “promise”? How was I even in any condition to promise you anything?’
I see his face soften as his eyes glide over my features, over my glowing form, the curls of energy that drift off my skin, then blur and fade.
‘You promised that you’d never hurt me,’ he whispers. ‘Remember? When you were Lela. Then you went and died on me. It felt as if I was the one who’d been shot. I even looked down to see if I was bleeding …’
I close my eyes, feeling again the ghostly impact of the bullet that ended Lela’s life. ‘I so badly wanted to go with you then,’ I murmur, ‘but it wasn’t permitted.’ I place the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to stem the ache I still feel for that lost girl. ‘I’m trying to protect you,’ I mutter over the white noise in my head, ‘for what it’s worth. You don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘That talk we were always supposed to have?’ Ryan pleads. ‘We’re having it now, Mercy. So start talking. You’re afraid, I’m afraid. But we’re here now, you’re free.’
‘I may not be caged inside another any longer,’ I say from behind my hands, ‘but you have no idea how wrong you are, what you’re up against. I will never be free.’
Of you, of him. Not while I live.
I see it again: the hills around Lake Como, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, all exploding in a kind of liquid flame, consumed by the wrath of demons and archangels colliding. In those memories, I see Ryan’s death foretold, and I almost cannot bear it.
‘Why are we even arguing?’ Ryan whispers, his breath stirring upon my skin. ‘Where have you gone?’
‘Beyond the stars,’ I whisper, hearing the static and the silence, the inexorable distance, in my head. How very far I fell, how far.
He places a tentative hand upon my bare and glowing arm; against all wisdom, I allow it to remain. Ryan always was brave, and foolhardy around me. We’ve always fed that impulse in each other, and isn’t that what love is supposed to do? Lend you wings; grant you the strength and courage of Titans.
‘So real,’ he murmurs again in wonderment.
Through his skin I can read the chaos in his thoughts: love piled upon fear, layered upon hope and desire, anger and frustration. The weight of them, their metaphysical noise, is almost intolerable.
It feels wrong to have access to his innermost thoughts. Knowledge like that is so dangerous in the wrong hands. It’s little wonder that Luc’s ambitions have gained a certain purchase in this world: they are here for the picking, these mortals. Everything you need to know — their dreams, their vices — all flowing beneath the skin constantly, like a river. To be drawn from, or poisoned.
Without consciously recalling how it’s done, little by little I turn Ryan down, tune him out. So that his inner energy, the random glimmers of thought and emotion I get from him now are almost bearable. It’s not perfect, but at least I can think again. I drop my hands from my face, turn to look at him.
Finally, I tell him of home. And as I describe it, the way it was when it was fresh made and new, and every small thing seemed a miracle in and of itself, tears of fire spill down my cheeks, melting away even as they hit the chilly air.
‘My kind,’ I weep, ‘were not created to feel sorrow. Everything about me, about us, is impossible, Ryan, so frightening, I can’t see my way clear …’
‘You told me to go look up that word, elohim,’ he says. ‘The word for what you are. And I did, but I’m still missing something important. It can mean so many things. I’m no good at languages. Or history. All the stuff I read just confused me even more. I just want to hear what it means, from you.’
He puts