A small smile from the other archangel. "Has Hannah told you about her newest painting? It's extraordinary."
"I've scarcely begun," Hannah demurred. "But, it's almost painting itself."
The next half hour passed in such easy conversation, and though Raphael had guessed the shape the meeting would take, he found himself impatient. It wasn't a feeling he was familiar with - after having lived so long, he'd learned the art of patience. But then he'd met a hunter, and everything had changed.
Finally, he stood with Elijah on the balcony, Hannah having discreetly excused herself.
"Do you tell her everything?" Raphael asked.
"Such a personal question. Not what I'm used to from you."
"Elena asked me about angelic relationships. I find I know very little."
Elijah looked down at the river that rushed so far below, twisting in and out of crevices that had grown ever deeper with the passing centuries. "Hannah knows what I know," he said at last.
"Then why does she not stand with us?"
"She knows because she is my mate. She has no desire to be caught up in the workings of the Cadre." A pause. "You don't understand because your hunter has always been entangled with the Cadre."
"How can someone of Hannah's power" - and she'd strengthened a great deal since he'd last seen her - "be content to remain in the wings?"
"Hannah has no taste for politics." Elijah turned to glance at Raphael, his jaw granite.
"Such as that which has another angel daring to use my name."
"It displays an arrogance that'll lead to a mistake," Raphael answered, echoing something Elena had said to him after those taut moments when she'd held him so tight - as if she'd physically keep him from falling into the abyss. "He seeks glory. For that, he must be known."
"I understand your anger, Raphael" - Elijah's own fury was a violent heat - "but we can't allow this to distract us from the true problem."
"You've heard something." It was there in the other archangel's eyes, his voice.
Elijah nodded. "There are rumors Lijuan plans to openly show off her reborn at the ball."
Raphael had guessed as much. Jason's last report, delivered after Lijuan's reborn managed to corner him long enough to claw off part of his face, had spoken of an ever-strengthening army of the reawakened dead. "We must prepare for the consequences should the extent of Lijuan's evolution become known."
"The world will shudder," Elijah said, his voice soft in the dusk. "And they'll learn to fear us a little bit more."
"That isn't always a disadvantage." Fear stopped mortals from taking foolish chances, from forgetting that an immortal would always win any battle.
Elijah's face was an aristocratic silhouette against the orange red glow of the setting sun, his golden hair aflame. "Do you think that applies in this case?"
"Mortals are unpredictable - they may brand Lijuan a monster, or they may call her a goddess."
Elijah glanced behind him as Hannah stepped out to ask if they'd like more wine.
"Raphael?"
Raphael shook his head. "I thank you, Hannah."
"It's my pleasure."
"What Lijuan is becoming," Elijah said after his mate left, "part of me fears that that's what awaits us all in the end."
"You know as well as I do that our abilities are tied to who we are." Raphael still couldn't understand his own unexpected new talent - where had it grown from, what seed, what act? "And you've never taken the firstborn child of every family in a village just to show your power."
Elijah was visibly shocked. "I've never heard that of Lijuan."
"She was ancient when I was born, when you were born." And Elijah was over three thousand years older than Raphael.