Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 26 of 30

The marked master opened the book on the raised floor. The crowd filled the entry and went still. Avi Marie stood among them, her power gone at this height. All she had left was the truth in that book, and the man who would speak it. He read the first names. A transfer of the gray stone. Power moved from one master to many. The crowd murmured. Then his finger stopped on a line, and he looked up. "Here," he said. "An order. One mortal, marked as a witness. Silence him." He read the name beside it. "The order was signed by the lead master." The hall turned. Every face swung to the lead master. He stood white on his step, hands open. Avi Marie felt the ground shift under her. This was the name. The angel who had ordered her mortal killed, the one who had reached down and blinded her that night. Not a rumor. Not a folder half burned to ash. A name read aloud, before the whole realm, in his own council. "That is a lie," the lead master said. "The ledger is forged." Petra stepped forward from the crowd. She had guarded these records for seven years and burned them for a master's sake, and now she stood against him. She held up a metal plate. "His hand," she said. "His seal." She turned the plate so the witnesses could see. "Match it to the book. The order and the seal are the same." A servant carried the plate to the raised floor. The marked master laid it beside the open ledger. He looked from one to the other and nodded once. "The same hand," he said. The murmur became a roar. Witnesses pressed closer. The lead master looked at his own council for help and found none. His allies stepped back from him, one by one, the way people step back from a fire. Azrael moved to Avi Marie's side. He watched the lead master with flat eyes. "They have him," he said. "Named and sealed. In front of all of them." "He gave the order," Avi Marie said. Her voice shook. "He killed my mortal to hide a stone." "Yes." Azrael did not look away. "Now watch what he does when the wall is at his back." The lead master straightened. His fear was gone, and something colder took its place. He raised one hand toward the tall windows, toward the rift in the sky beyond. "Then I answer to those above me," he said. "And so will you." He brought his hand down. The great doors slammed. The alarm horns began to sound across the upper realm, not for the crowd, but for the ones higher still. The masters had heard the ledger. Now, so would their masters. Avi Marie had her name at last. And the angels who gave that name their orders were already awake.