Page 82 of A Serpent in the Garden

Finn was looking at me as if he knew perfectly well Remy was on the cusp of a rage in my head, his golden eyes glowing and steady and locked on mine.

Angling my gaze away, I said, Just calm down before you say anything you’ll regret. I’m sure you have more questions. If you start some stupid fight you’ll never have them answered.

Remy drew my fingers into fists for a few seconds. One moment tiptoed into the next as I sensed Finn’s eyes roaming over me. Then the brilliant fury in my chest slid back down the spectrum to a cold and icy gray, and when next Remy assumed control of my tongue, my voice was colorless and flat.

“What else? That can’t be all you’ve turned up.”

“Well, I was able to procure a more complete statement from the woman our father had been with the night he first saw the light down by the In Between—”

“How did you manage that?” Remy cut in. “She never told me anything.”

“I asked her one night in my bed a few years ago.” A thin smile up at the canopy at Remy’s noise of disgust. “If I avoided every woman our father ever slept with, I’d have to take up with the sheep out back. His fling with her lasted a fortnight, right up until he died. He had to have told her something. And he did. You weren’t the only one who’d noticed the coin discrepancy.”

“Did he keep records? I never found any when I went through his things.”

Finn turned a hand palm-up, his eyes smoked with gilt shadows. “If he had, they were only in his head.”

“If you don’t think Luceric will ever show himself again, why have you been out with the humans?”

“It can’t just be us keeping an eye out for him. If ever he’ll show himself, it won’t be here, it’ll be out there, with his little acolytes, with humans who might beg his favor.” Finn shrugged elaborately. “I look angelic enough. I might not have wings but all the gold doesn’t hurt. Out of all of us, Casper and I are the only ones who might find mortal help. I told them I’m Luceric’s half-human progeny. They promised to light fires for me if they hear news of him, if they’ve seen him. He won’t be easy to miss if he’s flitting around showing off.”

“How would he be easy to find?” I asked. Finn gave me a look as if exulting in something adorable I’d done, like I was a child showing off a drawing. “I thought they were invisible when they moved amongst humans.”

Finn ran a hot, idle palm up my calf, like he hardly knew what he was doing, though there was a wicked gleam in his eye. “They usually are, but they all leave traces, signs, if you know what to look for. His is light. Overbearing white light. Supposedly for the brilliance of his mind. From what I’ve heard, he hasn’t been inactive. Valic says the coin disparity hasn’t stopped. If the ferryman’s still allowing souls to be stolen, they’re not completing the swaps anywhere near Hell anymore. Probably at the head of the river, though the ferryman would have to be involved with the actual handling of the souls up till the end…I don’t know. I’d heard promising rumblings about The Crossing before Valic lit that fire to call me home. Might be any day. He won’t slip through our fingers again. I think I have enough evidence to bring to the council, but I don’t want to wait on their measured response. I doubt they’ll deal with Luceric the way he ought to be dealt with.” Finn flicked an amused glance through my eyes and into his brother’s. “Do try to be a good boy, now. It would be a shame if you were in a Frost cell when word gets back to me. It’s not every day one gets to kill the new divine overlord.”

“Luceric is a fucking scribe,” Remy snapped. “It’s not up to him to play God.”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Finn said, fluent and velvety. His gaze was back on the billowing canopy above our heads as his absentminded fingers probed my leg. “There isn’t any God anymore so they’re all trying to play.”

You’re angry, Remy said, as I tossed aside yet another scroll he’d finished reading, a hastily scrawled story about the ferryman some demon or other had told Finn a few years earlier.

Finn had dragged out a locked trunk full of information he had turned up and copied down over the years and then promptly fell asleep, propped up against a profusion of pillows, glowing even when completely insensate. His mouth soft with sleep, his hair in disarray, gilt lashes flickering with dreams. A slash of gold skin peeked through his gaping robe, his hipbones stark and sharp above his loose trousers. He looked younger than his thirty years. With the red bed hangings draped around us, it felt like I sat in the middle of a heart chamber.

I’m really not. I kneaded a temple, where an ache had begun to pulse. What would be the point in being angry? He was who he was. Why would I even be surprised there’s still more you never thought to tell me? I’ve never met anyone more reticent than you.

He didn’t like that, I could tell by the way he shifted and sighed. I was really angry back then. Threatening those acolytes, that’s all it was. Empty threats. I’d never have done it. An unsteady pause. You helped me heal from it, you know. You didn’t know it and you weren’t trying to but you did. Letting me teach you things, talking to you when you couldn’t sleep. I moved on from the worst of the anger.

I felt my mind darken with memory, tracing back that specterlike map to six years ago. Yes, he’d been all gnashing teeth and towering temper back then, yet here he was now, plotting murder. That didn’t seem the product of a stable mind. You don’t seem very healed.

Healing doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my father was murdered.

You can’t just go around killing angels. I flicked a glance over at the sleeping angel in disguise, trying not to wake him as I cleaned up the scrolls, none of which had told Remy anything Finn hadn’t already.

Says who?

Your mother, for one.

If she had her way I’d never do anything. I’d be stuck in Frost for the rest of my life, ruling the most boring Hell circle I have ever had the misfortune of visiting.

You’ll get hurt.

A rakish edge in his voice. Worried?

I don’t want anyone to get hurt.

I don’t care if I get hurt as long as he gets dead.

You don’t think there’s any other explanation for what happened? I gestured to the chaos of parchment scattered about me as I sat cross-legged on Finn’s bed. Maybe this angel was just a witness. Maybe the ferryman killed your father. Doesn’t he lurk about the In Between? Wouldn’t the ferryman have more to lose than Luceric? Nobody but you and your father ever saw that light and an angel wouldn’t be punished by a Hell council if he was freeing damned souls, would he? Can’t they just claim divine right and do whatever they like?