Chapter Text
The angel opened its eyes.
White. Large, open space bordered by hard white—a room. The hard beneath—floor—was white, too.
The angel didn't know how it knew these words.
It lay supine on a small stretch of raised floor—a table. Unused abdominal muscles flexed as it lifted its upper half. It turned its head, wanting to know more, wanting to know why.
There were others in the room.
Grey. Grey bodies on rows upon rows of grey tables. The angel looked down at itself and thought it resembled the others. It moved its upper appendages—arms, hands—to explore itself. Itself was strange.
Its wings twitched. The angel felt them, wanted to use them, but didn’t know how. It tried a few clumsy flaps and lifted itself off the table. It plunked back down, buzzing all over, facial muscles automatically twisting upwards.
It was excited by this discovery. It could take to the air. It could leave the table.
It moved its arms, moved itself. Its hands grasped the edge of the table, and it slid off. Its lower appendages—legs, feet—touched the floor. The floor was hard and cool.
The angel wanted to go forward. It lifted its feet, set them down, bravely moving away from the table. Its wings were a hindrance, and it struggled to hold them comfortably. It swayed and stumbled, but eventually figured out the difficult process. Its gait was shaky, but felt correct.
The others were all still on their tables. Some were struggling to master their appendages. Some were trying to sit up. Some were still laying supine with their eyes shut, unmoving. When the angel passed those ones, it sensed the emptiness in their selves and knew they were not alive, not like itself was. It was proud of its quick advancement as it walked between the tables.
The angel reached the end of the rows and stopped.
An other stood nearby, but this one wasn’t like the others on the tables. This one was much bigger and covered in loose, flappy white. They were facing away from the angel, but the angel saw them and knew instinctively who they were to it.
Maker.
Maker was huge and beautiful, a beacon in the cool white room. The angel felt a surge of something warm and tremendous inside, urging it on, pushing it towards Maker—love.
It reached Maker. It wriggled up under their wings—wings that were shelter, wings that were safety—and grasped the white folds, tugged to make itself known. It opened its mouth and made a noise, but didn’t know how to form the word running circles in its mind.
Maker. Maker, Maker, Maker.
Maker looked down at it. The angel felt something, a new buzz, where its hands touched Maker. Feelings flowed and ebbed, not its own, marked by words it didn’t fully understand.
Made, child, replacement, parasite. Pride, joy, disgust, shame.
These were Maker’s feelings, it realized. These were not like its own feelings; these were big, complex feelings, layered, shifting, fighting for attention. It frightened the angel.
It pushed its own feelings forward, wanting Maker to feel its love, wanting Maker to understand.
Maker. I love you. I love you, Maker. Please love me. Maker, Maker, Maker.
It searched for a reciprocation, but love was nowhere to be found amidst those big, frightening emotions. It didn’t understand why. Was it wrong to expect love? Maybe it was supposed to love Maker, but Maker wasn’t supposed to love it back.
“You’re up already, too, are you?” Maker said. Their voice was startling in the quiet, but it was Maker’s voice, and the angel loved it for that. The angel tugged the draping white fold again—sleeve—and pushed out more love, desperate for Maker to feel what it felt.
Maker reached down to a table standing beside them. It was multiple tables, one on top of another—shelves—with stacks of white folds. Maker grabbed a swathe of white and flapped it in the air, then maneuvered the angel's arms through holes, helped its wings slide through slits. Maker shut the folds of the white and tied two long strips, securing it. The angel looked down at itself in wonder. Its appendages were uncovered—short bottom, no sleeves—but the rest of itself was concealed.
Maker grabbed part of the white and informed the angel, “Clothing.”
“Clothing,” the angel echoed, mimicking the movement of their mouth. It smiled, pleased with itself for mastering speech. It grabbed onto Maker’s arm again, eager to know if those big feelings had changed, to see if clothing would earn Maker’s love.
Annoyance, amusement, affection. Offspring, child, made.
Warmth bloomed, brought on not by the clothing but by the angel’s smile, a warmth that felt very close to love. It wasn’t as strong or prominent as Maker’s other emotions, but it was there, and it was real. Then it was gone, buried, dissolving as quickly as it had formed.
Replacement. Parasite. Hate.
Maker yanked their arm out of the angel’s grasp and turned away.
The angel was distracted from their confusion when they spotted an other on Maker’s opposite side. This other must’ve been the first to walk, because it was already clothed. It stared at the angel. The angel stared back.
The angel huddled closer under Maker’s wings. It felt their irritation, but Maker didn’t push it away. The other took offense to its closeness and darted around Maker, shoved the angel away with a loud grunt, stole its spot. This other wanted Maker all to itself. Angered by this unfairness, the angel pushed back. The other responded with a second, harder push.
“Stop that,” Maker snapped, startling both. “No pushing.”
The other looked ashamed. It brushed up against the angel, self against self, slow and gentle. The angel gratefully mimicked the affection. It held out a wing, and the other met it with its own. Sister.
Sister looked to Maker to see if they approved of this new behavior, but Maker was not watching. They were focused on an object in their hands, a rectangle with many small circles displayed inside. Most of the circles were glowing and moving around, but some were dark.
The angel hesitantly touched Maker’s arm.
Confusion, alarm, fear.
The angel recoiled, frightened by change. Something was wrong. Something had upset Maker.
Maker put down the rectangle and turned to speak to the angel and Sister. They both straightened, eager for Maker’s attention.
Maker reached into the shelves, planted a hand on the folded clothing, and stated, “Clothing.”
“Clothing,” the two echoed, bobbing their heads. They grabbed their own clothing, proudly held it up so Maker could see that they understood.
Maker pointed to the others. Most were still on the tables, but many were wandering around, learning to walk. Maker pushed the shelves towards Sister and the angel, moving them easily through the air—hovering, the shelves were hovering—then pointed more insistently at the others and said, “Naked.”
The angel and Sister looked at each other, then back at Maker, slowly bobbing their heads. They understood. “Naked” was without clothing. The way Maker said it, it sounded unideal.
Maker ordered, “Help them dress. I showed you how.”
Sister and the angel scrambled to grab the shelves, briefly scuffling for control before figuring out how to push it together. They moved among the others, helping the ones on the tables to their feet, distributing clothes so none would be naked.
“No, no, no. . .”
The angel looked up, alarmed by the strange intonation in Maker’s voice, and scanned the room for them.
Maker stood by one of the tables where an other lay. It was one of the others the angel had passed when it was learning to walk, one of the empty ones. It looked no more alive now than it had been earlier. Maker was bent over it, feeling its appendages and touching its face.
Between quickened breaths, Maker muttered, “Was it not enough? It should’ve been enough. I gave all I could give. It had to have been enough.”
The angel looked around the room, marking the tables where empty others lay. There weren’t many, but the difference was stark now that most of the others were on their feet.
Comprehension slowly dawned. Something had indeed gone very wrong. Maker had given them something to wake them up, but it hadn’t reached them all—it hadn’t been enough.
Maker framed the other’s face with their long fingers. They drew a deep breath, and the angel watched, transfixed, as their eyes glowed and gold veins lit up in their face. They leaned down and exhaled brilliant light. It disappeared into the other’s mouth, guided by an unseen force. The other’s body gave a jerk, its eyes glowed like Maker’s, and it inhaled with a loud, jarring gasp.
Maker leaned back, panting. They didn’t just look winded. They looked diminished somehow, hurt. The other was alive, but Maker had given up something of their own to make it so.
Maker moved through the array of tables, bringing the empty others to life one by one. With each piece of themself they gave, they grew weaker. Several times they stumbled and almost fell; the angel and its sisters would swarm them in a panic, keeping them upright. Maker didn’t seem to like that. They would tolerate one touching them, but any more than that and they would shoo them all away.
When Maker reached the final empty other, they could barely stand, let alone walk. They had given up trying to keep their made off of them. The angel clung to one of their sleeves, and the others jostled for similar positions. The angel could feel Maker’s desperation, could feel how they were forcing themself to keep going, to finish their work despite how drained they were.
It took Maker several breaths to achieve a strong glow. They breathed it into the final other, giving up the very last of what they could give. As the other drew its first breath, Maker’s eyes fell shut and they collapsed.
The sisters let out a collective scream and surrounded Maker, shaking them, tugging their clothes, crying for them to wake up. Maker was unresponsive. Their face was gaunt and pallid, the natural glow of their skin gone. They’d given too much.
The angel’s eyes burned as it knelt beside Maker. It flapped its wings to keep the others away; they must give Maker space.
Finally, Maker’s eyes fluttered open. They groaned and pushed themself up, grasping onto a table for support. Their glow slowly returned, but it was pale and weak. The angel sensed there was no replenishing what was lost. Whatever Maker had been forced to give was gone for good, sacrificed so that all the others could live.
“Get off me!” Maker yelled hoarsely, pushing away the others that crowded too close. “Get away!”
The others retreated, frightened by their outburst, but didn’t stray too far. Every one of them was desperate for a chance to be close to Maker.
Slowly, gingerly, Maker rose to their feet. They shut their eyes and breathed deeply to steady themself.
At one end of the room, a tall rectangle in the wall opened—a door. The others yelped in fright and hid under Maker’s wings, boundaries forgotten.
Someone new entered the room. They were big, though not as big as Maker, and threw their weight into every step. Their golden wings hung at their sides like they’d never learned how to hold them comfortably.
“Everyone’s awake, I see,” the newcomer said, eyeing the others. Their gaze lingered on the ones who were still naked, and their mouth lifted in an unpleasant grin.
The angel shrank from the newcomer’s loud, harsh voice, clinging tight to Maker’s sleeve. It couldn’t understand this newcomer’s words like it understood Maker’s. This newcomer frightened it.
“Adam. Always a displeasure,” Maker said. They spoke in the same strange way as the newcomer. The angel heard, but didn’t understand. It squeezed Maker’s arm, silently pleading for them to speak in a way it understood.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too. Are they ready?”
“They are.”
“Good. Everyone’s gathered outside. Sera said to bring them out whenever you’re ready.”
The newcomer started to leave, but stopped and appraised the others again. That nasty smile returned, and they said, “My girls turned out well, huh? Good thing you scrapped that first draft. Those ones weren’t half as nice to look at.”
Maker didn’t respond, but the angel could feel their roiling anger.
Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. HATE.
“Tell Sera I’ll bring them out shortly.”
The newcomer started to go, but paused when Maker added, “After today, I pray our paths never cross again.”
“Likewise, hag.”
The newcomer left. The door remained open, waiting.
The angel tugged Maker’s arm, opened its mouth, and clumsily formed the word it had been desperate to speak.
“Maker?”
Maker stared down at it. Their anger faded now that the newcomer was gone, taking every other emotion with it, leaving them hollow, empty. The angel could feel the chasm left behind. No word appeared in its mind to explain it.
The angel stared up at Maker, waiting, begging for them to feel something, anything.
Maker stared down at their made and felt nothing. The chasm yawned wider, deeper.
“Follow,” they ordered, forging a path through the throngs of others and leading the way to the door. The angel had no choice but to go along, trotting to keep up with Maker’s long strides. The others fell into place. None of them dared to question.
The angel’s eyes burned again. It didn’t understand why. Something hurt, something deep inside, something it couldn’t put into words.
It grasped Maker’s sleeve tighter and prayed it wouldn’t ever have to let go.
*****
Vaggie opened her eye.
It took her a long minute to get her bearings. She was in one of the empty guest rooms, lying naked on the bed. She felt over herself with clumsy hands and found that her innards were where they belonged, her scalp was secure on her skull, and her back, while sore, was not broken.
The deep, chronic pain she’d grown accustomed to in the last few days was gone. Her corroborator was fixed.
Someone nearby was breathing loudly, painfully. Every agonal wheeze rattled in the quiet room. Vaggie looked over and saw Cynthaeis seated on the edge of a chair, slumped forward. The back of her robe was open, exposing her shoulders and the base of her wings. Spreading out from her spine like a creeping rash, her skin and feathers had turned to solid grey stone.
Jasper stood beside the chair with their hands pressed to Cynthaeis’s back, right over the stone patch. Magic glowed under their palms. They eventually lifted their hands away, and Cynthaeis rolled her shoulders, wincing.
“It won’t recede any further,” Jasper declared. Sounding unsure, they offered, “I might be able to ease the pain some more.”
“No, you’ve done plenty. This is. . . this is manageable.” Cynthaeis’s breath hitched, and she doubled over with a wet, hacking cough. Unable to speak, she pointed to a flask sitting on the dresser. Jasper retrieved it and helped her take a sip.
Vaggie felt like an intruder, like she wasn’t supposed to be seeing this. The glamour Cynthaeis normally wore was gone, putting her real face on full display. She was aged, even more haggard than when Vaggie had last seen her, and the sight of her marred, crooked back didn’t help.
Vaggie wondered if the flesh-to-stone transition was part of the aging process. She couldn’t be sure, as she’d never heard of an angel aging. It was unnatural, grotesque.
Then again, it was also unnatural for an angel to be mortal.
Cynthaeis noticed Vaggie staring and rasped, “Good, you’re awake. Your princess left those for you.” She gestured to the foot of the bed, where a pile of neatly folded clothes waited.
Vaggie dressed while Jasper helped Cynthaeis put her robe back on. Vaggie then moved to Cynthaeis’s side, sitting on the window ledge next to the chair and pulling her knees up to her chest.
Cynthaeis regarded her tiredly for a moment, then said to Jasper, “Return home. Prepare the usual; I’ll need it. I won't be long."
Jasper bowed their head, summoned a portal, and disappeared. Vaggie shifted awkwardly on her seat, not sure where to start. She hadn’t been alone with Cynthaeis in years.
“Jasper’s a healer?” she prompted, for lack of a better conversation starter.
“Yes.”
“They seem like a good attendant.”
“It’s just us here, Vaggie. Call them what they are.” Cynthaeis took another drink and said with a bitter sneer, “They’re my hospice nurse.”
Vaggie cringed at her bluntness, but she was grateful Cynthaeis wasn’t bothering to sugarcoat the situation.
“How long do you have?”
“Now?” Cynthaeis threw a pointed look at Vaggie’s midsection, indicating the recent repairs. “Half a century, maybe. I had to make you a new corroborator; the first one was unsalvageable. My own fault, I suppose. If I had just fixed it when you asked me to, I wouldn’t have had to expend so much energy.”
Vaggie averted her gaze and mumbled, “Thank you.” Cynthaeis didn’t reply.
An angel of Cynthaeis’s age and rank was powerful, but she was no seraphim. She had her limits, which she discovered the hard way the day she brought the exorcists to life. The power she could afford to expend wasn’t enough, and she’d been forced to chip away her own life force until she was rendered mortal. She was still long-lived, and certainly a force to be reckoned with, but year by year she decayed, drawing ever closer to a death thought to be impossible for angels. Unfortunately, overexerting herself sped up the process, shrinking her already limited time.
She’d once said that she had known the cost of building an army would be great, and was willing to pay it anyway. . . for her creations. But she didn’t consider the exorcists hers. As far as she was concerned, they were—had always been—Adam’s.
The first soldiers were hers.
They were what she made when she was first given the honor of building Heaven's army, before Adam was put in charge of the project. After twenty years of tireless labor, she'd created a host of one million merciless, indestructible warriors—in her own words, an army worthy of Heaven.
Then Adam was given creative control.
He decided Cynthaeis's soldiers didn't fit the bill. Not attractive enough, not familiar enough, not human enough. At his behest, she was forced to scrap them and start over. After many drafts, much trial and tribulation, the exorcists were made, and Adam gave them his stamp of approval.
The rough draft army still existed, Vaggie knew. Unwilling to destroy them, Cynthaeis had stored them in a void-space, a matterless pocket between dimensions. But they were shells, lifeless and empty. They were less than dead; they had never lived, and they never would. The exorcists were replacements, parasites, and whatever love Cynthaeis might’ve had for them was buried with the first soldiers.
Vaggie was so lost in thought, she jumped a little when Cynthaeis broke the silence.
“I felt them die.”
“Who?”
“Your sisters. In the last extermination. I felt it when they died.” Cynthaeis pressed a hand to her sternum, wincing, as if she was actively reliving that bloody hour.
Vaggie didn’t know what to say to that. She remembered the forge, and her guilt resurfaced.
“Two smiths died today. Did Mendrion feel that?”
“He did.”
“Does it. . . hurt?”
“Yes. But he didn’t want to worry anyone, so he kept it to himself. He’s always been good at that.”
They lapsed into silence again. Vaggie studied Cynthaeis for a while, mapping the details of her gaunt face, her gnarled hands, her greying feathers. A question nagged at her until she could suppress it no longer.
“Why did you heal me?”
“Mendrion commanded it. I can’t disobey a seraphim.”
“Bullshit. No one can make you do anything.”
Cynthaeis gave her a sardonic side-eye.
“If that was true, you wouldn’t exist.”
Vaggie remained quiet, waiting for a real answer. Cynthaeis sighed and said, “Mendrion has enough to deal with right now. I didn’t want to add to his troubles.”
“What’s the deal with you two, anyway? Nadine said you guys used to work together.”
“We did. He actually came to me for help in designing the smiths.” Cynthaeis visibly relaxed as she recalled, “Humanoid bodies were all the rage, so that was what he wanted, although I tried very hard to talk him out of it. He mostly wanted my help with the chemistry and coding. Docile temperaments were imperative, given their physical power and the fact that they’d be working in close quarters for long stretches of time. The overseers would need to be more assertive, being the foremen; the downside of that trait is that they’re prone to aggression in situations of elevated stress. And, of course, all the smiths would need to be able to tolerate extreme conditions, for—”
Cynthaeis stopped when she saw that Vaggie didn’t care. She leaned back in her chair and said with a huff, “Anyway, in hindsight, I don’t think he really needed my help. He just wanted to get me out of the lab.”
“Sounds like you two were pretty close. Sounds like he cared about you. A lot.”
“I suppose.”
Vaggie’s unspoken question weighed heavy between them. With a roll of her eyes, Cynthaeis admitted, “There was a time he expressed interest in courtship.”
“And?”
“And I made it clear that I had no desire to court or be courted. Companionships of that nature have never held much appeal for me. He is nothing more or less than a very old, very dear friend. He knows that. Even if I ever considered attempting something more. . .” Resignation was heavy in Cynthaeis’s voice as she said, “It’s better this way. He is well-liked, and he has his smiths. He’ll be alright. It’ll be easier when. . . if we’re not. . .”
So her relationship with the exorcists—or lack thereof—wasn’t the only bridge she’d burned. Vaggie wasn’t surprised. Still, a thorn of longing pierced her heart, rooted in instinct rather than any sort of logic.
“Did you ever want to make things right with us?” she blurted. “Did you ever try to come see us?”
“Once, when I was extremely intoxicated.”
Vaggie let out a burst of shocked laughter. She did her best to smother it as Cynthaeis continued, “I went to the barracks, but Adam wouldn’t let me in. It turned into something of a scene. I threatened him, called him a few things I don’t think he’d ever heard before, and Mendrion had to be summoned to escort me from the premises. Not my proudest moment.”
Vaggie had to disagree. She’d never heard anything that made her come closer to liking Cynthaeis.
She thought she even knew which night Cynthaeis was referencing. The exorcists had been awoken by a shouting match outside, someone cursing Adam out in a variety of languages. When Adam eventually returned to the barracks, he was fuming, and wouldn’t tell them what happened no matter how they pestered and pleaded. He wouldn’t let them leave his sight, either, or even peek out the windows, until he’d received word that the “loiterer” was gone. Some of the exorcists later claimed they’d caught a glimpse of their maker, and it was she who tried to force her way in to see them, but Vaggie and most of the others dismissed that rumor as wishful thinking.
Now she knew it really was Cynthaeis that night. Long-buried love bloomed, the instinctive love that had driven her to her maker’s side when she was first brought to life. Vaggie hated the feeling, hated herself for letting it persist when she knew better.
She had to consciously resist the urge to curl up under Cynthaeis’s wings. She very well knew she wouldn’t get the reaction she wanted.
Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and touched Cynthaeis’s arm. She opened her senses, concentrated, listened for the buzz she remembered from that first day, but felt nothing.
“That won’t work. Only newborn angels can feel their maker’s emotions. That sensitivity fades within the first year.”
“Oh.” Vaggie withdrew her hand, embarrassed. Even so, that intrinsic need for her maker’s affection lingered. It was horrible, humiliating, because she knew that the love she felt—the love she couldn’t help but feel—would never be reciprocated in any meaningful capacity.
She would never forget the moment she’d realized that, the day Cynthaeis presented the newborn exorcists to Heaven.
Vaggie remembered the crowd’s shock as Cynthaeis denounced her made, remembered the cutting words that she couldn’t understand. She remembered how it felt when Cynthaeis pried her fingers off her sleeve and left the stage without a backward glance. She remembered how the seraphim struggled to get the situation under control, tried unsuccessfully to soothe the exorcists as they wailed for their maker.
They didn’t understand why she’d left them, didn’t understand why they were expected to obey Adam, who was big and loud and frightening. Some of the exorcists latched onto him fairly quickly, but others, including Vaggie, remained leery of him, because he was not Maker. He could never fill that chasm. No one could.
She knew she wouldn’t like the answer, but she had to ask.
“Do you still regret us? Me?”
Another broken corroborator would’ve hurt less, Vaggie thought, as Cynthaeis shut her eyes and quietly said, “Yes. I regret you.”