Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(40)



“I agree,” I told them. Gabriel nodded, acknowledging my concerns.

“It’s not that simple,” Michael hedged.

“Where is she?” Gabriel asked, his eyes turning molten.

“The Meat Market. She’s a slave,” Michael answered, but he wouldn’t look at me. He stared at Gabriel, the muscle ticking in his jaw.

“What kind of slave?” I whispered.

All of a sudden I couldn’t breathe again. Something was wrong – on Earth – with my body.

“Nothing is wrong,” he whispered, grazing my forehead with the stubble on his chin. Manna began to rain down around us, dropping softly onto the rocks and flowing down the river. It bounced off tree branches and onto the ground. The crows feasted.

There was something wrong. I couldn’t breathe.

“You can. I know you’re upset, but I vow that I will release your mother from this servitude.” He looked meaningfully at Gabriel. “I need you to guard her with your life.” Michael eased me off his lap and onto the cold, gritty rock beneath it.

Gabriel inclined his head. The two spoke in angel, their voices and facial features hardening into stone in an instant. Just like that, Michael clucked his tongue and the crows flew in circles around him, whisking him into the air and away from us in an instant.

My stomach roiled as I watched him disappear into the leafy canopy. “Will he be okay?”

“In the city? Yes. And your mother will be fine as soon as he convinces her owner to free her.”

“What’s he going to have to do to convince them?”

“Anything necessary,” he said.

Tears filled with aggravation and helplessness fell from my eyes. I couldn’t stem the flow.

“I hate to see you cry,” Gabriel said softly as he watched me, unblinking.

“They’re hurting her. She’s being used. Her soul, her body. My father hated her so much that she ended up taking her life to get away from him, but that wasn’t enough for him. He sent her here and threw her to the wolves, and now they’re tearing her apart.” I let out a frustrated scream, clenching my fists. If my father was standing in front of me right now, I’d beat him to a pulp; just like he sent his puppets to beat me. Fast. Frenzied. Unmerciful.

My poor mother died a slow, agonizing death that started long before she decided to finally escape him. Most people thought she was troubled or selfish for taking her life, but I thought she was brave as hell. She knew there was no way out, no way she could possibly escape him, and so she gave him no say in the matter. She went out her own way. I only wished that she’d taken me with her. Just driven off a cliff or something. I swiped my eyes.

“Don’t wish for death, Carmen.”

“I can’t help it. Maybe it’s the situation, or maybe it’s the God-awful gray of this place, but it’s seeping into me. Slow like poison, but just as deadly.” I stared at my arms, still tan and freckled. No gray to be seen on me… Yet.

Gabriel stared at the sky. “Michael will make them all pay.”

“The way he did Dimitri?” The scene flashed through my mind, brilliant and bloody.

“Yes.”

I tried to smile. “Good.”

I hoped they all died. I hoped his crows sent sharp feathers into them all, or pecked their eyes out, making them Lessons, swooping their bodies to the outskirts. Maybe Keeper would strangle or beat them. No matter how it happened, I hoped the ones who hurt my mother suffered. I hoped for a second, for a minute or an hour, Michael made them feel her pain, even just an ounce of it. Those cowards would be crushed under the weight of the burdens they made her bear. They needed to feel it.

“Can Michael hear me now?”

He shook his head. “Only when he is near.”

I didn’t want him to hear what I was thinking about those bastards. He might do something we’d both regret. Besides, I wanted my chance at them. Alone.

Gabriel swallowed. “You are fearless.”

“I’m really not.”

He nodded slowly. “Do you plan to confront your father?”

“As soon as I’m able, but I can’t do anything as long as walking across a few yards makes me so tired, my legs can’t hold my body up.”

“Healing will take some time.”

I picked at my cuticle. “I don’t have the luxury of time, Gabriel. I need help.” I wondered if he would have the same reaction Michael did about my solution for the veil...

“What about it?” he asked.

“What if I was able to strengthen or harden it?”

He shook his head and began giving me the same story Michael did. It was as strong as any angel could make it, and I was certainly no angel. But the veil was a part of me now. What if I could trap my father in Purgatory, ensuring he wouldn’t be able to cross the divide and crush anyone else with his depravity?

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest, standing and looking out at the churning, colorless water. “Michael would never agree to let you try.”

“I know.”

“You’d have to be certain that your father was here, contained in this realm.”

“I know that, too.”

He sighed. “You’d also have to make sure that everyone else who doesn’t belong here is out of the realm.” His eyes turned a bright green, like the first leaves of spring.

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