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I appear before Bryn feeling like death warmed over. I’m wearing a crisp white blouse and dark black pants, which makes me feel much more anchored to what I consider to be reality. He’s summoned us to his office, a room that feels like the principal’s office.
I give Cosmos a pleading do we really have to do this look. He gives me a little shrug. I think he’s proud of the madness that occurred last night. He has a particular love for chaos that usually admire or fear, I guess, but right now I don’t know what he wants from me — or what any of them want from me.
Bryn is sitting behind a big oak desk. He has a five o’clock shadow around his jaw. He looks like he had a late night. I wonder what he did after I… what did I do? Surely what I’m remembering is wrong. I have faint memories and vague impressions of pulling off an incredible magic trick, of making the world break for me. I’m starting to think that brandy wasn’t just brandy. Probably had some kind of mushroom infusion. That’s what probably happened. A trip. That makes sense.
“Did you sleep well, Elise?” Bryn starts the conversation with an almost fatherly question. I am not buying it. He doesn’t care how I slept. His gaze is locked on me with dark intensity. There is something very dark about Bryn, far darker and more dangerous even than the demon Crichton, or anybody else I have encountered thus far. When I am near him, I feel my skin prickle the way it does around a predator.
“Sure,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Do you know what happened last night?”
“I got drunk and made an idiot of myself.”
“You summoned an angelic weapon,” Bryn says.
“I don’t think that’s what happened. I think the brandy was spiked and we were all drinking it and I think we imagined…”
Bryn has no patience for my rationalizations. “It was real, and it was very, very dangerous. You’ll take this seriously, and you will not be allowed the luxury of denial anymore. You are an angel, girl. Accept it. You may be the most powerful angelic warrior to walk this Earth in a thousand years. Your ongoing refusal to accept even the slightest bit of reality begins to grate.” Bryn is speaking through clenched teeth, his dark eyes smoldering with annoyance. I really piss this guy off. And I’m really enjoying that.
“Wow, grate? I had no idea. Let me believe in whatever garbage you need me to in order to continue your mad crusade against basically nothing.”
Bryn glowers at Cosmos. “You need to get this woman under control. She lacks discipline. She treats her celestial gifts as if they are mere illusions. It’s dangerous. And its offensive.”
“Sure,” Cosmos says, running his hand through his electric blue hair. “I’ll get right on that.” His tone suggests he doesn’t care that I’m out of control, that he enjoys my wildness and my sass. I glance at him and we share a smile.
Bryn sits back, his palms flat out on the oak table in front of him, his black shirt open a couple of buttons, the cross around his neck never having meant less.
“If I have to, I will break the both of you,” he growls. “Do not make the mistake of thinking just because this is England, I will treat you in a civilized fashion if you continue to defy me. Cosmos, we have history, but I think you know how important this is. How important Elise is.”
Cosmos is as cool as Bryn is angry. I can tell that Father Bryn is used to being in control, and that he really loathes he has to defer to the black sheep of their family on this one.
“Sure,” he says. “But it is her gift. It’s not yours to control. I know it is hard for you to fathom there being something in this organization that isn’t yours to control, but here we are.”
“You’re a cocky little shit, Cosmos. But you also know how to do what has to be done. I trust you’ll do it. And I hope you know that if you don’t, it will be done regardless.”
“What will be done?” I ask the question. I want to force him to make the threat.
“You’ll be made to learn the lessons you need to learn in order to become what you can be, and to stop you from being a danger to existence. That angelic blade can cut from here to Hell and back, and you have no way of controlling it.”
“Don’t worry,” Cosmos says, dropping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m a very good teacher.”
“Let’s hope so,” Bryn sighs.
“That man wants to beat you so badly,” Cosmos laughs as we leave. “If he dared, you’d be so very sore right now.”
