The World That We Knew(88)

Ava stopped in her tracks. In a way she was relieved. If meeting with the soldier was meant to have caused Lea’s death, it was a death she would have gladly taken on. But he would find out she wasn’t mortal soon enough. She would trick him as she’d tricked death.

“Come here,” the soldier told her in German. “Do as I say and I won’t shoot.”

He had no idea that a single letter was more lethal to her than any weapon, and so she went to him and lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t know she had no fear of him.

“What are you doing here?” he wanted to know.

Not wishing the Angel of Death to hear her voice, she didn’t answer.

“Can’t you speak?”

She pointed to her throat and shook her head.

“So you’re dumb?” A smile curled at the young man’s lips.

Ava felt the heat of compassion that radiated from Azriel as he sat above them. He was preparing himself. He was ready to take a mortal life into his arms.

The soldier nudged her with his rifle. “Do you know the way to the border? Can you take me there?”

She nodded. By now, Lea and Julien would be on their way. By now the stars were shining. The night was clear and cold. How strange that when one was pretending to be mortal, it was possible to shiver.

“Good,” the soldier said. “You’ll take me there.”

They ventured on, with Ava slowing her gait so he could keep pace with her. She led him around aimlessly, something he didn’t realize until they stumbled upon the place where he had made camp.

“What sort of trick is this?” the soldier cried, hitting her with his rifle.

She ignored his attack, horrified by what she saw. There was a makeshift tent and a fire pit. Beside them he’d set up traps to catch his dinner. There above them hanging from a rope was the heron, shot, with blood on his breast, gray feathers littering the forest floor. A howl escaped from her throat.

“This miserable thing.” The soldier shrugged. “Not worth eating.”

Ava’s fury burned hot inside her, her loss was immeasurable. This world that could be so heartless had stung her through and through. When she turned on the soldier it was as if the wind had caused his fall. Once he was on the ground, she climbed on top of him. Did he believe she was a mere woman? She was a monster, wasn’t she? She was made for witchery. She called to the angels of destruction and could hear them gathering above her. The wind drew near, summoned by her cries, and the birds above set up a racket of mourning that could be heard for miles. In their struggle Ava was so focused that she did not see another hidden trap, there under the leaves, carefully set to catch the first creature that passed by.

Her foot was seized by the rope, which caught and held on, as if it were a snake. There was only one way to end her existence, to remove a single letter, and only one way to defeat her in battle. Once she was held ten cubits above the ground, her powers would cease.

Before she could slip out of the rope, she was flung upward, exactly ten cubits above the earth. She had been fearless. She had been unbreakable. Until now.

The soldier laughed and said he would not do her the favor of killing her. Instead, he would leave her there to die. It was impossible for her to get back to the ground no matter how she struggled; in the air she was only as strong as a woman, and could face a woman’s death. Azriel surely knew her for who she was now. Her scarf had fallen to reveal her black hair. Yet he was there in the tree. Still waiting for the mortal he’d been sent to claim.

She pleaded with the soldier as a woman might, begging for mercy.

“Oh, so now you can talk?” The soldier laughed, pleased with himself. He was laughing when Lea came up behind him. She was a thread of shadow that fit into the falling dusk. She was the wolf in the woods. She was the flower on a branch filled with thorns. She was the daughter of a woman who would defend whomever she loved.

She had done as Ava said, and was about to leave with Julien, when she found the necklace in the pocket of Ava’s dress. She had Julien close the clasp around her throat. She spoke to her mother in the realm of the World to Come. Surely she would understand that you owe a debt to those who protect you.

When I join you in that other world, where we are free of terror and pain, and you embrace me, know that I acted as you would have done, with love and compassion and loyalty.

Reluctantly, she left Julien.

Reluctantly, he let her go.



To help her make her way through the deep overgrown forest, she took hold of a fallen branch, a perfect walking stick. It was what she used to strike the soldier. He cried out when he fell, but she hit him again. She didn’t stop because she could not stop. She thought of her mother, who had saved her life, and of those who had been herded onto trains, and of the wolves that had been hunted in these mountains, and of the golem in the blue dress hanging from the tree who would follow her to the end of the earth, and of the heron who would never fly again. She could hear a wailing come from within her that she had heard only once before, from behind the door of their apartment in Berlin when her mother sent her away.

She had taken Julien’s knife, and now the point hit its mark. As it did the soldier’s spirit left in a single breath of air, caught by the angel in the trees who had come to collect him. This was the death he had been waiting for. In the blue dusk, Lea saw Azriel. She was grateful to have seen him twice and to still be alive. All the same, she was shaking. She climbed the tree to cut the rope, sawing until her hands were bloody. Ava landed on the ground easily, in her bare feet, then took the knife from Lea and cut the second rope so that she might bring the heron to the ground.