The things he did for me to make my life happy was the real Trevor. “Good, because Henry’s worth all those crappy days.”
“You two are pretty lucky to have found each other so young,” Trevor said. “Most angels don’t find spouses for centuries. I mean Brenda’s over four hundred years old and still single.”
“What?” I might have yelled a bit too loud. “She’s how old?”
“I’m not sure exactly but Zeke’s about a hundred and fifty and he said she’s around two hundred and seventy-five years older than him.”
My mind was blown. “Zeke?”
“Orion’s about a thousand.” Trevor laughed. “Ares and Ruth have been married for like four thousand years.”
I thought decades were a long time. “Holy shit.”
“Welcome to your new normal, bro.”
Getting a handle on my life was going to take a lot longer than I expected.
Ifound Uriel in the study at the back of the safehouse. He stood by the window, staring at the view as if the backyard of an ordinary house in Upper Northwest Washington, D.C. held something so fascinating he couldn’t look away. In other words, he was deep in thought. It was weird seeing him as Uriel and not as Alex, though his form seemed to flicker between the two, like my mind couldn't decide which version was real.
"You wanted to see me," he said without turning around.
I couldn’t tell if he welcomed my visit or if I interrupted him. “Not exactly. You have all the answers, but you've been avoiding me. I decided to find you.”
“I thought you’d need time before we spoke.” Leaving the window, his expression carefully neutral.
Henry described Uriel as enigmatic and mercurial. He’d also said Uriel cared for me. So far he was two for three. “What I need are answers.”
“Of course.” He gestured to a leather armchair.
Shaking my head, I declined the offer. “This isn’t a casual family chat. You lied to me for twenty-five years.”
“I understand your anger,” he said as he sat.
The almost casual way he dismissed my struggles irritated me. “Do you? For years I told Alex everything. I poured my heart out about stupid dating disasters. We had brunch every third Sunday like clockwork. You bought me the first suit for the job interview at Consolidated—a company you and your family own. And the whole time, you knew exactly who and what I was.”
“I also knew what was at stake and what you meant to the world, to me, and what your mother sacrificed.”
It was hard to argue emotional pain with someone who had a logical answer for every complaint. I finally took the open seat. “Why the Fentons? They’re horrible people. Of all the families in the world, why them?”
“It was bad luck.” Uriel's expression remained impassive. “You and the human who would have been Nicholas Fenton were born minutes apart. When he died, switching you for him was the perfect solution.”
The real Nicholas Fenton didn’t die, I’d killed him. “The Fentons were hardly perfect.”
“It quickly became apparent they were not ideal parents,” Uriel said. “I watched, and did what I could to mitigate the worst of their failings. I wish I could have intervened directly, but I couldn’t risk moving you.”
I wanted to scream at him that it wasn't enough, but something in his expression stopped me. Despite his matter-of-fact tone, this decision haunted him. I could blame him and yell that he should have done more, but it was the past. He couldn’tchange what transpired. Uriel might hate how it happened, but he did what he promised my mother.
“Tell me about her. Please?”
“We were so close, the humans often thought we were the same being.” Uriel's expression softened. “They couldn’t have been more wrong. Ariel was the best of us. She had a laugh that could make flowers bloom. Literally. Her joy was so pure, it affected living things around her.”
Uriel stared at the wall, a sad smile on his face. “Once, when we were only a few hundred years old, we found a dying tree. I wanted to leave it alone. Circle of life and all that. But Ariel sat beside it and told it stories until it flourished again.”
The image was so vivid, I could almost see it. A female version of Uriel, glowing with light, whispering to a withered tree.
“What did she look like?”
“Like you.” He finally looked at me. “I have pictures I can—want to share with you. She was myHKarlin,which is not always a romantic love. I want you to know the amazing person she was.”
