My mind came into sharper focus and my body recognized that I was not alone in this room. I blinked open and looked around at the people that surrounded me: Jupiter, Tristan, Piper and Jude. Jupiter looked calmer and more put together than the last time I saw him. Tristan and Piper looked downright furious. And Jude looked… relieved.
As soon as I opened my eyes, I watched him run two hands over his face and let out a sigh of relief. “Goddamn, Starling, it took you long enough.”
I glared at him. Or tried to. I was still really sleepy.
“How long have I been out?” My voice sounded like sandpaper over a board of nails.
“Thirty-eight hours,” Jupiter answered casually. “And twenty-three minutes.”
I scanned the room again with clearer comprehension this time. Piper leaned against my dresser. Her arm was in a sling and her shoulder bandaged heavily. There was a neat row of stitches up the side of her neck. She looked paler than usual and her hair was uncharacteristically disheveled.
My heart ached looking at her. “You okay, Pi?”
“I’ll live.” Something dark and hurtful flashed in her green eyes. “Will you?”
I took a deep breath and struggled to sit up. “Yes.”
Jupiter snorted. “Barely. I can’t believe you’d be so foolish, Starling. What were you thinking? The blessing is in place for a reason. He could have killed you!”
I smiled weakly. “But he didn’t.”
“But he could have!” Jupiter growled back.
“And he wanted to!” Jude put in.
I glared at Jude. I didn’t even know why he was here. I was alive. He could see that. Now it was time to run on his way.
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. He hesitated. He didn’t want to hurt me. I mean… he did. But he also didn’t want to. There is still something left of him. At least for now.”
Jupiter pushed off the doorframe and stalked to the end of my bed. “You’re seeing something that isn’t there, Stella. I watched him hurt you. I watched him relish in hurting you. And I’ve been watching him as he carries out Aliah’s bidding and enjoys every minute of that too. The Seth you know is gone. And I’m not sure if he is ever coming back. You’ve been lucky so far, but you can’t keep playing with fire. The next chance he gets, he will take your head. He won’t hesitate. He won’t question his actions. He will do what instinct leads him to do and right now, his entire being is screaming at him to take your life.”
I swallowed against the speech I knew resonated with truth. Those things were true about Seth. I had seen it in his eyes, felt it in the swing of his blade. I had witnessed the evil version of him that would do anything to make me suffer.
But that wasn’t all there was to him.
I knew that.
Possibly, I was the only one who knew that.
I glanced at Piper and watched as she absorbed Jupiter’s speech. She looked even paler. She leaned against Tristan with the kind of resignation that stemmed from an overabundance of information she couldn’t make herself accept. Her reality, her world, everything she had known to be true and good and right had been ripped wide open and turned on its head.
Choosing to ignore all of Jupiter’s points, I asked, “Did they fill you in on some of the missing pieces, Pi?”
“Yep,” she said simply. And after several more moments of me just staring at her, she said, “Apparently you’re a Star. Apparently Stars, as in the ones up in the freaking sky are not balls of Light or gas or whatever the hell; apparently they’re freaking people.”
“Angels,” Jude clarified with a wicked glint in his eyes. “They’re Angels.”
Piper visibly swallowed. “Angels. Right. Angels.”
A small smile played at Tristan’s mouth. He put his arm around Piper and tugged her into his body. If that wasn’t shocking enough, he pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered something to her I couldn’t understand.
What was this sorcery? A truce?
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Piper. Or, er, kept the truth from you.”
“You told Tristan.”
An accusation. A judgment.
“When we were little. He, uh, I could never hide the truth from him. Physically I mean.”
Tristan met my gaze and smiled affectionately. “We were just young enough that there weren’t many questions. She told me she was a Star. I think I had always known.”
“I never guessed.” Piper sounded truly distraught. “How close can we be if I couldn’t see that there was something different about you? What kind of friend doesn’t even suspect that her friend is an alien?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “A good one? You knew I was different. You had to have known I was different. Or that my parents were different. But you never judged me. You never demanded a deeper explanation. You just accepted me for who I was and loved me anyway.”
“I’m blind.”
“You’re awesome.”
She let out a sigh. “This is going to take me awhile to process.”
“I know.”
“I’m still your best friend.” She pointed a stern finger at me. “I’m still better than this guy.”
I looked at Tristan and shared another smile. “I know.”
“Thank you,” Piper whispered, her voice cracking with so much emotion that tears immediately stung my eyes. “Thank you for saving my life.”
A lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t seem to swallow around it. “I was the reason your life was in danger in the first place. You should never have been near him. Thank you for not hating me.”
“I wanted to see if you were okay,” she smiled weakly at me. “I knew something was wrong at practice. Now I know that your boyfriend didn’t leave you, he just turned into a psychopath and wants to kill you. That would make me miss some serves, too.”
A laugh bubbled up inside me before I could feel the gravity of her words. God, it was so good to have Piper on board with this. I felt freer with her knowing. I felt lighter.
“We’re going to go for a walk,” Tristan announced. “Let you guys talk.” I bolted up straight and started to protest. “We’ll stay on the farm. Don’t worry.”
I relaxed some. “Please stay close to the house.”
Tristan winked at me, which I took as a yes, and guided Piper from the room. I watched my two friends leave and felt a little part of me leave with them. I couldn’t believe how relieved I felt that Piper knew my biggest secret; but while I’d gained her knowledge, I’d lost something else. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something had changed. And it was more than just introducing her to my dangerous world and having to worry about her safety from now on. It was something different. A shift in the paradigm of our friendship.
Maybe it had always been coming. Maybe things had always been destined to sway this way because of how starkly our futures differed.
Maybe not.
When Piper and Tristan had gone, Jupiter shot Jude a nasty look. “Jude would like to apologize.”
I nearly choked on my tongue. “For what?” Not that I couldn’t think of an entire list of things for Jude to apologize for, but I wondered what had Jupiter so uptight.
“For lying to you.”
“Oh.” I looked at Jude. “You don’t have to apologize. I expect you to lie to me.”
Jude looked away. “Jupiter’s right.”
“What?” Those were the very last words I had ever imagined Jude saying. “What’s going on?”
“Jude is not who he says he is,” Jupiter explained slowly. “He’s not who any of us thought he was.”
“Which was… evil? You’re not a complete douche bag? I’m confused.”
Jude pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up right there in my bedroom. I thought about stopping him, or asking him to finish it outside, but he looked more nervous than usual. And besides that, once he started talking, I mostly forgot he was smoking. I forgot everything… even how to breathe.
“I’m not Fallen.” His words were
slow and measured. He spoke just loud enough for his voice to carry to me and no farther.
“So you weren’t kidnapped as a child? You weren’t taken from your home and handed over to Aliah?” My tone was sarcastic and goading. Those things were true. Even my parents knew they were true.
“I was kidnapped. But I was… my parents let me be kidnapped. I was set up as bait. They knew that something was taking children, stealing them from the Lower Realm. I was set up as a decoy. I was set up to catch the Fallen traitor.”
“And did you?” My voice was a whisper. I had been told the end of this story, that the traitor had been captured and killed before his trial. Jude had never been found, but the child abductions had stopped.
“Yes,” Jude replied. “But there was more than one traitor. An entire nest of Fallen living among the High Council. Once that was discovered, my parents had to act quickly. They turned the traitor into a double agent. He was to deliver me to Aliah and my parents would grant him a quick death without trial. My father was the one who killed him.”
“Who is your father?” I asked on a whisper. Maybe that shouldn’t have been my first question. Maybe I should have asked a hundred different questions first. But that was the one that felt most important. That was the one that sprang from my tongue and demanded to be answered.
“Michael.”
The word hung in the air around me. It sat on my skin and scratched at my brain. “Michael?” I demanded. “The Archangel Michael?”
Jude nodded once. “Yes.”
Jude. Jude Michaels. Faster than anything I’d ever seen. Stronger. Brighter. More powerful than any Warrior I’d ever met.
Of course. He was a freaking Archangel. His parents were Archangels.
He wasn’t even from my realm!
“How is that possible?”
“We look the same,” he said simply. “Especially as children. The traitor had no idea he stole an Archangel over a regular Warrior until it was too late. Of course, Aliah knew the difference, which was why I was allowed to live. It’s the only reason I was allowed to live. Aliah wouldn’t waste an Archangel like he would a common Warrior. No offense. And my parents knew that… counted on that. I had been in training for six years already and so they trusted my ability. They sent me to Aliah on purpose, knowing he would keep me and try to turn me Fallen. If the Fallen can have traitors, so can we.”
He sounded so proud when he declared that last part that something like awe swept over me.
“So you’re a… a… good guy?”
“Some days,” Jude admitted. “Just like some days the Fallen that sit among the High Council are good guys. To be mixed among your opposite, you must contain a large share of your opposite. I am not entirely Light. I am not entirely Fallen. I am somewhere in between. I am Darkness with good intentions.”
I closed my eyes at those words. I am Darkness with good intentions. Could that be true for Seth too? Was that too much to hope for? Or was Seth Light with horrible intentions?
“I don’t understand,” I said dumbly.
Jude pursed his lips in a frown and walked to the edge of my bed with Jupiter. He gripped my footboard and seemed to rally his patience. My body had completely healed from Seth’s attack but my brain still suffered from massive confusion.
Or maybe it was the topic.
I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around Jude being one of the good guys. I’d spent every moment since I met him, hating him. He had very, very rarely even shown a glimpse of some kind of redemptive quality. He abandoned me last spring when I went head to head with Aliah and his army of Fallen. He continually stepped back when I was in danger and let me work things out on my own. He in no way ever showed any kind of hidden goodness or flicker of Light.
He was just Jude. The chain-smoking, manipulative bastard I was forced to put up with.
That sometimes saved my life because he had to. And was sometimes nice to abducted children when they had no one else in the world.
“I’ll start from the beginning,” Jude said. “That might make more sense. My father isn’t just an Archangel. He’s the head of a secret brotherhood of Angels. They are hidden to even the most authoritative sects in any of the Realms. The High Council knows nothing of their existence. The Higher Council, which is the grouping of elders that governs my realm, knows nothing of their existence. And the Highest Council is also left in the dark. No pun intended.” He gave me a small, coaxing smile but I couldn’t even pretend his stupid joke was funny. I waved at him to go on. He cleared his throat and continued, “The Brotherhood of Ethos was founded before any of the worlds were created, directly after the first Rebellion. Their foundation was to preempt another betrayal by someone with aspirations as grand as Lucifer’s. My father is the head of the brotherhood. He has served as an Archangel for his entire existence, but also as a leader of spies that has set out to infiltrate the Darkness and bring it down. My brothers are all part of the sect, as well as three other Archangel families. The moment I was born, I was a member of the brotherhood. I had no choice. Nor would I have wanted one. I was born to fulfill a destiny, one that I have dedicated my entire existence to. I was kidnapped as a child, but on purpose. And when Aliah realized what he had, a son of the most powerful Archangel, he saved me from the fate of all the other children before me.”
“Other children?” I gasped. “Why? What happened to them?”
“Like I said before, there isn’t just one traitor among the High Council, but a network of them. They are meticulous with their plans to destroy Heaven by realms. The Lower Realm is a hair’s breadth away from collapsing. No doubt, your parents are up their right now, pleading their case to deaf ears and willfully blind idiots. They don’t want to see the danger they’re in, we’re all in, and so they turn their heads and allow the evil to seep through them, spreading its poison and infecting them along with it. Children have been a target for centuries now. The head of the traitors is an old Angel. He is so well hidden that not even I can flesh him out. I’m not even sure that Aliah knows exactly who he is. He has a network of others that carry out his bidding and deliver the children that allow him to continue his farce.”
He paused to let that settle in and I couldn’t help but demand, “What do children have to do with it? Why is he kidnapping Angels?”
“To maintain his Light. He steals it from them. Their Light is just young enough, and pure enough to hide all the Darkness that sits right beneath his skin. In fact, it works so well that we have not even a clue to who it could be.”
“But you know it’s a male?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s a guess. A gender assignment I’ve given the traitor to make him or her easy to speak about.”
Geez, now that Jude’s secret was out, he sounded all serious and professional and what not. It was hard to reconcile this guy with the one I caught making out with Bree Henry in the Shield’s barn just a few weeks ago.
“So the Lower Realm is in worse danger than we thought?” I asked while fear and uncertainty gripped at my chest.
“Much worse,” Jude confirmed. “And as you know, the Lower Realm is the largest line of defense we have. It’s our army, our only military protection. The Middle Realm would hold out for a while, but mere decades, nothing more. And while the High Realm houses the Archangels, there are not enough of them to stop the entire force of Darkness. They would be overpowered. Simple as that.”
I gulped.
Jude continued. “The only thing that’s managing to hold the Lower Realm together right now is you, Stella. While the Council is divided over support of you, your supporters are dedicated. They believe in the world you can protect. They believe in your strength as a Star. You are all that remains of the thin thread that keeps them from unraveling. And they know what we also know.”
When Jude didn’t immediately continue, I grew impatient. “And what is that?”
He smiled at me again, only this one contained pride and conviction that even I didn’t understand. “T
hey know, we all know, that even if the Realms fall, even if heaven crashed to Earth and is swept out to sea, you will not. You will hold this planet, you will hold firm against all the forces of evil and death and Darkness and protect what remains of life in the galaxies.”
“If the Archangels can’t keep the Darkness out, how can I?”
“Because you fight here where your power is greater. Because you fight where they cannot and protect what they cannot corrupt entirely. Because you are Light to their Darkness and hope when there is none. And because you won’t just fight for Earth, you’ll fight for the home you’ve never known and the Council you can barely tolerate. You are the key. The traitor knows it, Aliah knows it and the Brotherhood knows it.”
I didn’t respond.
I couldn’t.
There weren’t enough thoughts in my head to wrap all the way around that. I was as crazed with confusion as ever before.
“Stella,” Jude started and if possible he sounded infinitely more somber. “There are whispers of another Rebellion.”
“What?” I whispered dumbly.
Jude nodded and Jupiter shifted aggressively. “We don’t know how big or how strong it is yet. But it’s being spread throughout the Realms and even reached the Fallen. Lucifer took a third of Heaven with him when he fell. Imagine how a second uprising would shift the balance. Imagine how it would upset Heaven’s army. We cannot allow that to happen.”
Another Rebellion? My mind struggled to wrap itself around that. It couldn’t… We couldn’t…
“Where does this put Seth?” I asked after a while. I would sort through the other stuff later. That pressure felt too heavy for me to lift on my own. I needed my Counterpart more than ever. I needed Seth, if just to hold my hand and tell me everything would be alright.
Jude fidgeted uncomfortably and glanced at Jupiter. When Jupiter turned away and stared out the window, I knew their opinion of Seth’s importance was not what I wanted it to be.
“I need him, Jude. You think I’m strong enough for this, but I’m nothing without him. He’s better than me in every way. He’s the real power. I just try to keep up.”