The Key

Chapter 41

When the hour approaches, everyone takes their positions, arrayed on those rugs in a receiving line. They scan the field for the golden mist of Cas’ last portal back into that box. When it appears, everyone on the rugs politely applauds, perhaps at the sight, perhaps for the cartographer who successfully gave the angels directions for moving their portal. But probably for the spectacle. From far off the rugs, there are whoops and cheers, and thus comes the moment of transfer.

Despite the unwieldiness of his cane, Sam carries the warded box, the tablet within. He stands at their father’s right, Dan at King John’s left. With the portal at his back, Cas faces King John, who withdraws the tablet from the box Sam carries. The moment is heavier than the stone, but after one final tense exchange of dutiful words, Cas has the tablet in his hands.

Cas has the tablet, and despite the plethora of words and arrangements exchanged, the only thing they truly, physically have to bind the angels to their promises—the one thing—is the blade Dan wears on his hip. And the only angel this might hold is Cas, one out of thousands. They can renege.

Dan’s stomach twists with the nausea of a mistake not yet enacted, and Cas’ eyes leave King John to look at Dan with joy. Lips pressed together, Dan says nothing. He isn’t called upon to say anything. He simply nods, permitting Cas to go, permitting whatever is to come, to come.

When they planned this, Cas was simply meant to turn and walk into the portal. There wasn’t a practice run, but that was what was agreed upon. Now, however, unscripted, when Cas turns, he stretches one wing back to press a flight feather against Dan’s empty palm. Standing close, the reach is small, but as Casper walks forward toward that swirling golden mist, he stretches his wing back farther and farther, a long black and gray display for everyone to see.

If it’s meant to reassure, it doesn’t. If it’s meant to remind Dan of that final night, the way Cas had clung to him while intending to leave him forever, if it’s meant to do that, then it succeeds in spades.

So Dan grips that feather tight. He doesn’t pull or tug or shout for Cas to halt where he stands. He keeps the urge under his skin and behind his teeth, and when Cas reaches the portal Dan does, in fact, let go.

The golden mist takes Casper the same way it had taken so many letters. Cas walks into the heart of it and simply doesn’t come out the other side of the shine.

The portal evaporates.

The field is empty, and as the minutes crawl past, the field remains empty.

The sounds of murmuring reach Dan’s ears, then impatient speech from the pavilion tent. As aristocrats and diplomats quietly wonder what’s taking so long, some in murmurs, some in hissed speech, Dan stands firm next to his father and looks at no one. Back in the pavilion tent, he knows Mary is urging patience.

When it has to be an hour later, someone informs them that it’s been ten minutes. About thirty years later, it’s been a full half an hour.

Dan stands there, and stands there, the sun beating down on him and his father’s gaze upon the side of his face. Every interaction he has ever had with Cas flashes in front of his eyes, and he tightens his hand on the blade’s hilt. When Dan can take the pressure no longer, he asks, “Sam? How’s the leg?”

“I can hold out until they come,” Sam answers with the firm voice of a man who has had a vision. Which he hasn’t, not unless it was while he was standing here, but their dad doesn’t have to know that.

“How much longer?” Dan asks.

“Oh, I’d say,” Sam begins to say—before the entire world interrupts him.

The entire sky.

The full noon sky splits open. Above their heads. Above the field. Above the world.

It cracks open. One long, trembling line splits the sky. A bolt of lightning, turned sideways. A comet, frozen in place. Gold flashes and fizzles against the blue.

It solidifies.

It parts.

Bursts of white blaze along the golden line, and from each flash, an angel drops. The first is a dark smudge against the sky, framed by silver. Then comes brown and black, bronze and gray. They drop headfirst before flaring their wings, displaying their colors, and they soar back skywards.

Shouts and cheers ring out from the humans awaiting this spectacle, this release, this immense risk. Overhead, the golden line turns white along its entire length, angel after angel swooping down out of nothingness.

Bronze, sandy tan, copper, midnight blue, reds muted and fiery, white and dappled, onyx black, greens of grass and pine, burnt orange, every shade of brown, gleaming silver, a glimpse of purple, yellows faded and bright; in rapid, unrelenting succession they come, colors in every combination. The sky goes dark with the multitude of wingspans. As a shiver from more than mere shade creeps up Dan’s spine and his craned neck, the angels begin to sing.

It isn’t one song but many, discordant in an uncoordinated rush of joy. They swoop and soar and spread out, many immediately flying due south. Their numbers still blot out the sun, still cover up the flashes of light heralding their kin, and though Dan should be keeping watch for Raphael’s silver wings—had he been the first?—all his eyes seek is a shock of cinder gray beneath black.

They stand and stare, watching an exodus of thousands, an army they have released on their own doorstep. The angels wheel above in countless circles. The flock grows, massive and seemingly effortless in its coordination. Their singing unifies, full of joy and triumph in a language Dan doesn’t understand. None descend. More and more follow in a constant blaze of light, and as the angels clear that space for more to come, it is as if the sun itself has shifted in the sky, transformed from a ball to a streak of white fire.

Dan hears the soft crunch of dry grass under carpet, but when he turns, it’s his mother. He steps to the side, and Mary takes her place between him and King John. They might hold hands. They might not. They all stare up at the sky, long past the points of their necks aching.

More and more angels head south, and clearing space for their fellows is like draining a lake by the bucket. A living rainbow of a cloud, casting dappled shadows; the swirling mass of them stretches imposingly high. It’s more than an army: it’s the entire population of a nation. And with that viewpoint, it turns remarkably small, wingspan aside.

“We should have brought telescopes,” Mary says to King John, and when Dan looks over, John is actually smiling faintly at that, at her.

Past them, his eyes still fixed on the sky, Sam says, “Dan.”

Dan looks. The line splitting the sky is nearly solid gold once more. There is one final flash of white, a white that births black marked with gray, and the golden line vanishes. Immediately, two closely wheeling angels peel off from the flock above, swooping down at that final angel.

For the first time, angels collide.

Mary catches Dan’s hand, and she’s close enough and against a large enough backdrop of spectacle that perhaps no one sees. She catches his hand and holds him in place as Cas plummets to the field with two brown-winged angels in tight pursuit. The sandy brown follows faster, practically on top of Cas, and a glint shines off something the darker brown carries, too close to the silver gleam of an angel blade for comfort.

The instant before they strike the field, Cas’ wings flare out. He and the other angel spin in a tight circle, wings flapping or striking as their feet hit the ground, and the third drops down on them both. Black wings wrap tight around that third angel, and sandy brown wings envelop them both. They stagger and straighten and stop moving.

Slowly, the bile pushing up Dan’s throat eases back down.

They’re hugging. That’s—that’s Hannah and Balthazar.

Dan’s future siblings-in-law.

He swallows the rest of the bile down as Mary squeezes his hand, and for just a second, he thinks it’s in support. Then he looks up, and, yeah, all right, that’s a pretty badass descent going on. Feet first, silver wings cupped downward, Archangel Raphael condescends his way out of the sky. About thirty feet up, he flaps his wings hard. Dry grass blows away. Dirt flies up. The heavy rug, weighted down, tries to shift.

Then Archangel Raphael lands, and Dan experiences a strangely amused sense of terror, because Cas was right:

The guy really doesn’t look a thing like he did in that tapestry.

Casper holds Hannah tight, and Balthazar holds them tighter, because even now, Balthazar would insist on having his wings on the outside. It’s an obnoxious piece of power play Casper is too relieved to resist. They hold each other, the ground too soft beneath their feet. The air is full, the sun is bright, and they are never going back .

“You stupid, moronic,” Balthazar mutters, an on-going slew of insults and grievances that twists and turns impressively without ever stopping. Hannah nods and nods, her forehead pressing hard against Casper’s cheek. Casper holds them back as much as he is able, with wings and arms both, and he fists his hand in the shirt Balthazar wears, which is Casper’s. Their touch restores him, their grace pulsing through Casper in search of injury.

“You want to spend your first minutes of freedom insulting me?” Casper asks.

“Yes,” both of them answer, overlapping rather than in unison.

“What did I explicitly tell you not to do?” Hannah asks, wedged tight against Casper within the firm band of Balthazar’s wings. She wears Casper’s belt, and the hilt of the blade tucked through it presses against his abdomen.

“Technically,” Casper begins.

“No,” both of them say, this time very much in unison.

“I didn’t ruin it just for one human,” Casper continues, ignoring the swat Balthazar levels at the back of his head.

“You were dead,” Hannah says, which seems to Casper a non-sequitur.

“Tell me you at least f****d him before you died,” Balthazar says, which is slightly more expected. When Casper doesn’t immediately answer, Balthazar answers for him. “No, of course you didn’t, you bloody died a virgin, didn’t you? My own brother died a virgin,” he says, and then none of them are talking, only holding tight.

Casper tries to ignore the press of the blade Hannah carried in her hands, not within her arm, but he has never been very good at ignoring what is important.

He pulls back, and the ash burnt into their clothes comes with him. He pulls back to look, and Hannah lets him, meeting his gaze squarely. Balthazar looks away. They stand with their wings touching, pressed edge to edge in too small a circle. Stark across their bodies and lingering in their feathers, darkening his gold and her bronze, is the ash.

Uriel’s ash. His wings. The shapes of his feathers are still clear on Hannah’s shirt, more smudged on Balthazar’s, and Casper looks down at himself to see how much has transferred. He touches. It is soft and fine, cool to the touch. It doesn’t itch or burn or grate. It feels like emptiness.

Wordlessly, Hannah pulls the blade from the belt she wears. Balthazar won’t look at that either. There is enough of everything else to look at—real plants and solid earth, their people wheeling above and Raphael meeting with Dan’s family across the field—but Balthazar’s eyes focus on none of it.

“Maybe you could take it,” Hannah says, as if there’s any hope of the blade allowing Casper to hold it within his grace. In her voice, there is that hope, and she looks at him as she always does, with faith and trust and concern.

Casper reaches, and in the hilt, there is his brother. He curls his fingers around the remains of Uriel’s grace, and Uriel’s grace does not curl back around his. He presses the hilt to his forearm, not willing to risk the blade on his skin, and he cannot force it inside.

Hannah’s wings droop. Already without a hope to be shattered, Balthazar’s do not.

“I’ll carry it,” Casper says. Hannah already has her arms full with Anna’s, and Balthazar’s response to loss is outward flippancy, not keepsakes.

“We can find somewhere to put it,” Balthazar says, immediately living up to that prediction.

“I’ll need a blade while Dan carries mine,” Casper explains, and Balthazar’s wings jerk against his and Hannah’s.

“He has your blade, and yet you have not f****d this man?” Balthazar questions. “How?”

“Consummation laws,” Casper answers, because those are easier to explain than tentatively rebuilt trust. “Also, by human standards, we’re not married yet.”

Hannah shoves her wing under Balthazar’s, physically edging him out of the conversation. She flicks her arm down, another blade falling neatly from her sleeve to her hand, and she passes this one to Casper, blade-first.

“Take this instead,” she says, eyes and voice brooking no question.

Casper holds out his hand. Hannah touches the tip to his palm. He relaxes his muscles and closes his eyes, and Anna’s grace sinks through his flesh with ease. Once it’s fully inside him, he feels... strange. Awake. Aware. There is a longing in his chest that feels like the rustle of her wings, and when he touches the trace of it in his sternum, Hannah nods, mimicking the gesture.

He looks down at Uriel’s blade in his other hand, and he begins to understand the thin, warded box that held Michael’s blade.

“You’ll be getting yours back, of course,” Balthazar says, checking, the words almost a question. “That human of yours can’t actually die and take it with him.”

“I’ll be getting it back,” Casper answers, the thought a heavy weight inside his bones.

Hannah presses Balthazar’s wing back harder. Balthazar tries to snap in under hers, and it’s exactly the kind of physical bickering that shows their age, this brief yet endless nudging. Casper slides Uriel’s blade through his belt—Hannah’s belt, returned to Casper by Dan, the damage from the lake partially restored by Casper’s grace. He keeps touching the hilt, and the surface is chilly and removed every time.

“I’ll be stationed at Winchester Castle for the duration of the term,” Casper says, looking down at Uriel’s blade. “The full six hundred fifty years. I understand no one else is expected to do more than a single fifty year shift.”

Hannah looks at him with a stubbornness he’d feared he wouldn’t see. He’d expected it of her, but he’d expected many things of Uriel as well. “We’ll be with you for the duration,” she says.

“Excuse you,” Balthazar says. “You’ll be with him. I’ll be there until something more interesting comes around.”

“Thank you,” Casper says to them both.

“Someone has to make sure you stop getting yourself killed,” Balthazar says, as if it doesn’t matter either way.

“Only the once,” Casper says, but both of them interrupt him, Hannah with “Twice” and Balthazar with “Alistair.”

Casper flares in an agitation display he doesn’t really mean. Balthazar just laughs, and Hannah ignores the motion entirely.

“I’m glad you’re well,” Hannah says, sincere enough that Balthazar looks away again.

“I’m glad you’re well,” Casper echoes, his eyes involuntarily tracing the smudged lines of Uriel’s feathers across her shirt and wings. She touches her wing to his once more, and they press hard, feathers overlapping.

“Tell me you knew what you were doing,” Balthazar interrupts. “Recalling your blade only partially, that was a plan, not you being too slow at following protocol.”

Casper knows what his brother wants him to say.

He says it. “Of course I knew what I was doing.”

Balthazar looks at him and his eyes press harder than Hannah’s wing. He sighs, drooping in dramatic despair. “How did any of those humans believe your lies?”

Casper checks with Hannah for support, but she looks back with equal curiosity on the subject.

“Cultural differences,” Casper supposes.

He pulls his wings in to look back over his shoulder, across the field. Raphael stands upon the rug the humans had laid out across the dirt, somehow innately understanding the insult of asking Raphael to set foot directly upon soil. Incredibly, a fight hasn’t broken out, despite the concessions, despite Casper’s fully sanctioned deceit, or King John wearing Michael’s blade, or King John himself.

There’s no telling if Dan is looking back. With another archangel so close to Prince Sam, it’s doubtful Dan will take his eyes off the threat for an instant. But it is suddenly—no, not suddenly—it is increasingly important Dan meet his siblings, and meet them now. Prince Sam as well, if he and Casper are indeed to become brothers.

“I’ve had a thought,” Casper says the moment he’s had it.

“No, you’re not allowed to do that anymore,” Balthazar tells him without even the courtesy of pausing to consider.

“What’s the thought?” Hannah asks, and Casper tells her, and her alone. If Balthazar listens in, that’s entirely his problem. Casper is sure to reassure her, to say that it will only be for fifty years or so, but Hannah simply shakes her head and says, “If you think it will help.”

“We have to put it somewhere,” Balthazar adds, sounding as if he doesn’t care in the slightest.

“There might be better places,” Casper says, more than willing to indulge the one brother he has left.

“I’ll have fifty years to think of one,” Balthazar says, which might mean it’s all right.

Casper nods his thanks, Balthazar ignores this, and Hannah says, “We should do it after Raphael takes flight, but before the humans disperse.”

“Once he leaves, you’re to follow him into battle,” Casper says, a piece of protest aimed at too many targets. He must remain behind himself, too busy acting as the glue binding the treaty together, useful only in his symbolism. “Shouldn’t we-”

“The more you stay out of Raphael’s sight, the better,” Balthazar says, as if Casper couldn’t have determined this himself.

“We’ll fly fast to catch up,” Hannah adds, as if Raphael won’t want them in the vanguard against the assembled demons, a battlefield test to prove their loyalty.

“It can wait,” Casper tells them. “We- our family doesn’t need to be so public.”

Balthazar shrugs, a long, fluttering motion. “I don’t mind a little show,” he understates.

“I do,” Hannah says, and that decides it. They will wait until after the battle. They will wait until Hannah and Balthazar return from the battle, intact and alive.

They wait and they watch Raphael speak with the royal humans. Rather, Casper watches. His siblings at last take a moment to focus on the longed-for world around them, faces upturned to the sun, wings spread to catch warmth and wind both. Even while they bask, they never completely sever contact with Casper, which is fortunate. He can’t bring himself to fully let go either.

When Raphael takes to the sky, the angels overhead immediately wheel after him. Hannah and Balthazar remain a moment longer, a minute longer. Balthazar still wears Casper’s shirt, Hannah his belt, but Casper has nothing of Balthazar’s. They are about to head into battle, and Casper has nothing of his brother’s—his only brother.

“Give me your boots,” Balthazar says. “I don’t want to ruin mine.”

Leaning on Hannah for balance, they swap their boots. The exchange complete, they keep holding on. Balthazar grabs Casper’s shoulder to complete the circle.

“We need to go,” Hannah says, standing still.

“When you return,” Casper tells them, “meet me by the hedge maze near the castle.” It’s as good a meeting place as any.