“Did you draw this?”
“Yes.” Gabriel tapped the pencil next to the book. “Drawing is one of the things I do when I am agitated. Not quite as effective as tai chi, but people stare at you less for doing it in public.”
“This is beautiful.” I’d thought of Gabriel so much as a monk and a werewolf, and even a high school religion teacher, that I had all but forgotten that he was an artist. He had been one of the sculptors who’d created the gorgeous statues in the Garden of Angels. “May I?” I reached for the sketchbook, eager to see more of his work.
Gabriel nodded and pushed the book toward me. He didn’t make a sound as I flipped through the pages. Every sketch was of the face of this same woman. There was something beyond her beauty, something in her eyes. Like she was in great pain but trying not show it. A weak smile curved her lips, like she was trying to be brave, despite her fears.
“Who is she? Your sister?”
“My wife.”
I glanced up at him. The bruises on his face still looked tender, but they didn’t seem as painful as the look in his eyes—like a reflection of what the woman in the drawings felt.
“You never mentioned that you have a wife.”
“Her name was Marie.” He pronounced it Mah-ree with his strange accent. “She died in childbirth hundreds of years ago. Before I became a monk. Before the Crusades. Before I was cursed.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, even though it couldn’t make any difference.
“She made me promise before she died that I would someday come find her in heaven. That is why I became a monk. I thought if I lived a life devoted to God, I would be pure enough to keep my promise to her. Obviously, my plan did not work out that way. I feared all was lost when I fell to the werewolf curse. I forsook my promise to Marie for quite some time. You know some of the things I did.…”
I nodded, thinking once again of his sister, Katharine.
“Yet it was Marie who brought me back, by showing that she has not given up on me.”
“How?”
“The Babylonian priestess—the woman who gave me the moonstones—did not find me by coincidence. She told me that Marie’s spirit had spoken to her and told her what I needed. She said that Marie was still waiting for me to join her in heaven. That she would never stop waiting for me.”
I gasped.
“Those moonstones changed my life. I devoted myself to a path of strict nonviolence, and I have been trying to atone for all of my terrible misdeeds ever since.”
I felt a pang of guilt for not sharing the moonstone I had with him yet. It wouldn’t have even existed if it weren’t for him. “But you fought at the warehouse even though you said you never would again?”
“As I told you before, you inspired me.” He pulled the sketchbook back in front of him. His fingers lightly brushed over the drawing of his Marie. “You know, it was not until Daniel told me about what you did for him that I truly believed that it is possible for someone like me to be cured. The idea of you gave me hope that I might be able to fulfill my promise to Marie. Yet after so many centuries of doubting I could truly make it back to her, I was afraid to let that hope take root inside of me. That is why I came here, to see you for myself. Alas, I was so afraid to lose you before I figured you out, that I thought you needed to be coddled and protected. Which in the end turned out to be the wrong thing to keep you safe. I am just grateful that you were able to show me that there are some things worth fighting for.”
“Or I’m just really stupid for running into danger all the time.”
Gabriel chuckled a bit. “Yes, that, too. However, you are right about many things. A long time ago, I thought I could help the Urbat reclaim their blessings. I had lost hope that was truly possible, until you came along. Do you want to know something interesting that you and the priestess have in common?”
I cocked my head. “What?”
“Violet eyes. I remember that now. She had eyes just like yours.”
“Really?” Violet eyes are extremely uncommon. My mom once told me that when my baby blue eyes had developed into violet, Grandpa Kramer had tried to convince her to change my name to Liz—after his favorite actress, Elizabeth Taylor, who was famous for her supposedly violet eyes. But Jude was the only other person I really knew of with eyes like mine.
“There’s an old Egyptian legend about people with violet eyes. They call them ‘spirit people.’ The priestess I knew could commune with the dead. Fulfill their requests. Maybe that is why your connection to Daniel is so strong—how you know what he needs.”
My mouth went dry. “Are you saying Daniel is dead?”
“No, no.” Gabriel patted my hand. “I am saying you have a close spiritual connection to the world. I think you are special in many ways you are just now beginning to understand. If you can tap into that, you have the potential to become a great leader and healer—the Divine One we all want you to be. However, you will never get there unless you can let go of your anger. Otherwise, it will corrupt you just like the rest of us.”
Gabriel’s words rang true, even though I didn’t know what to do with them. Letting go sounded much easier than it really was to do. I looked over at the sketchbook, wondering how he’d held on to an anchor that had been gone from him for so long.
“I tell you all of this, Grace, not to lecture or make you feel discouraged. That is the opposite of my intention. I do believe you have the potential to become a great leader—alas, as I said earlier, that time may come sooner than you would like.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m leaving, Grace.”
Chapter Eleven
TETHER
AFTER HOLDING MY BREATH FOR A MOMENT
“Whoa. What? You can’t leave. not now.” Panic rumbled behind my voice.
Gabriel scratched at his bandage. “Sirhan’s guards found me today. They came here to deliver a message.” He massaged his bruised jaw. He must have taken quite the beating. “I have forty-eight hours to return to Sirhan or else he and the entire pack will come here to collect me.”
Only a couple of hours ago, I’d been determined to go to Sirhan myself—but the prospect of his coming to Rose Crest made my stomach clench with dread. “Sirhan would really come here?”
Gabriel nodded. His eyes held that grave look. “Believe me, that is not something you want to happen.”