When Perrine and Brid released me from heaven today, Freya was still at work, but her fingers froze on the keyboard when she sensed me in the room. Brid had been to see her personally to tell her how I was doing, but still she closed her eyes against a dizzying rush of relief.
“Don’t mind me,” I teased her lightly.
She gave me a look as she got up from her desk and closed the door. “You look like you’re in pretty good shape,” she said, studying my new scars with a scowl. “Which is good, because you’re going to need it.”
I knew what she meant when she took out her phone and dialed Kara. “Hey, Ace is back.”
“Good,” was the terse retort. “Bring his winged ass back here so I can kick it.”
Freya hung up the phone without another word and grabbed her bag, beckoning me to follow. She stuck her head into Sarah’s office on her way to the exit. “Hey, Sarah, I’ve got a huge headache—you don’t mind if I work from home for the rest of the day, do you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Thanks. I’ll make it up to you—I know I took time this weekend and I’ll be out of town on Friday too—”
“Hey, hey,” Sarah said, waving her off. “You’ve taken—what, six total sick days the whole time you’ve been working here? Go home, Freya. Take the time you need.”
There was enough extra concern in her voice that Freya asked as she got into the car, “Does she still think I’m crazy?”
“She thinks that pushing yourself too hard led to a breakdown, and she wants to be sure that it doesn’t happen again,” I told her. “Her concern is sincere, Freya.”
Freya stared out the window for a moment before she started the car. “She’s a good friend,” she murmured.
There was a deep worry in her, one that reached beyond me or her immediate friends. I wasn’t quite certain how to address it, so I simply kept her company in her silence.
We were halfway home when she said, “I’m not allowed to ask you any big questions until we’re all together, but are you okay?”
“My wounds are healing well. The blood blade did not cut deep, so although it looks ugly it’s no trouble to me. As for the bone blade…” I paused, feeling the blossom of pain deep in the puncture wound, but Brid and Perrine did their work well, bolstered with the wishes and prayers of my friends, and it was no more than a sore spot. I will not fight for another day or two more, but otherwise it will not restrain me.
“Did she really…” Freya couldn’t quite bring herself to voice her thought.
“Yes. She did.” I shook my head and laughed. “It is ironic when you think about it. She now holds weapons forged from the very blood and bone of the two women I have loved most.”
“Don’t joke about it,” Freya said, her voice tight.
“I assure you I am not.”
“Sure sounds like it,” she grumbled.
I studied her aura. “Are you angry with me?” I didn’t think so from the look of it, but I wanted to hear it from her.
She sighed and consciously loosened her grip on the steering wheel. “Not you specifically. And not angry, not really. I’m…I’m scared, Ace.”
I thought about Asoharith’s raging and the curses of the Fallen that she had witnessed, the duplicitous battle, and the way that Neige had looked at her at the end. “I know,” I said.
She looked at me. “Thank you for not telling me I shouldn’t be.”
“I did promise that I would not lie to you.” I glanced at her. “I understand if in this case you wish that I would.”
She didn’t answer, and we finished the drive in silence.
Kara was waiting for us at the house, pacing in the living room. “George is almost here,” she said, while Therai studied me closely and with relief to see that my wounds were so well healed. “You look pretty good for someone who just had a dead friend shiv you with her own bone,” Kara added, eyes narrowed on the white mark still livid on my stomach.
“Thanks to you, Freya, and George,” I said.
“Okay, so here’s my question,” Kara demanded. “We stomped those guys. We killed a demon by pretty much just looking at him. But Neige just waved us off. Who the fuck is she?”
“Aren’t you going to wait for George?” Freya asked, falling onto the couch.
Impatiently Kara pulled out her phone and called her husband, putting the phone on speaker. “Hi. Now George is here. Tell us about Neige. How could she resist us? I thought we were supposed to be a ton stronger than demons.”
“You were and are. Even Neige could do nothing but survive you.”
“But we fucked it up,” Kara insisted. “We choked, and they all got away when it was supposed to be over.”
“You three are new to this method of combat, and this was your first battle,” I reminded them. “It’s no surprise that you should not perform perfectly, and we never expected perfection. In fact you did beautifully. Two powerful Apostates are dead and gone now, never to trouble the world again.”
“You did for Annoth, not us,” Kara said. She hesitated, then added, “Which was pretty badass, by the way.”
I inclined my head at the dubious compliment. “But without your protection and help, we all may have felt more dire consequences from her taint and pollution. And Nodayimani would have been dead without you.”
George pushed the door open, hanging up his phone as he came in. Rachmanes was close behind him, nodding to me. “Nodayimani is alive because Neige let her go,” George pointed out. “We couldn’t have stopped her from killing her.”
“Perhaps not, but Neige knew if she lingered even that long, she would have been killed, too. Listen.” I opened my wings and gathered them all close. “Yes, Asoharith and the others got away. But we accomplished what we needed to. The Fallen know now that you are a force to be reckoned with, and they are afraid. None of them will come near any of you now.”
It is true. Kasfe has been listening and Simmah watching, and both of them have relayed to me the terror that has rippled through the shadows. Saints they may not be, but they are more than a match for the majority of the Fallen, and no amount of persuasion will make my friends a target now.
George was relieved, I could see, but neither Kara nor Freya was quite convinced. “What about Neige?” Kara asked.
“And Asoharith?” Freya added.
“Neige is a problem,” I admitted, “but she won’t resurface for a while. You deprived her of her greatest weapon, and she will need time to recover herself and gather her powers. As for Asoharith…”
“She’ll still come for you,” Freya finished when I stopped. “She won’t stop as long as she’s alive.”
I nodded. “And so I will go back to the hunt.”
“Not alone,” Freya said. “She’ll be watching for you to come after her.”
“No, not alone,” I assured her, “and certainly not anytime soon. It was not perfect, but we won a victory, and we deserve our rest.”
We need it, too. They did beautifully, but I can see the strain on their souls, and the shadows under their eyes. Sleep has not been easy for them, either.
Freya stepped closer to me, putting her head close to the new scars on my chest. She lifted her hand over them and closed her eyes, and I felt a soft warmth steal through them. I put my arm around her, wishing that she could lean on me like she wanted to.
“Okay, well, do you have a fucking plan yet?” Kara asked. “Beyond ‘go find the bitch.’”
“At this point I don’t have much more than that,” I admitted, “but I’d be open to suggestions.” I smiled at her.
She fought it, but I could see a smile coming on her face, too. “Someday, Ace, you are going to swear, and I will be there to hear it, and I will enjoy every second.”
“I promise you that if I do feel the need, I will come find you first.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
I looked at them all, Rachmanes and Therai too, and I said, “We will be all right. It’s not what we hoped, but it is far better than it could have been, and we will be all right.”
I believed it when I said it, and I believe it as I write it. And now, they believe it, too.
It is not over, but we will be all right.