He’d wandered away from them and was currently the warriors’ problem, set on offering them wine despite their resolute posture. Lila watched him badger them until Beni tugged him away, and the crowd swallowed up the two friends.
By then, the cannon had been prepared to fire. New goblets had been served to all.
Lila, Eva, and Adrianna clinked their cups together and toasted to ‘never answering to an instructor ever again.’ They whooped and embraced each other.
The cannon fired overhead with a blast that reverberated throughout the aether. A staccato beat, then a continuous crackle that growled into the blackness beyond. Then came the rain of paper. Shreds flew into the darkness, past the translucent barrier that shimmered golden in their wake. Then they were gone without sound or effect. Simply vanished.
The crowd laughed, and the Void laughed back. Mutely. Indifferently.
But those shreds that didn’t reach the Void fell into the crowd like confetti, scraps to be trampled under the victors’ feet. Angels laughed and cried and clutched the torn remnants of their lessons in their hands:it’s over; can you believe it?
Can you believe it?
Along with everyone, Lila threw up her hands and rejoiced. She hugged Eva again, then circled around the ledge congratulating everyone. For a time, she watched Eva and Adrianna spinning around in the middle of the crowd, dancing and laughing. Then she edged her way outside the circle of revelers, grateful, for once, for her ability to be invisible. Forgotten.
Soon, she would move into her house with Castor, but right now, she could still disappear. Slipping away, she traveled the path leading from the West Edge past the warrior’s compound, past the Great Hall, past the Library, past the dormitories and the Lessons Hall. The graduation crowd gradually thinned, then disappeared altogether.
With every step, Lila’s muscles relaxed; her load lightened. When there was no one left to see, she allowed herself the frivolity of a smile.
Once she’d traveled as far east as she could go, she headed south to the most isolated spot in Heaven: the Southeast Edge of the Void. Few warriors patrolled there, and the only structural features were the marble platform and an alabaster obelisk inscribed with the wordsex nihilo aliquid.
From nothing, something.
Luc was waiting there by the obelisk, just as he’d said he would be after the cannon shot, a streak of white against an endless black canvas. A proverb of a person. A sliver ofsomethingin the vast nothingness of her existence.
Present Aeon
Lila found Luc at their former meeting spot at the Southeast Edge of the Void, far to the east of the new construction near the Gates but still too heavily patrolled for Lila’s liking.
In the old times, only an obelisk marked the spot. Now there were stone watchtowers—empty, currently, from what Lila could see, but she didn’t trust them. Gone was the practice of shooting paper-filled cannons into the Void. The walkable perimeter had tightened so much that even if someone had wanted to fall off the edge, it was nearly impossible.
She tried to disappear into the hood of her white cloak and walked rapidly to her destination, narrowly skirting a few guards on the way there. Approaching the obelisk, she circled around it and smacked Luc in the chest with his coded summons.
“I received your message. But we’re not doingthisagain, so save your messengers for something useful.” She turned and would have fled back to woodworking before she was missed, but Luc latched onto her wrist and yanked her behind the column.
“No, no, no, this isn’t about that. I want your advice. Remember that project we worked on together during lessons?” Luc’s hands were as soft as she remembered them, but if he looked down, he’d see that hers now sported the callouses of a warrior where her skin had toughened against the handle of a sword. If he touched her hands, would he feel their roughness?
“What about it?” Lila snatched her wrist back, surprising herself with her strength.
Luc seemed surprised by it too. He took a moment to study her, his gaze roaming up and down her figure as if he hadn’t seen her for a long time.
She supposed he hadn’t, not up close, though she’d often spotted him inside the Great Hall. Luc was one of the few angels who saw her as a distinct entity, not an extension of Castor. At one time, she’d craved it; now she hated his appraising stare.
“What?” she snapped. “What is it?”
Luc blinked, coming back to himself.
“I’ve presented my Earth idea to the Council a hundred different ways, and they don’t see the point of it. How would you explain it to them? I could show you all the work I’ve done on it in the past aeon.” He gestured demonstratively, though less enthusiastically than he would have during lessons. Back then, he’d radiated a feverish energy when he spoke about his plans.Theirplans. Now, he was more subdued as he explained, “I’ve expanded everything. The landforms, the creatures, the plant types…They’re all interconnected in a series of ecosystems. Rainforests, deserts, tundras…”
‘Ecosystems?’ Lila mouthed as he continued rambling. She didn’t understand half of the words tumbling from his mouth and only vaguely remembered the other half from the times they used to sit at the edge of the Void, dreaming up names for their experimental concepts.
“Also, there are more systems now, not just the one. I call the whole project ‘Universe,’” he finished, searching Lila for some sort of confirmation. Understanding, perhaps. Or sympathy. He could hardly expect her to muster passion after so much time.
In this aeon, they were civil, but they were hardly cordial. They certainly weren’t familiar as they had once been, and she didn’t understand why he wanted her opinion. As a member of the highest Council, he surely had more educated and experienced angels at his disposal than the common carpenter angel he’d taught to draw blueprints over an aeon ago.
She’d thought, perhaps, he’d summoned her because he missed her. Because he’d wanted to rekindle?—
But of course this was about his project. It had been from the start.
