Inca came to find me today. Orison had left me on his mountain, trying yet again to move—anything.
“How goes it, brother?” she asked, with amusement in her voice that told me she knew exactly how it went.
I sighed and left off glaring at the branches. “I have all this energy, but no idea how to convert it so that it touches the physical world. I’m exhausting myself without managing so much as a breeze. And the more Orison tries to explain, the more I am confused. Something about the way time moves past us—what does time have to do with physicality?” I turned and lashed out at the tree again, and the wave of energy rolled right through the trees.
Inca’s amusement was gone. “You are frustrated. And growing depressed.”
I sighed, feeling the way that my wings were drooping. “I knew I had work in front of me, but I did not think I would be so bad at it.”
“Just because you have a destiny does not mean it will come naturally to you, Asa’el. But it will come. You had three years to become the Cupid you were, and that transformation was considered amazing to your seniors. You must give yourself more than a few days to become a skilled Guardian.” She came up to me and put her wings around my shoulders. “Now, leave off for a while. Orison has asked me to take you for a break, and some renewed perspective.”
I looked up. “But he told me that I wasn’t to go anywhere without supervision.”
“And what do you think I am?” she asked. “I may not be a Power, but I have been serving as a Guardian for five years now. I know enough that I can keep a newling like you in line. And there is someone I would like to reintroduce to you.”
I admit it—I hoped for a moment that she was bringing me to Freya. I knew that it was unlikely, as Salathiel herself said that I would have to wait until I was ready before I go back to her. But I did hope.
Still, when I saw the one we had come to see, I was not disappointed. We were standing on the campus of a city high school, with many students bustling to get to their last class of the day. Inca drew me out of the stream of humanity, and we watched until—“There,” she said and pointed with one wing.
The face was familiar, but the aura was not. There was some sharpness to it, but it was the sharpness of intelligence and focus, with the softness of contentment behind it. The young woman was reading as she strode down the halls, guided effortlessly by her peripheral vision around the copy of The Prince.
“Kayla,” I breathed, watching her in fascination.
She looked up, and for a moment I thought that she had heard me, but then her face broke out in a smile. She jogged the last few steps between her and a grinning boy who caught her hand and squeezed it.
“Uh oh,” the boy said, spotting the cover of her book. “Am I going to have to worry about you?”
“Please,” she scoffed. “Required reading for AP History. I’m trying to get it over with so I can get back to that one you loaned me. Did you finish the one I gave you?”
“Not yet, but we’re not having practice tonight, so I’ll get some of it done. Hey, I wanted to ask you, are you going to the shelter on Saturday? Jan texted me and said that Lily can’t make it, so they’ll be a little shorthanded.”
“Again? What does that woman do with her life?” Kayla sighed. “I think I should be able to do it. As long as we don’t get slammed with homework again. And I just have to check to make sure Mary doesn’t want me on the chats that night.”
“You talk to Mary recently? How’s she doing?”
“Good,” Kayla said, smiling, and my heart jumped. “She said she might come out for a visit over spring break if we’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t know, I might want you to myself,” the boy teased, leaning down to kiss her.
The bell rang then, and they went running off to their classes. I stayed where I was, looking after the two of them, feeling slightly stunned.
“You remember what she was like when we first came across her,” Inca murmured to me. “Bitter, self-enclosed, sharp. If we hadn’t intervened, she would still be under the thumb of her stepfather, and she would still be the same. But because we made it possible for her to be freed, she is now an intelligent, generous woman with a bright future and an open heart.”
Before I could say a word, she dragged me away again to a different place. This time it was a less familiar face we looked down on, for Theo was never really my charge. But I still rejoiced to see her, and more so the ways she has changed. She has filled out, without the thinness of starvation making her bones visible. When we arrived, she was sitting at the desk in her bedroom at her parents’ house, where obviously she has lived since she returned. On the desk was a college application, which she was just finishing. At her feet, Rudy was curled up and half-asleep.
As we stood over her, her phone rang. She set down her pen and leaned back in the chair as she picked it up. “Hey, Jen,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Not a lot,” the voice sighed on the other end, “aside from being three months pregnant and trying to housetrain a puppy and decorate a house while dodging my mother-hen husband. Please tell me you’re coming to visit so I can have some backup”
Theo laughed and got up—she’s grown taller since I saw her last. “Where’s your mom? I know from experience that Cayce could handle all that craziness.”
“She’s at Jamie’s until next week. But you can still come and see me even if she’s not here, right?”
“Come on, Jen, you know I only get a few days off for the holidays.” Theo sat down on the foot of her bed. Rudy hopped up and crossed over to put his head in her lap, and she tugged on his ears.
Jen sighed. “Fine. But you are coming for Christmas?”
“Day after Christmas, but I’ll stay over. Cayce made me promise.”
“Okay, good. How is the job going?”
“It’s food service, how do you think?” Theo said, rolling her eyes. “But it’s paying well, and I prefer catering to waiting tables. And it’s going to get me started at college. I think I’ll be able to enroll next fall.”
“That’s great, honey. We’re all rooting for you, you know.”
“I know,” Theo said. A call from downstairs caught her attention, and she said into the phone, “Hey, I gotta go, but hang in there, okay? I’ll talk to you again next week.”
“You better.”
Laughing, she hung up and left the room, Rudy trotting eagerly at her feet. Her mother met her in the kitchen with a large white envelope and a huge grin. “From Chicago,” she said. “I wonder what it could be.”
Beaming, Theo tore into the envelope and pulled out a hand-written letter and several pictures which turned out to be of Cayce at her older daughter’s house, surrounded by grandchildren. Cayce also looks well, no longer drawn and worried and sad. Her face is all smiles.
“They were on the streets when we found them,” Inca reminded me. “Now they are flourishing with family all around them. They would not have made it to this place without us.”
And she whipped me away once more, this time to find Gabrielle. My recent charge has not changed much at all, but she is brilliant with happiness and confidence. She was on the phone when we arrived, but she finished the call hurriedly as she heard the apartment door open.
Christina came in and raised her brows at Gabrielle, dropping her bag on the floor. “What was that about?”
“Nothing,” Gabrielle said, a bit too innocently.
Christina folded her arms and looked at her girlfriend. “It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with my birthday being next week, would it?”
“Your birthday’s next week?”
Christina sighed and came to sit next to Gabrielle, curling against her side. “As long as you know I hate surprises.”
“Of course I know that,” Gabrielle said, kissing Christina’s temple.
“And that I have very high standards when it comes to restaurants.”
That gave Gabrielle pause. “Very high?” she said. “Because I’m broke, you know that.”
Christina laughed and shook her head. Then she looked up and frowned. “Where’s Walter?”
“Oh, Jeff’s walking him, from down the hall,” Gabrielle explained. “His mom’s allergic to dogs, but he loves them, so I let him play with Walter whenever he wants.”
“But won’t he bring in the dog hair on his clothes?”
“He’s started keeping a set of play clothes in here. He’ll come back in and change before dinner.”
Christina leaned up and kissed Gabrielle on the lips. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
“That’s because you haven’t met you,” Gabrielle replied, and they laughed together.
“You see?” Inca asked me softly. “This is the joy of a Guardian, what protects us from the touch of the dark. In a way, we must all let love protect us, because it is the love of our charges that makes it all worthwhile. We are the ones who have the most obvious results, Asa’el, because our charges are still here, still unhurt, still making a difference in the world.”
And I did see. In the past it has comforted me to see the good that I have wrought, but this time the truth was the greater for a trace of darkness in it. Yes, the stakes are higher, but so are the possible rewards. We are the ones who make all the good things in our charges’ lives possible.
I have already been a part of this fight. Now I will join it for real.
I still have not been able to move the smallest thing, but that no longer frustrates me as it did this morning. I am a part of this fight, and I will make a difference. And it will be all the better for learning how to do it right.