Luc opened his mouth to deny it but found himself sighing and looking away instead.
“This angel is your muse, perhaps?” Hadri asked.
“She’s not my muse,” Luc grumbled, staring at a section of scrolls on herbology. He tried to imagine Lila sitting still while he painted her; he could not.
“Then, perhaps, you are hers.” Hadri laughed pleasantly.
Doubtful.Luc shot him a look.
“Right then. Don’t worry. We’ll get you a new pin before the next Council meeting. Right this way.” Hadri ushered Luc through the hidden door and pulled it shut behind them, mercifully ending the subject.
In the common room, Hadri pointed out how the scholars categorized and shelved various research texts, but Luc’s thoughts wandered. He’d nearly forgotten about Lila earlier in the tour, but that stupid pin had whisked her back to the front of his mind. Her, in her crisp white robes, standing tall and severe with her back to the Void. Her, scolding him like he’d just been created.
You trust the Council. And the Creator. Well, I don’t. You think you know everything. You think everything works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Then answer me this. If we were meant to be together, why didn’t the Creator put us together in the first place?
Luc peered up at Heaven’s original blueprints, outlined in gold on the dark blue ceiling, as if the answer to Lila’s question lay above him, just out of reach.
“And here we have your own private study.” Hadri drew Luc’s attention to the far side of the room. There, a wooden door fitted with a brass combination lock awaited him. His mentor didn’t bother to conceal the password:hope.With aclick!the door opened. Hadri punched a button on the opposite side of the door, and the letters re-jumbled themselves. He scrolled until the lock read ‘aaaa,’ then released the button.
“Your password. Four letters, please.” He gestured for Luc to input his own combination.
Luc swallowed. Lila’s face swam before him.
You think you know everything.
His fingers trembled, but he concealed them and the lock from Hadri. He paused, trying to think of a four-letter word, any four-letter word, besides her name.
He blanked, coming up with nothing.
Luc shook his head.
No matter. He would change his password later. As soon as possible. At the next opportunity.
He set the lock, then followed Hadri inside. The door shut behind him, and he blurted, “How soon will I meet the Creator?”
The Creator. Of course. He would put an end to Luc’s ill-timed doubt. He would answer the question of Luc’s purpose.
What did Lila know? Lila was ridiculous. A mere carpenter angel. She had no idea what she was talking about.
“First, let us go downstairs,” Hadri answered, that uncharacteristic seriousness resurfacing.
“Downstairs?” Luc blinked. Glancing around the room, he noted a desk, an armchair, an oil lamp, a cream and gold rug. Everything but a staircase.
Hadri bent over and rolled back the rug, revealing a trap door.
“Downstairs,” he repeated.
And down they went. Luc’s unease returned as they descended; he’d never been anywhere with such an absence of light. Even lit by the candles flickering along its bare stone walls, the chamber beneath the Library gave too much to the darkness. It reminded him of the Void, strange and obscure.
Though the Void had always intrigued him with its mysteries, being in the midst of it—or something like it—unnerved him in a way he hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t describe. The sudden lack of sight disoriented him.
When his eyes finally adjusted to his new environment, henoticed a plain stone pedestal standing in the center of the room; it bore a brass bowl, equally plain. Hadri walked out to this central point, passing the pedestal, then turned back to Luc. The elder’s face grew solemn.
“You will not be meeting the Creator. No one meets with Him. He has gone.”
Luc stiffened, all his plans stuttering to a halt. The dark room swallowed him up, and his skin tingled with quiet dread.
You think you know everything,Lila whispered in his ear. Her lips brushed his earlobe.
