“The rooms are what you might expect in the home of any angel past six or seven hundred years of age.” Aodhan waved at the fancy furniture, the luxurious carpet. “But the art is missing.”
Elena swallowed the cheese in her mouth, chased it down with water. “Isn’t that held in some kind of gallery?” It’s what she’d assumed when Hannah had spoken about the art she intended to view at Lumia.
Raphael was the one who answered. “Some of it may be, yes. But the walls of Lumia itself are meant to be lined with art, a new wonder around every corner.” He resettled his wings and she couldn’t help but run her fingers over his primaries in a petting gesture that was openly possessive.
It still struck her mute at times that he was hers.
The funny thing was, he had the same response to her.
Eternity would mean nothing without you. For no power on this earth would I trade my Elena.
The memory of his raw words was a crossbow bolt right to the heart every single time.
“The Luminata,” Raphael added, “have collected that art for untold eons. Artists offer them their greatest works, because to be displayed on Lumia’s walls is a great accolade.”
So where, Elena thought, was all that art? Why would the Luminata prefer anonymous hallways that all appeared the same? Why did they scurry about so secretively and watch their visitors from hidden alcoves? Elena might’ve missed the first lot of Luminata until they apparently emerged from the walls, but she’d learned from her mistake. So she knew this place had eyes.
And those eyes raised every hair on her body.
11
The hairs on the back of her neck stayed stiff as they exited their suite.
As they’d already noted, the walls had a seamless sameness that sought to deceive the eye and confuse the mind, their color that of the sand-colored stone mined from the nearby mountains, the doors set into those walls identical. Technically, it was soothing and lovely, but . . .
“It’s like being in a horror movie,” Elena muttered. “Like those scenes where a victim runs frantically down hallways in a hotel where everything’s the same and there’s no way out.”
“What’s a horror movie?”
Elena grinned at Aodhan’s question. “I’ll show you once we get home.” Only after the words were out did she realize she didn’t know which horror might be Aodhan’s own. Raphael, you’re going to have to vet the movies.
First you throw bread at my head and now you expect me to be a movie critic, was the outwardly haughty response, but he brushed his fingers against her own. It is to your honor that you care for his heart. I will tell you what he can and cannot bear.
The eerie sameness underwent a dramatic change once they hit a set of external corridors, the breathtaking scenery beyond Lumia framed by delicate stone archways. From this vantage point, it was possible to see all the way to the mountains over which they’d flown, nothing in between but wildflowers, and, closer to the peaks, the dark shapes of trees designed to survive in this arid landscape.
“The patterns are astonishing.”
Elena and Raphael both turned to face Aodhan.
Clearly reading their total lack of comprehension, he smiled that quiet smile that had been known to cause both men and women near enough to glimpse it, to faint. “Look.” He went close to a wall, traced lines on it.
It still took Elena well over a minute to see what he was pointing out, the impressions on the stone were so fine. And then she saw them everywhere. Intricate, delicate patterns covered the walls, the arched ceiling, the floor. “Wow.” She literally pressed her nose to a wall in an effort to see exactly how the patterns had been created. “Are they all different?”
“No, not on the walls at least,” Aodhan said. “They repeat within each hallway, changing only after a turn or once we pass the entrance to another hallway.”
Raphael ran his own finger over the stone. “A meditation aid possibly?”
“I’m obviously not mentally enlightened enough for this place.” Elena followed one intricate line with her eye, wondering at the patience it had taken to carve it out with such fine delicacy. “I would’ve never seen the designs on my own.”
“Then I, too, am not enlightened enough, Guild Hunter.”
“Of course not. Why else would you have had the bad form to fall in love with a mortal? Philistine.”
Raphael’s laugh had Aodhan’s lips curving into a deep smile that was so rare, it made Elena’s heart miss a beat. “It is less enlightenment and more a matter of artistic training,” he said. “Once you see it, you can’t miss it.”
Hunkering down, his wings a graceful sweep on his back and the hilts of his dual blades drawing her eye, he traced near-invisible designs on the floor. “I think it’s a map, a way to navigate Lumia.” He touched his fingers to the nearest wall. “I haven’t decoded the map as yet, but what I do understand leads me to believe the walls may open in places.”
Elena whistled, crouching down opposite him to examine the lines. “No wonder the Luminata can swan about like ghosts.” As if they could walk through walls. “Good way to put people on the back foot.”
“I’m beginning to believe the Luminata enjoy holding knowledge above others,” Raphael said as they rose to explore further, the three of them walking side by side with Elena in the middle. “They have always been secretive to the extreme.”