in him.
“What else was down there?” he asked, gesturing to the rug and speaking quietly.
“Books of legends…well, legends to humans. They’re our tales. Our stories. Our truths,” I answered. “One day, I might let you read them.”
“I would enjoy that. I always loved mythological studies in school. I’m a Roman Catholic, but…there’s something about other religions and cultures I’ve always been really interested in.”
“Be careful. You have those pesky things called the Ten Commandments. Doesn’t one of them say something about no other gods or something?” I couldn’t help but smile.
“‘I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me,’” Raphael recited dutifully. “It’s the First Commandment, actually.” He looked away for a minute, then down at his hands. I wondered what was suddenly on his mind. As I watched him, I realized one strange thing since he and I had started living together—he had stopped going to church. I didn’t see him pray, and I never saw a Bible in my condo.
Something is bothering him, and it’s going to bug me now.
“Raph—”
“What’s next?” he asked suddenly.
If he wants to avoid it, I’ll let him. It’s not my business to pry.
“We wait for one of two things. The Tribunal tells me where Levi is, and we go get him, or we head out for the prison again at dawn.”
15
Chapter Fifteen
At dawn, I had no word from the Tribunal about the coven or Levi’s location, which meant the prison was our objective. Raphael and I loaded my BMW up and pulled away from my home, heading back for the prison. The ride was silent and dark, even though I knew the sun was out. It was just behind the looming dark clouds pouring rain on everything. I was getting alerts on my phone about flash flooding in different areas of Phoenix.
“The coven needs to find him faster,” I said softly, watching the road as the rain came down.
“Agreed,” Raphael said softly.
Nothing more was said. There was nothing else to say. I knew I could ask him about earlier, but I didn’t want to.
Well, I do, but how the hell does someone broach that sort of topic? It’s not my business.
But it felt like it was. That’s what friends did, right? Asked about each other, made sure everything was okay. The issue wasn’t if there was a problem, it was if Raphael considered me a friend who could ask those things, and I didn’t feel up for rejection. So, I drove in silence.
“Do you pray?” he finally asked with Phoenix far behind us. We were nearly at the prison.
“No,” I answered. “I haven’t prayed for a long time.”
“Why?”
“The gods didn’t answer.” I was a generally honest but not open person. I had opened up to Cassius a long time ago, and now, here I was, opening up to Raphael. The parallels between the two men were something I kept running into. They were both moral, good men. Because I knew they would keep my secrets, I felt more comfortable with them.
“I noticed you haven’t…been overtly religious since we met.”
“He never answered either,” Raphael whispered. “Sorry. Earlier really put me in a mood.”
“It happens.” I knew that all too well. It was easy for the changes in life to throw you off balance, especially when you look back and see just how much it changed. When I was in my thirties, I had that moment. It paralyzed me for what felt like weeks. For the first time in twenty years, I had spoken to Adhar and realized I wasn’t the little girl he remembered and never would be again. I had fundamentally changed, and it finally caught up to me.
“Who would you pray to if you could pick someone right now?” he asked, leaning back more comfortably in his seat. Since we got in the car, he’d been stiff, and I took his relaxing as a good sign he was getting back to normal.
“Kali, if I wanted to draw on strength. Vasuki for things naga related. There are so many options. It all depends on what I would pray about; that’s how I’ve always decided.”
“I’ve heard both those names. Kali shows up a lot in pop culture, and Vasuki was the…” Raphael snapped his fingers. I was impressed he was taking time to learn things about my culture, almost touched. The last time I spoke to anyone who took such an interest was decades ago. Cassius never asked, but I knew his reasons. He’d known, just as I