Archangel's Heart

“Tell me,” she said. “What is it that brings your consort to talk to Tasha?”

* * *

Elena and Tasha walked in silence for several minutes, and oddly, that silence wasn’t awkward. It felt like walking with another hunter, both of them keeping an eye out for threats without making it appear they were doing so.

“Raphael told me you speak Moroccan Arabic,” Elena said as, up ahead, Caliane and Raphael walked side by side, their wings overlapping.

Elena and Tasha, on the other hand, had made every effort to ensure their wings didn’t so much as brush against each other.

“Yes,” Tasha replied. “I learned it when I lived here for a time during my youth.” A smile in her voice, she added, “Raphael traveled through here as well, you know.”

“Knock it off, Tasha. You won’t rattle me with stuff like that.”

A shrug. “I’m simply speaking of an old friend.”

Deciding to let that battle go when it was obvious Tasha was in a mood where she wanted to dig at Elena, Elena said, “Raphael also told me I can trust you to do a translation.”

A frown from the other woman, her hackles so far up Elena could almost see them. “Of course you can trust me in this. We may both be the lovers of the same man, but I have honor.”

The prickly response seemed honest. “I apologize,” Elena said. “I wasn’t questioning that . . . hell, yes, I was. This fucking place.”

Tasha’s stiff tension turned into a caution directed outward, her eyes going dark before she scanned the area once more. “Yes, I feel it, too. There are ghosts here.”

Fighting off a shiver at the memory of the ghost that had twice chilled her skin, Elena said, “If you can, please translate this for me.” Reaching into her mind, she spoke the words exactly as the woman in the marketplace had spoken them.

“Wait.” Tasha frowned. “Repeat that more slowly.”

She asked the same two more times before saying, “I have it. The repetition was because it appears the original speaker used a particular dialect. I had to match up the words I know with the words you spoke—you realize this means I must guess some meanings from context?”

“Got it.”

After taking another minute to order her thoughts, Tasha began to speak. “‘My grandmother told me the story of Majda, a woman with moonlight hair, born to a small merchant family. The family is no more, for she was the only daughter and the parents are now dead and she disappeared long ago.’”

Tasha gave a hard shake of her head. “Wait, that’s not right. It wasn’t the word for ‘disappeared.’ It was ‘taken.’”

A woman who was taken.

Elena’s heart thudded. “Was that all?”

“No. There was also this: ‘All traces of this family and of the woman with the moonlight hair have been erased from the town, and those who know are elderly, their memories fading and their bodies too fragile to rebel against the silence that hangs over the story. If others know, they stay silent, for to speak of her is to draw the attention of the angels.’”

A quick breath before Tasha continued, “‘My grandmother told me Majda’s story in secret. I think you will not betray me and you, too, have skin like her and moonlight hair’”—Tasha’s gaze grew sharp—“‘so I tell you this.’”

Blood roaring through her veins, Elena reached for Raphael’s mind, shared what Tasha had told her. Aloud, she said, “Thank you,” to Tasha.

“You seek your ancestors?”

“My mother was orphaned as a small child,” she told the other woman, since that was no secret if anyone cared to look into Marguerite Deveraux’s history. “Her mother came from Morocco, that’s all I know.”

“A woman with moonlight hair,” Tasha murmured, her gaze flicking to Elena’s hair once more. “Personally, I think you look as if you were fried in a lightning storm, but to each their own.”

Elena found herself laughing. “That’s pretty good for an on-the-spot comment.”

“It’s possible I’ve been working on it for a while.” Tasha’s lips tugged up in a clearly reluctant smile. “Will you not insult me in turn?”

“I called you Tasha McHotpants once,” Elena said, and as Tasha burst out laughing despite herself, Elena thought once again that she and the other woman could’ve been friends if not for Tasha’s unhidden desire to turn back the clock.

The angel simply didn’t understand that some things were set in stone, were forever.

Elena-mine, are you ready to fly?

Her lips curved at the sweet, wild caress of the sea over her senses. Yes.

My mother has expressed a desire to accompany us. I think she wishes to escape this place, too.

I’ve got no problem with that, but warn her of the reception she’ll be getting. Turning to Tasha on the heels of her discussion with Raphael, Elena found the other woman’s jaw clenched tight, her eyes grim. “Caliane let you know the plan?”

Tasha nodded. “I don’t want her to be hurt. She’s used to living in Amanat, where her people adore her.”

“If you need backup getting her out of there, let us know.”

“She’s stubborn,” was Tasha’s response. “Not often, but when it matters to her, she will do exactly as she will do.”

Ahead of them, Caliane spread her wings.