They argued back and forth about the merits and drawbacks of inviting pigeons into the garret before Uriel offered a timely reminder that Jack Wish’s men could arrive at any moment. Then began an argument about Armando climbing on the roof to replace the roof tiles, then another about Armando’s missing clothes—which Uriel had bought, and Armando had sold for food—then another about Armando offering free services. Bram had no idea what they were talking about anymore, but he did like the familiar way they spoke to one another. It was the kind of intimacy that was sorely lacking in his own family, and he wished for the thousandth time that his life was different.
Uriel magicked them away again, this time to his rooms on Nightingale Lane.
“I need to go home,” Bram said. “My parents will be expecting me. I was supposed to be at the museum with Aunt Felicity.”
“Where did you leave her?” Uriel asked, as if familiar with Bram’s habits.
“The Landmark,” Bram told him.
Felicity Matcham had been married to a duke. The dowager duchess could fall asleep on the railway tracks at King’s Cross, and nobody would dare wake her. She had a sharp tongue and a fondness for making people suddenly unemployed. She also had a fondness for strong liquor and now had sufficiently damaged taste buds that she didn’t know when her drink had been spiked. Bram wasn’t even sorry anymore. The woman was an absolute harridan who thought nothing of chastising Bram in public, often for no reason at all. It wasn’t as if Bram were responsible for his height or the shape of his bones.
“I’ll deal with it, then I need to get back to work. Do not leave here, any of you. It’s not safe out there.” Without another word, Uriel disappeared.
7
No Going Back
Bram had a decision to make. After six days in relative captivity, news of his disappearance had already made its rounds. Uriel informed him that Aunt Felicity had been packed off to the country, where she couldn’t chaperone another charge into a kidnapping. Because although the rumours had started out with Bram wandering off, they’d soon taken a much more sinister shape when tongues started wagging. There were now eye witness testimonies insisting Bram had been hustled into a coach by a team of ruffians, but of course all witnesses were too far away to be of any assistance. Uriel had transported Bram to collect all his things; there really was no going back.
No more scheming parents or forced meetings with Lord Vernon.
No more suffocating dresses or overheated ballrooms.
No more Oliver.
Uriel and his brother, Bel, had been out every day sending the corpses back to their eternal beds—archangels could do that, apparently—but the murders had not stopped. Bram thought people were using the recent uprising as a cover to bump off their enemies, and when he’d suggested as much, Armando accused him of living in the fantasy world of his novels. It didn’t help his friendship with Armando any when Uriel and Bel agreed with Bram, which set off a conversation about Sherlock Holmes that Armando felt excluded from since he’d never read The Strand Magazine in his life.
Bram felt a little sorry for him because Armando was unable to hide his feelings of unsophisticated ineptitude whenever conversation took a turn into uncharted waters. He began to see his friend, who had always seemed so effortlessly charming, in a new light.
Perhaps everyone wore a mask of some kind.
Not Oliver.
Bram stared at his tear-stained cheeks in the mirror in Uriel’s bathroom and lifted the heavy scissors. He sawed steadily through his thick hair, which he’d plaited to make it easier. When he was done, he threw the two plaits into a bag. Now what? His hair looked terrible, the curls he usually kept tidied away with bows and clips bouncing around his neck and ears. He snipped and snipped until he was satisfied, glad now for his curls since his hair would likely look much more hacked had it been straight like Uriel’s.
The man in the mirror smiled back at him, and he let out a laugh, scrubbing at the back of his neck, shaking his head from side to side, happy—so terribly happy—to feel the lightness of his hair as it swayed and bounced. He swallowed hard, his smile shakier now.
He left the bathroom in a daze.
“You took your time,” Armando observed without turning around. “I was beginning to think you’d thrown yourself out with the bath water.”
Bram leant over Armando’s shoulder and dropped the bag of hair into his lap. “I wasn’t in the bath.”
Cecilia smiled at him. “I’ve never seen you without your hat and scarf.”
Armando stared into the bag, closed it, then turned to look at Bram.
“No going back now, eh?” said Bram.
Armando shook his head. “You look…”
Bram smiled. “I look what?”
“More like you,” Armando said, reaching for Bram’s hand. “You look more like you.”
Bram stretched a curl down his forehead, watching it bounce when he let go. “You don’t think it makes me look like that Canadian fellow who makes soap?”
Armando scrunched up his nose. “What Can—do Canadians think we lack soap?”
“One could be forgiven for thinking so.”
Cecilia, who was lolloping dramatically on the floor, said, “I am beset with ennui.”
Armando looked up at Bram. “We need to get her away from Uriel and his flouncy vocabulary before it’s too late.”
When Armando explained how he intended to achieve this objective, Bram was flabbergasted. Of course, Bram had some inkling that Armando wasn’t particularly interested in women, and he knew there were men who were attracted to other men, but he had never quite combined the two ideas in his mind. Armando intended to find himself a male protector. He was certain Armando was holding back something about his forthcoming mission to find such a man, but Bram was equally certain he did not want to hear more details.
His brain was filled with what in ordinary company would pass for fanciful ideas, but in a world of angels and demons, nothing seemed outside the bounds of Bram’s imagination. Uriel had spoken of vampires, and witches, and people who could become animals. He’d told Bram that not all demons were bad, and not all angels were good, which seemed a strange thing for an angel to admit, but what was Uriel Hazard if not strange?
He learned that Armando himself was an angel—a nephilim whose father would not acknowledge him, so he was unable to access his powers. But Uriel had told Bram that Armando’s magic was just waiting for him to believe in himself. This was not an opinion that Armando had ever been willing to entertain, insisting he was useless.
Bram could relate to that feeling, stuck inside, hiding from the world, unable to do his part in protecting his friend when Armando had given him so much to be grateful for.
Unfortunately, Bram was not spared the argument that ensued when Uriel caught Armando making a run for it outside The Tangled Vine, because he’d been banished only so far as the bedroom with Cecilia, whose little ears were covered by his hands, leaving his own ears unprotected.
Armando was a sociable man, and being cooped up all week had fostered a good deal of resentment at Uriel’s high-handed commandeering of the situation. It was that resentment, mushroomed into outright indignant rage, that had Armando hastily packing their bags. And that was how they found themselves back at Armando’s garret, scraping pigeon guano off the floor as they discussed their next move.
