Archangel's Storm

think impossible thoughts about always being welcomed home as he’d been last night. “I was flying above the fort, saw the guard running in a panic. It wasn’t difficult to sweep down, find out why.”
    Mahiya raised a single eyebrow but kept her silence, and a minute later, they walked through one of the cool passages inside the fort to exit a few feet from gardens clothed in a profusion of fragrant blooms. Five women stood in a knot in one corner, blooms of another kind. When Mahiya would’ve moved out from the passageway, Jason stopped her with a hand on the silken warmth of her arm, the scent of her a caress to the senses. “Wait.”
    “The body language is interesting, is it not?” Mahiya’s quiet comment echoed his own thoughts, her wing brushing his as she leaned in so he could hear her.
    He didn’t move away. “Very.”
    The tallest lady, an angel, had positioned herself so she didn’t fully face any of the others. Another angel, her wings the dusty brown of a sparrow’s, was holding on to a sylph of a vampire with the broken desperation of someone who isn’t sure her legs will support her, while a dark-eyed angel and a vampire with pale skin wiped at their eyes with what appeared to be lace handkerchiefs.
    “The sparrow,” he murmured, “she actually grieves.” The rest indulged in theatre.
    “Yes.” Sympathy in the single soft word. “Shabnam and she were both inducted into their positions at the same time, and rather than competing for Neha’s attention, they became friends who helped each other navigate the politics.”
    “Why should there be politics? They occupy the same rarefied position.”
    Mahiya shot him a frowning look. “Are you making fun?”
    Jason hadn’t ever been accused of that, even by the irrepressible Illium. “Strange as it may seem,” he said, “I have never had reason to know about the inner workings of a group of ladies-in-waiting.” He had operatives who were far more capable in that arena and who kept him apprised of any necessary information from such quarters.
    “A lady-in-waiting has certain access to Neha.” Mahiya appeared to have decided to take him at his word, though the suspicion in her eyes didn’t totally dissipate—and for some reason, that made a quiet amusement warm his blood. “None of them would be stupid enough to risk their position by actually asking for anything, but occasionally, if a lady is particularly favored, Neha will grant her a boon.”
    Even a small boon from an archangel, Jason understood, could change the balance of power in a given situation. “Do they represent different groups in the court?” He looked at the women with new eyes, seeing iron butterflies, their wings edged with razors of ambition and greed.
    “Not simply the court, but the territory.”
    Thus, they all had puppet masters at their back, tugging strings, situating each for maximum gain . . . doing the dirty work.
    “Lisbeth holds the most power at present.” She indicated the dark-eyed angel. “She’s very intelligent. They all are.”
    He nodded in acknowledgment of the warning. “I take care to never underestimate an opponent, but I may have in this case.” Like the others around her, Lisbeth looked . . . frothy. Clothes of a gauzy fabric that caught the wind and glossy brown hair done up in an intricate mass of curls, jeweled combs in the strands, features painted with an artful delicacy that highlighted her ebony-skinned beauty. “I’ve seen enough.”
    “Do you wish for me to organize interviews for you with the ladies?” Mahiya asked once they were back in the corridor.
    “No.” He’d find them on their own when they didn’t expect to be questioned. Right now, he wanted the answer to a different kind of question. “You’ve become cooperative beyond the call of duty.”
    A shallow court smile—one he realized he despised after having glimpsed a real one last night when she admitted to watching for him. “You,” she murmured, “are my best hope of escaping this hell.”
    It made him wonder just how far she’d go.
     

16
    “T ell me who gains from Shabnam’s death.”
    Mahiya felt a sudden, frustrated urge to scream when Jason used the haunting clarity of his voice to speak those words. She’d deliberately baited him with her sweetly poisonous reply, wanting to incite a response, to shatter the obsidian ice that surrounded him until it felt as if she spoke to a black mirror.
    “Is there a lady who waits to take