She would be dead by morning. And her daughter would follow, executed within the week, sacrificed to nationalist fervor and bloodlust.
Underneath the familiar flowering of compassion, anger stirred, like a worm at the heart of a rose.
Solange wet her dry lips. “One day. Not yet. You must . . .” Another cough rattled the comtesse’s frail frame. She met the angel’s gaze, the light of faith or determination in her eyes. “You will save her.”
Such faith should be rewarded.
Shouldn’t it?
“I will.” The words falling from his lips caught him by surprise.
He was an angel, bound to discern the will of God, to protect, and to obey. He regarded the dark sweep of the child’s lashes, the sheltering curve of her shoulders.
What if the charge to protect, the call to obey, pulled him in different directions?
He would be punished for his disobedience, of course. Not for the first time. Michael, leader of the Heavenly host, took a dim view of insubordination. But perhaps Gabriel would intercede for him. It was almost Christmas, after all. The season of miracles. There was some precedent for his intervention in human affairs.
“You promise,” Solange insisted.
Recklessness seized him. “I swear.”
The girl glanced up, almost as if she heard him. Those clear blue eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
The angel jolted. She saw him? Was she that pure? That innocent? Or was she like her mother, close enough to death to feel the brush of his wings?
“The answer to our prayers,” Solange said.
“Can he get us out of here?” Aimée asked, direct as a child, pragmatic as any of her countrywomen.
“Of a surety he can save you,” Solange said. “You must go with him.”
The girl raised her head. He had no idea what she could make out in the dark. She should not have been able to see him at all.
“You will have to help my mother. She cannot stand.”
The angel held Solange’s gaze for a long moment.
“I do not go with you, mignonne,” the comtesse said softly.
Aimée stuck out her rounded chin. “Then we will not go.”
“My dear . . .” The comtesse coughed. “You have no choice.”
“I won’t leave you.” The girl’s voice rose, provoking glances and whispers from her fellow prisoners.
But the cell’s other inhabitants were too respectful of her grief, too fearful of fever or sunk in their own despair to intervene.
“I cannot remove her against her will,” the angel said.
“You promised to save her,” Solange said.
Irritation flickered through him, crackled like ozone in the air. Frustration with her, with himself, with the sins of men and the limitations of angels. “She does not wish to be rescued.”
Intervention was one thing. He might be forgiven for granting a dying mother’s prayer. But violating a human being’s free will was another, far more serious offense.
He looked at the girl, her springy dark curls, her clear, wide eyes, the jut of that childlike chin. She was old enough to make her own decisions.
His chest tightened. And far too young to die. Her goodness shone in this mortal Hell like a star.