«A binding and a sealing within. A rape to abrogate the barriers of thyself, and a star burned into thy flesh to lock within that which thy prayers lured into thee, when thou didst raise thy voice to God for aid, and aid was sent»

Kit turned to look the Devil in the eye. “Thou”–an effort to say it, and Satan’s amusement made it worse–“sayest I have a cage for an angelburned on my skin?”

«Aye»

“Why?” Kit staggered. His scars flared so hot he thought they might burn through his doublet, and he drew his cloak tight as Lucifer cupped his shoulders with one bright wing. Kit hunched into the Devil’s arms. “And moreover, how?”

«Tell me who the angel Mehiel is.»

Kit closed his eyes, thinking. Mehiel.Amaranth had been right: he’d found the name easily in London. “Protector of poets, authors, and lecturers. He’s also the angel under whose wardenship my birthday falls, if thou dost believe such things. But those are papist superstitions – ”

«Are they?» The golden brows rose, rumpling the ivory forehead. «Tell me, then, which of my brothers would come to thee in thy hour of need, Sir Poet?»

Oh, God.

«Nay. But a bit of His creation, more kindly disposed to thee than most, to help thee bear thy pain. And now he hears the name of God and seeks to burst his prison, but his prison is thy mortal flesh:

“No,” Kit said. He pressed his fist against his chest, heart thundering against the backs of his fingers. “No. It is not so.”

«If devils may be bound» Lucifer murmured, pitiless, «why, so may God’s angels, for we are brothers, all»

“But why?”Such a small voice, Kit could hardly believe it came from his own throat. He would have fallen if Lucifer’s white wings and arms hadn’t borne him up; the pain in his breast was incapacitating, his eyes burning so hot he could not think anything but fire flowed down his cheeks.

Lucifer lifted the folds of Kit’s patchwork cloak with a wing tip, violent colors draped over the whiteness of his feathers, and held it before Kit’s eyes. It caught the light of all the vaults of heaven, the planets spinning below and the stationary stars all around. «The magic of sympathy,» he said. «To bind the angel within thee, and then to bind thine own magic and thy voice, and then to take thee in servitude, and cripple thy power with fear and loathing and the hatred of thine own weakness they put in thee. ‘Tis half the reason their opposition of thy plays, and Shakespeare’s, has been so successful. That thou hadst any success at all is a testament to the power of thy will–and thy Will, also.»

God,Kit thought, understanding finally why it was that Richard Baines had let him live, until he’d proven once and for all that he would notlet them control him. Why everyone–Prometheans, Faerie, Hell–seemed bent on owning him, no matter the cost. “But why would God send an angel to–me?Why would He care?”

«God will not save thee.» A knowing voice, and one burning with pain like embers banked and buried in the ash. «But He will of a time give thee the strength to endure what horrors His servants do visit upon thee.»

Kit swallowed, hearing the voice, feeling that filthy caress on his filthy hair – ‘If we have a chance to complete the wreaking in London, it would help to use the same vessel. Even more if he were willing, of course. Although mayhap our little catamite liked it, considering his tastes.’

‘Did you like it, puss?’

They raped an angel. Through me. They raped an angel in my body. My angel.It wasn’t rage he felt, but a great disbelief and weariness; the rousing of an exhausted, possessive jealousy.

Condummatum est.Lucifer’s gentleness made Kit want to retch. “He wasn’t only talking to me, was he?” ‘Bid you like it, puss?’“It was a promise to–what they put in me. Something to think about.”

«Aye»

“I thought the dark Prometheans thought they were – God’s chosen.”

«They are.» Lucifer answered calmly. «The God they intend to create. And what is bound in thee is part of that creation, a chink in the armor of the Divine. As thy cloak offers thee a symbol of the scrap of protection and grace offered thee by each one who contributes to it–so what is done to thee is done to Mehiel, and that which is done unto Mehiel is done unto God.»

The spaces underfoot and overhead made him dizzy. This is Hell too,he thought. For it is not Heaven.“If this works,” Kit asked, a spark of doubt flaring in his soul as he thought of Will and Ben hard at work over verses and translation, “‑why have you not taken it on yourself to make a God of your own?”

«Sweet Poet.» Mockery, and a warm wing across his shoulders. «Have I not? Why didst think I chose thee, my love? What dost thou think thy Faustuswill create, given history and the acclaim it deserves?»

“I have an angel burned on my skin,” Kit said, wondering. “What happens if I set him free?”

«If thou canst discover how. I do not know that he can be freed without the destruction of the prison that contains him.»

“Me.” Kit sagged, and turned his face to the silk of Satan’s shirt when the angel embraced him once more. The tears were dry on his face, if they had been water and not flames, and he leaned into the embrace and the scent of smoke and forgetfulness that surrounded Lucifer, and the warmth of those wings, and the cold starlight gleaming between his boots and on his hair. God sent an angel to bear my pain. And I have hated God all these years for failing to answer my prayers.

As they said in Faerie, all stories were true. But some stories were more true than others.

‘Did you tike it, puss?’

«Well?» Lucifer asked, some eternity later. «Was Morgan correct, again? Has’t broken thee, this knowing?»

“Yes,” Kit said, and somewhere found a last black scrap of humor, and managed not to shiver as he spoke. “At least for today.”

«Brave Poet.» the Devil said, and held him among the darkness and the stars for a little while longer, until Kit raised his face from the soft white curve of Satan’s wing.

“There’s a shining sort of irony in Lucifer giving God back to a man God doesn’t want.”

«Poetry grows through the broken places, brother.» The wings opened around him; Kit stood under their arch, but they no longer restrained or warmed him.

Within and yet without, and boldly he laid his hand on the feathers again and ruffled them up, stroked them smooth. Whatever moved in Kit was vast and slow, a symphony of emotion that swelled from discord into something complex and bittersweet and whole. “Brother … an we are friends, then. And thou dost value my friendship – ” It wouldn’t come into words, exactly, but he knew perfectly well that Lucifer could read his tangle of emotions and half‑formed thoughts as plainly as a poem. The Devil might claim he could not see in human hearts. But Lucifer was, after all, the Prince of Lies.

And when those lies went cloaked in truth, so much the better.

Lucifer tilted his head, considering, watching Kit’s hand linger among his feathers. «The pain and sickness thou feelst at thy lovers’ touch. And yet not at mine.»

“If we are to be friends–”

«Sir Poet.» When Satan ducked his head and smiled crookedly at Kit, it folded sharp creases from the corners of his long, slightly crooked nose to the corners of his mouth. The blue eyes crinkled in an interested sort of mockery, and Kit felt suddenly as if some bright fluid buoyed him. «‘Tis thine own soul’s wreaking, and a sensible one; ‘tis but that the wall Mehiel and thyself didst build about thy garden of suffering–and his–after Rheims has fallen.»

“… fallen?”

«The angel Mehiel has seen the truth, that hiding thy pain from thee has not made thee strong, but concealed the flaw within. He hath lifted his wings, and thou must needs now tend the blasted heath within. Friend Poet, heal thyself, and thou wilt be whole.»