Chapter Text
Jubilee had been waiting for a months overdue letter when a messenger reliever finally flew up to her, a scroll tightly clutched in its hands.
The message was not, despite Jubilee’s brief hope, the long-awaited correspondence from her daughter looking to confirm the details of their next corporeal meeting. Instead, what the reliever solemnly set before her was the facsimile of official correspondence from one Benchmarc Bank and Self-Storage facility. The physical letter had been opened a week prior by actual Judges stationed at the Tether where Jubilee’s corporeal correspondence was received and the letter’s contents monitored for both Truth and the sender’s emotional state before being transcribed on the celestial paper and passed on to a reliever for its final celestial side delivery.
(It was not usual for Judges’ correspondence to be monitored to such a degree. That treatment was strictly reserved for those subjects held for trial or Creationers in service to Judgment.)
Therefore, Jubilee could be assured that the contents of the letter were not intended to deceive the reader. Nevertheless, she invoked her resonance on the second read-through, to glean what might have been missed or concealed by another Seraph.
Truth: Payment for a storage unit leased by one Raye (preferred corporeal moniker, full celestial name Preerana Kirana), Kyriotate of Creation, was past due by six-months. No holds had been previously requested. No response to previous contact attempts sent to the given primary address had been made. The manager of this Benchmarc location formally requested that Jubilee, Seraph of Creation in service to Judgment (primary emergency contact of the above-named Kyriotate) contact the lessee about payment, set up an emergency payment hold on the lessee’s behalf, or provide confirmation of the Fall or Soul Death of the lessee. Suitable proof of Fall or Soul Death would include—
Jubilee stopped the read-through there.
The green mark in the bottom right corner indicated that the letter had been examined by a Judge Elohite for untoward emotional content and been found appropriately neutral. Jubilee did not feel neutral, appropriately or otherwise.
The reliever hovered just above Jubilee’s first set of wings. It was a young one, a force shy of eligibility for the first-level Law School courses. Too small even, to have picked up on the Word prejudices that seeped through this whole city. Preerana had been as small as this one once upon a time, smaller even.
“Do you have a response for me to deliver?” It chirped, too young, even, to understand the implications of the message it had borne.
“No response at this time, little Helper. Thank you.”
The reliever flitted off while Jubilee turned back to her work. Piles of student assignments in need of grading stacked up on her desk from relievers only a Force or two larger than the messenger. Anatomical drawings of human corporeal forms, marking out the expected differences between vessel bodies and those belonging to actual humans. In theory, Jubilee could finish making her corrections within the next couple hours and then take personal time to look into the matters alluded to in the letter. In reality, Jubilee would be judged for using personal time regardless of whether she finished with the pile on her desk first, and Jubilee’s mind could not focus on those evaluations while the most catastrophic of uncertainties remained unresolved. The relievers could wait another class session for the corrections.
She stretched her serpentine body out nose to tail-tip, and wound her way out of her office and down through the public areas to exit the School of Law. Her office window would have served just as well as an exit but would have brought about more questions than she preferred to answer. It would have appeared evasive. There had been lectures.
Eriel caught up with her before she left the campus proper to pass through the larger Council Spires and to the Eternal City beyond. The young snow leopard Cherub was not strictly assigned to shadow her—he had his own duties to attend to as well—but he must have sensed her emotional distress and the growing distance from her assigned post. At which point, he would have been required to investigate.
“I would prefer to run this errand alone.”
Eriel padded up to her and butted his head against Jubilee’s side, as much a gesture of affection as even a Cherub Judge would provide a Creationer. “I am concerned about your mental state, Most Holy, and The Most Just requires that I accompany you when you leave the city. Most particularly when you are doing so during work hours.” By Jubilee’s best estimate, her Guardian was about twenty seconds off from suggesting she return to the Council Spires.
The Council Spires would not give her the Truths she needed.
“Then we must not disappoint the Most Just more than is required.” Jubilee took wing and spiraled upward into the deep sky. The city streets stretched out below her in that way Preerana particularly loved. After several decades on the corporeal, the Kyriotate still waxed poetic about bird’s-eyes-views and city layouts. Jubilee, however, paid the view no mind. Nor did she think deeply about her flight. She knew the route between the Spires and her destination better than she knew the pattern of her own scales.
“Where are we going?”
The Halls of Creation, the empty Cathedral of her Archangel, appeared over the horizon. In better, brighter days, throngs of celestials and blessed souls would flow around each other, never colliding as they moved to or from the Cathedral. In its heyday—and Jubilee counted this to be anytime before this current century—even visitors had a million reasons to travel here: To make things, to watch things being made, to enjoy the results that making produced, to attend any number of parties, shows or concerts that might be in progress at any given moment. These days, the sparse traffic made even the quietest corners of the law library look bustling. Jubilee spotted perhaps a half-dozen people either coming or going as their errands took them, before descending to crowd level.
The Cherub gave a discontented grumble. “You could go back and keep grading papers? Maybe take a coffee break? Your Wordmate at the coffee cart has some good blends.”
“I could.” Jubilee said, as the Cherub based his suggestion in complete Truth. She could go back and resume her grading work. The coffee cart spoken of did have good blends available, at least when strictly considering only the coffee selection. Their tea blends left Jubilee working with Flowers to obtain any that met her own standards. “It would not ease my heart.”
“Will this?”
“It might. It might not.”
Jubilee banked downward, through the bridge that led to the Cathedral’s main entrance. The gardens stood as immaculate as always, the bonsai sculptures shaped to perfect forms. It was a reminder of her Word’s current state. Nothing in Heaven ever fell into a state of entropy—at least not unintentionally, but the signs of abandonment showed everywhere for anyone who knew the surroundings. The bonsai shapes were the same as they had been the day Jubilee packed up her Heart and a few personal belongings and moved from the garden studio she kept in her master’s Cathedral to her new residence, whereas before a whole crew of horticulturally-inclined Creationers would have ensured their change at least every decade, if not more often.
Jubilee paused at the main entrance for a second to allow Eriel time to catch up and to consider her destination more precisely.
The most obvious and reliable place to check would be her daughter’s Heart. While Jubilee did not know its exact location, with some detective work, she could deduce the location easily enough by following the signs only someone familiar with Preerana would know. She would have done exactly that were she here without a minder by her side. But Preerana had deliberately hidden her Heart away back when Eli had given her the new assignment. It was a reasonable precaution against Judges spying on her and interfering with her work, the Kyriotate had reasoned.
For now, Jubilee would not dishonor her daughter’s wishes. Another alternative was available, and from it Jubilee could glean enough information at least to confirm whether either of the two worst possibilities had occurred.
It had only been perhaps fifteen months, hardly longer than the flicker of a blink in Jubilee’s lifespan. She could not fully accept that either possibility could have occurred in such a short fragment of time, not without more evidence than a single letter discussing a missed payment. But the Symphony could confirm nothing without some concrete basis of knowledge. And what had history proved, if not that any change at all could come about so suddenly as to make the Wind envious? Even an Archangel could be here one day and gone the next. All the basis Jubilee had to put her belief in was a mother’s intuition, and the deep need for Preerana’s continued and holy existence to be True.
Her destination was part of a great Creation. Scenes constructed from stained glass completely filled the walls and ceilings and towered over all who entered. Light shone through each panel in corporeally impossible patterns. All of Creation’s servitors from the most recently fledged (or redeemed) to the most prominent Wordbound were depicted in at least one scene. Even former Creationers who had fully given themselves to another Archangel could still find their image here. Altogether, the work itself took up several enormous rooms, but it was the one that contained Preerana’s image that Jubilee headed towards.
Jubilee found her own image easily. The light passing through the glass painted her a golden-orange Seraph at the center of a large panel on the far end of the room. The dozen or so of her children surrounded her, whose images were then surrounded by their other parents, radiating outwards and all of those were then surrounded by their own parents or those who had first introduced them the ways of Creation. The forms of those they loved flickered as constantly shifting patterns in the background. Following the movement of any particular one would lead a viewer to the panel that depicted that image and their own familial ties.
If not for other matters, Jubilee could have spent the whole day doing nothing but observing the play of light through the colored class and following the shifting figures through every room, but she didn’t. She had come here with a purpose beyond admiration.
Every brightly-colored image in the windows belonged to a living angel, but neither the deceased nor the damned of Creation would ever be completely erased from the work—not even after millennia, perhaps they might have been, should they be forgotten completely—instead the colors of their images faded out into shades of milk white. Pale figures that had been in place when she first entered this room as a new Creationer sixteen-thousand years ago still shone with that remembrance.
Only one of her children had turned that shade previously. Dead, not fallen, as he had been a Malakite. Deven had followed a Balseraph of Lust into an ambush two centuries back and seen his soul set asunder. Jubilee nodded her head in brief acknowledgment before looking towards the image of one who might have recently succumbed to either fate.
Jubilee did not know which would be worse: to have a dead and holy Kyriotate to grieve and remember fondly or to have a Shedite who could be met again in the future and perhaps redeemed but who would also do terrible evil on behalf of Hell in the meantime.
The one she looked towards, thankfully, did not have the characteristic blankness of someone lost to Heaven. The representative image shone just as brightly as it always had. Tension Jubilee just discovered she held in her coils relaxed.
Preerana’s representation was a group of butterflies pieced together of the same orange and golden glass as Jubilee’s own figure and connected to no other parents. Preerana had been a reliever of Jubilee’s own making, a personal project to raise and care for while Jubilee worked on a separate assignment. She remembered cradling the tiny reliever in her own coils and bestowing her with a name.
The ache to curl around someone small again passed through her. Her youngest daughter was alive and unfallen, but it did not follow that Preerana was safe. A safe Preerana would have kept current on her corporeal obligations. A safe Preerana would have set up the next visit when it was due. A safe Preerana would not let her mother worry so.
“Most Holy?” Eriel nudged his muzzle against her flank, just beyond her third set of wings. Jubilee had almost forgotten the Cherub’s presence amongst the panes of glass, and he looked about at the surroundings as though he didn’t at all understand what Jubilee saw that could make her react so. To him, this must have been nothing more than a bunch of pretty stained-glass windows, the same as could be found anywhere in the Eternal City. “Viewing this seems to cause you distress. Let’s return to the Spires.”
Jubilee could stand here for hours, looking at the windows, watching the patterns shift, hoping that one change or another might unveil a clue to the situation that currently lay just beyond her comprehension. But even if said clue did arrive, it would only provide material for speculation, and she could speculate just as well—or better—while grading a pile of student drawings.
“We can go now.”
—
Jubilee spent the flight back to the Council Spires sketching out her next movements.
The stained glass had relieved Jubilee’s fear in the immediate worsts, but she needed someone with access to the Kyriotate’s hidden Heart to tell her the truth of the situation. She needed to know if Preerana were Outcast or being held captive somewhere and kept out of Jubilee’s coils. Jubilee mentally pictured the portraits of each of her daughter’s known friends and acquaintances until she saw the one she needed. The contact was obvious: that Ofanite Preerana liked so much who served War these days. Out of every angel in Heaven, Cole would be the one to know the way to her daughter’s Heart. Cole would tell her what it saw, and, if her daughter were in danger, the danger she faced. Jubilee could trust it that far.
From there any subsequent rescue mission would be trivial—at least in theory—should one be necessary. Jubilee built the rough composition in her mind. Find the right people with the right skills in roughly the right location and let them go at it. Let Cole come along and involve some Warriors if it insisted. Go herself, if she could convince her supervisors of the correct course of action. Or, she thought with a bit of grim acceptance, she believed strongly enough in that course of action to risk the resulting consequences should Judgment not find her arguments persuasive.
Creation and Judgment had their overlap, a fact that few angels from either Word appreciated. Action and consequences, art and critique. The difference lay in the emphasis.
“What are you thinking about, Most Holy?”
Jubilee would not—could not in the language of Heaven—say “nothing”, but neither was she inclined to reveal the full extent of her thoughts to the Guardian beside her. Eriel’s gestures of affection aside, his service belonged to his Archangel first and foremost. Any loyalty shown towards Jubilee was only given as far as his Choir nature demanded. Any detail she gave Eriel—even in confidence—would wind its way through Judgment’s layers of authority until a proper and distincted Wordbound Judge or even Dominic himself came by to inquire about a Creationer’s odd behavioral choices. “Art and critique. The nature of the composition. The proper placement of forms on the canvas.”
She did not speak literally of a painting, and the intonation in Heaven readily called out the metaphor.
Jubilee found metaphors useful, for speaking a truth without laying her intentions completely bare for anyone to see. Most Seraphim developed similar strategies to conceal the truth when necessary. Implication. Circumlocution. Exquisitely careful word choices. A useful corporeal proxy, when absolutely necessary. Jubilee had learned this one back in Knowledge before Lilith had ever opened Hell, even. Well-constructed metaphors did not deceive, but set a useful abstraction to the Truth. The metaphor useful in directing her own thoughts, as well. Jubilee knew painting in the way she did not know how to find her daughter, and it helped to reframe the problem of the second in the parlance of the first. To compose the painting, she needed—reference. Jubilee would not know how to properly render the forms without more to observe.
Yes, she needed eyes on that Heart. She needed to send a message to that Ofanite. It worked mostly on the corporeal, and likely it was there now on one mission or another. That complicated matters, but a discreet message sent to the Grove via reliever with the instruction to find any Creationer in service to War would make its way to Cole eventually.
“When you speak in metaphors, Most Holy, it indicates an intention to conceal.”
“Many Seraphim find it a useful strategy,” Jubilee answered. She flew the rest of the journey in silence, with no intent to speak further on the matter.
—
Jubilee was not surprised to see the summons dropped before her only a few hours after her return—just as she finished grading those assignments actually. Eriel had been attuned to her not as an agent of protection or comfort but as an observer of her activities. Any deviation from the standard behaviors of a Heaven-stationed Creationer in Judgment’s service would merit reporting. The omission of her distress, a sudden and unplanned visit to her Archangel’s Cathedral during usual working hours, and evasiveness afterwards would have caused trouble for her Cherub.
The summons instructed her to arrive posthaste, and so she did.
Dominic waited in his office, a space that Jubilee always found too bright and airy for the huddled and cloaked Seraph who did his work there when he wasn’t in his courtroom. Aesthetically, the room should have had a heavier atmosphere and deeper contrasts between points of bright light and the deep shadows in the corners. Judgment strove to be a Word based in chiaroscuro: Light and dark. Good and evil. Right and wrong. It made no room for grayscale, much less the various tints, tones, and shades that composed the majority of the Symphony.
“Jubilee.” The Archangel peered at her, his eyes six points of candlelight in the dark shadows painted by his cloak.
Jubilee bowed her head below her first set of wings. “Most Just.”
She dreaded the explanation she knew he was about to require of her. In past times, Jubilee would have brought this issue to Eli without hesitation. The Archangel of Creation would have would have been nothing but sympathetic. He would have cradled her head in his hands and spread one of his fluffy white wings over her while she explained her worries, the way he had once when she had found her child’s Heart shattered. Then, when Jubilee regained her composure, he would have worked with her on the plan that would get Preerana back where she belonged.
Dominic…well, one did not exactly hide information from a Seraph Archangel, especially the one who currently held her service, especially when one was a Seraph herself, but Jubilee expected judgment in the face of her distress, not sympathy.
“Your assigned Guardian reported that you were diverted from your duties yesterday.” Papers shuffle before him and he read out. “She visited the Cathedral of the Archangel Eli while under considerable emotional distress. She spent approximately an hour in observation before returning to the Council Spires. When asked about the visit, she chose not to provide direct answers.”
Jubilee collected her thoughts. No sentence written in that report comprised a crime in and of itself. The immediate task she had been set to was completed. Nowhere in Heaven was off-limits for her, and even the occasional trip to the Corporeal had been authorized. While the Guardian was assigned to observe her, she was not obligated to explain her every thought and motive to him. “The assignments are ready in time for tomorrow’s classes. It is not forbidden to visit another location in Heaven.”
Dominic stretched out before her. Rhetorical tricks did not work nearly as well on Archangels as they did on young Cherubim. Nor did Jubilee expect otherwise. All she needed was to pace herself, to avoid losing her composure in front of someone who thought the worst of the Word she loved most, and had only reluctantly accepted her service. “What was the source of the distress that called you to your Archangel’s Cathedral?”
“I received correspondence related to my youngest daughter.”
Daughter. Wasn’t that a contentious word? When Jubilee first came to Judgment, the Archangel had objected the use of the familial terms to describe the relationships she had with her children. Angels, he had said, did not reproduce so could not have offspring. Even Force children were put together with the help of an Archangel. To which, Jubilee had corrected him, explaining the attunement Eli had given her centuries ago and the process by which the relievers she called her children had been brought into existence directly from her coils using both her personal Forces and those of other angels. At which point, Dominic’s objections regarding her relationship to her children had switched to everything but the terminology.
The terminology was Truth after all. It would be an insult to both Seraphim to talk around it.
“Describe the correspondence.”
“It was a notification from the Trade facility she uses to store corporeal possessions indicating a non-payment of rental fees.”
“Why did this merit the visit?”
Jubilee kept her voice low and her words as neutral and slow as she could manage. “Preerana has always been a reliable Kyriotate. She wrote to me at least yearly prior to this, and yet fifteen months have passed without word from her. She has used this facility for multiple decades. Were she known to be lax about payment, I would have received correspondence prior to this, and I have not. I visited the Halls of Creation to confirm whether the worst had happened.”
The serpentine body beneath the cloak stiffened. “Were you able to confirm this?”
“I know she is alive and unfallen.” Jubilee paused, then added “But that does not mean she is safe. I do not believe her behavior would have changed so suddenly, were she not in trouble.”
There was a silence, and Jubilee recognized the conversational stillness of a fellow Seraph resonating for Truth. Archangels sensed the Symphony differently from mere angels. So while Jubilee couldn’t confirm anything further from the limited facts at hand, it was entirely possible Dominic received a deeper Truth from Jubilee’s unreliable speculation. Her coils tensed in anticipation of what he might say next.
“Is she Outcast?”
“I do not believe so. She never had the habit of placing her her hosts into risky situations, nor have I known her to interfere overly in her hosts’ lives. I cannot imagine a circumstance that would have changed those habits in the past year to the extent she would have gone Outcast so quickly. There are few other ways for a Kyriotate of Creation to take multiple notes of dissonance fast enough to go Outcast.”
Another stretch of silence. “But you did not confirm?”
“No. I could not check her Heart directly.” That note of that ‘Could’ had implications. Not the restriction of ‘unable to’ but the restriction of ‘would not do so on principle given the circumstances’. Previous related discussions had been unproductive, and Jubilee wondered if Judgment would interrupt the questioning to press now.
The bright points beneath his hood narrowed, but his next words did not threaten to reopen that old conversation. “Do you believe her captured by the enemy?”
“Her tasks focused primarily on mortals. It is difficult to believe she would be the object of a targeted infernal attack.” Her body rippled neck to tail tip. “However, that seems the most likely possibility.”
Dominic fell into another one of those silences, where he clearly consulted with the Symphony. Jubilee wanted him to tell her what he saw, even if it was nothing more than what she knew.
“What were you planning to do next?”
“Contact her friend Cole, who is a Wordmate in service to War. If anyone knows the location of her Heart, it will be that Ofanite. Once it reports back, I'll plan the rescue mission.” The message had already been composed, and it sat on her desk, ready to send out via the next available reliever.
“Do not. Go to General Records and file a Missing Angel report. Include the correspondence from the storage facility and an account of the evidence that has led to your conclusion. If Preerana is somewhere to be found, there are agents better equipped for the search. Do not attempt to organize an outside rescue mission. Continue attending to your regular duties at the Law School. Will you comply?”
So that was why he summoned her here personally. That order would not have held weight from coming from any other source. It only held weight from him because Jubilee did not know how to find her daughter.
“Yes, Most Just. I will comply.” Jubilee bowed again, the same shallow bow, just below her first set of wings. She expected dismissal at that. Instead, Dominic remained silent, and when she peered up, his eyes were tilted to the side, thoughtful.
“Inappropriate personal connections aside, I am not unsympathetic to your situation.” He approached her, until his head loomed directly over her own. “Were you ever taught the Celestial Song of Tongues?”
“No, Most Just.”
He nodded his head, and a new song hooked into her Forces, a bit more knowledge of the Symphony, an arrangement of notes that when properly sung would send essence and a short message to anyone Jubilee had ever met, anywhere.
“Once a month, return to your Archangel’s Cathedral. So long as you are able to confirm that this Domination remains alive and unfallen, you may send her a message.” He retreated back to his usual distance. “Should she reappear or provide a response, notify General Records immediately. They will process the information and determine the next course of action. The same course applies should your evidence show a change in her condition.”
“Understood.” Jubilee deepens her bow, her head set between her second and third sets of wings. “Thank you, Most Just.”
“You are dismissed.”
Jubilee managed to return to the privacy her office before performing the new song. A message went out to her youngest daughter, one statement of fact and one promise. The song would not allow for more. Of course, Jubilee did not know for certain whether she would ever see Preerana again. She only believed it to be true, and so long as Preerana remained alive, Jubilee would not allow herself to believe otherwise.
And wherever her daughter was, whatever force kept her away from Jubilee and the rest of Heaven, a little Essence surely wouldn’t go awry. A little Essence and, perhaps, a bit of hope.