Nocturne

Page 9

 

  Oh, no, no, no. I could not have gratitude and earnestness from an angel. I was not used to that from anybody. “Think how relieved I am that this night went so well,” I told him. “If you’d come crashing to the ground and snapped one of your wings—well, that would have been my fault. ”

  “I wouldn’t have blamed you,” he said, still in that serious manner.

  “Are you joking? You’d never have stopped blaming me!” I exclaimed. “You’d have spent the rest of your life in some attic, sitting in the dark and cursing my name, hating me even more than that angel who wouldn’t help you fly when you first lost your sight. ”

  He took just enough affront to step back a pace; the last feathers of his wing slipped silkily from my shoulder, leaving me even colder than before. “But unlike that old friend, you were exceptionally helpful,” he said, and his voice had the slightest edge. “I had counted on you to keep calling, but I hadn’t expected songs. And such songs! ‘The Shy Angel-Seeker of Sweet Semorrah’? The last time I heard that piece sung, I was keeping very questionable company. ”

  “You’re keeping questionable company now. You just didn’t realize it before. ”

  “Oh, I realized it,” he replied. “I just haven’t had much latitude in my choice of companions. ”

  I snorted in amusement. “Well, I don’t mind if you make fun of my song selection,” I said. “Just don’t make fun of my voice. You can’t expect a mortal to sound like an angel. ”

  He looked surprised. “In fact, I was impressed with the quality of your voice,” he said. “Am I wrong, or are you an angel’s daughter?”

  And then I did the stupidest thing. Instead of answering, I caught my breath, as if he had offered me the gravest insult, then turned around and practically ran for the stairwell. I had closed the trapdoor, not wanting the blind angel to put a foot wrong as he tried to land, and now my frozen hands couldn’t pry it up fast enough. With a pouncing motion and a swirl of feathers, Corban caught my arm and hauled me to my feet before I could escape.

  “Moriah—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

  “I’m not offended,” I grated out through chattering teeth. I tried to jerk free but his hand tightened automatically. High body heat and exceptional strength—oh, angels had far more than their share of advantages. “I’m tired of the conversation. ”

  “You’re cold,” he said in a wondering voice, suddenly registering the temperature of my skin. He lifted his free hand to wrap around my other arm. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “Well, first, I was watching you fly. Then I was hearing you talk about how much fun it was to fly. Then I was arguing with you. So there hasn’t been time. ”

  Unexpectedly, he released me and then drew me against his chest once more. His wings overlapped behind me, a plush cocoon. “We need to get you warmed up. ”

  “We could do that inside,” I suggested. It was hard to make that sound convincing when I was snuggled up against him, luxuriating in the heat of his body.

  “In a minute,” he said. “Why don’t you like to talk about the fact that you’re an angel’s child?”

  I had braced myself for the question, and this time I had my armor on. “Why might that be?” I said in a scathing voice. “Oh, maybe because my mother was an angel-seeker. That’s not something to be proud of. Maybe because I was one of the hundreds of children abandoned every year by women who don’t want to be burdened with the care of a mortal child. Maybe because I don’t want your pity or your disdain. ”

  He was silent a moment. “And how did you come to be at the Gabriel School?” he asked finally.

  I laughed and tugged myself free. Jovah’s bones, but it was cold up here once a person stepped outside the protection of an angel’s wings. “Only the latest stop in a highly adventurous life,” I said. “I’m going downstairs. Your dinner’s probably cold by now, but I’d think you’d have built up an appetite. ”

  This time the recalcitrant door opened without a hitch, and I was quickly down the curving staircase into the blessed warmth of the attic. Corban, who had clearly learned to navigate the steps without being able to see them, was right behind me.

  “Are you going to stay and eat with me?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve been gone too long as it is. ”

  “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

  I wanted to and I didn’t want to, and the fact that I wanted to really made me not want to. But I hated the idea that someone else might come to the Great House and discover the blind angel. “I suppose,” I said ungraciously. “Someone has to look after you. ”

  “Can you come back earlier or stay longer? The more I fly, the more I can build up my strength. ”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m just sneaking over here now. ”

  “Sneaking? Why?” he asked.

  “Because no one knows there’s an injured angel hiding in the Great House,” I said tartly. “I thought that was on your command. We’ve all been warned away. People think the place is haunted, so everyone’s afraid of the house anyway. ”

  “So why did you start coming over?”

  I let out my breath on a gusty sigh and offered a partial truth. “Because I’m the kind of person who always goes where I’m not allowed,” I said. “I thought you’d have figured that out by now. ”

  He was smiling slightly. “I have. I just wanted to hear you say it. ”

  I made an infuriated sound at the back of my throat. If I was as irksome to others as the angel was to me, I finally understood why some people despised me. “So, yes, I suppose I’ll be back,” I said as I made my way toward the door.

  “And we can practice flying again?” he said.

  He sounded so excited, so hopeful, that I couldn’t bear to give an equivocal reply. “Yes,” I said. “You can practice flying again. ”

  CHAPTER 4

  When I entered the kitchen the next evening to help clean up after dinner, everyone fell silent to stare at me. I hid my instinctive apprehension behind a curious expression. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The housekeeper at the Great House wants to see you,” Deborah said, her eyes speculative.

  I relaxed a little. Alma must have found a way to signal for help. “She does? Why?”

  “She says she knows you,” Elon piped up. “You worked together at some shop in Luminaux. She spotted you in the yard the other day and she recognized you. ”

  “Alma’s here?” I exclaimed. She had made it very easy for me to follow her cues. “I didn’t know that! I lost track of her a long time ago. ”

  Deborah said, “She asked if I could spare you for the next few days, since she’s had an accident and can’t move around too well. ”

  “Oh, no! What happened?”

  “Fell and twisted her ankle,” Elon said. “And she’s all alone in the house, what with the headmistress being gone. ”

  “She hobbled out to the porch and waved a red cloth till someone noticed her,” Judith added.

  “Everyone was afraid to go up and see what was wrong, of course,” Rhesa said. “I mean—the house is haunted! But we sent one of the boys, and she asked for you. ”

  “She wants you to come up every evening and help her make her dinner and keep the house tidy,” Deborah said. “You’ll have to stay a few hours, I suppose, but you won’t need to spend the night. ”

  The words froze me to the spot. Alma probably didn’t need me for more than half an hour a day; in fact, as long as she had food in the house, she probably didn’t need me at all. Alma was not the one who had requested my presence. . . .

  “No, I’d hate to spend the night there,” I agreed. “The place is so—spooky. ” I managed a convincing shiver.

  Judith spoke up, her voice deceptively mild. “I suppose someone will have to take over your shift in the kitchen at night,” she said. “I don’t see how you can do it all. ”

>   “Yes, Rhesa will have to go back to night duty for the time being,” Deborah agreed.

  Judith grinned at me behind Deborah’s back—we both hated Rhesa—and Rhesa started whining. “But I hate the overnight shift! Isn’t it somebody else’s turn?”

  “Stop complaining!” Deborah said briskly. “It’s just for a few days, I’m sure. ”

  I was less sure, but I wasn’t about to say so. I was both unnerved and a little excited to think that Corban had gone to such effort to secure my help on a protracted basis. Of course, he really had no one else to ask. It wasn’t particularly a compliment to me that I was the only one he knew in the entire Gabriel School.

  “When should I go up to the Great House? Now? It’s so late already. ”

  “She said you should come no matter what time it was, so just head on over. ”