The dawn did not bring light. It brought a pale, sickly gray that crawled through the shattered stained glass of the church.
Ren woke to the sound of dripping water.
He did not move. He lay on the stone altar, staring at the vaulted ceiling. The fever had broken, leaving him hollow and cold. His skin felt too tight for his bones.
The fire in his left leg had changed. It was no longer a chaotic scream. It was a heavy, rhythmic throb. Dull. Constant. Grounding.
He shifted his weight.
The pain flared, sharp and precise. He looked down.
His left leg was elevated on a pile of moldy velvet altar cloths. His trousers had been cut away to the knee. Two sturdy wooden slats from a broken pew had been used as a splint. They were tied tightly to his leg with strips of black leather.
He recognized the leather. It was the sleeve of Raynare's jacket.
She had shredded her own armor to hold his bones together.
Ren closed his eyes. He felt a strange, terrifying pressure in his chest that had nothing to do with his lungs. It was the weight of a debt he never asked for.
"You are staring."
Her voice came from the shadows behind the altar. It was stripped of the silk. It was stripped of the razor blades. It was just a tired, jagged sound.
Ren turned his head.
Raynare was leaning against a stone pillar. She looked exhausted. Her black wings were gone, retracted into the space between her shoulder blades. Without them, she looked smaller. Fragile. She was wrapped in a tattered gray blanket she must have found in the vestry.
She walked toward him.
Her footsteps were heavy. She was not a predator this morning. She was a deserter.
She stopped beside the altar. She did not look at his face. She looked at the splint.
"The bone is straight." She said. Her fingers hovered over the leather bindings. They trembled. "I felt it click. I thought I had killed you when you screamed."
"I did not scream." Ren's voice was a dry rattle.
"You did." She finally looked at him. Her violet eyes were bloodshot. "Inside. I felt your pulse stop for three seconds. I thought I was back on the asphalt with you."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
The church was a vacuum. The air between them was thick with the things they were not saying. She had committed treason for a ghost. He had accepted a lifeline from a monster.
Raynare reached out.
She placed her hand on his forehead to check his temperature.
Her skin was still unnaturally hot, but her touch was agonizingly hesitant. She didn't know how to handle something that could break. Her fingertips brushed the hairline of his temple.
Ren did not flinch.
He looked at her hand. Then he looked at her face. The proximity was different now. It wasn't the violent, straddling heat of the night before. It was a quiet, domestic horror. She was close enough that he could see the faint, silvery scars on her collarbone. Marks of her own tolls.
"Why." Ren whispered.
Raynare's hand froze against his skin. She did not pull away. She leaned in, her face inches from his. The scent of ozone and rain still clung to her hair.
"Because you called me a girl." She whispered back. Her breath was warm against his lips. "Because no one has looked at me like I was a person since I fell. And I realized. If I let you die, I go back to being a weapon."
She stepped closer, her body pressing against the edge of the stone altar.
"And I am so tired of being a weapon, Ren."
The tension was a physical cord stretched between them, vibrating with every shallow breath. Ren raised his right hand.
He did not grab her shirt this time.
He allowed his palm to hover near her cheek. He didn't touch her. He couldn't. His hand was still mapped to Sarah. But the intent was there. The recognition was a bridge made of glass.
Raynare closed her eyes. She leaned her face toward his empty palm, chasing the ghost of a touch he wasn't ready to give.
"We are dead." She murmured. "The Grigori will come for me. The Gremory will come for you. We have no faction. No registry. No mercy."
"Good." Ren said.
He forced himself to sit up. The movement was a catastrophe of pain. His vision swirled.
Raynare didn't catch him this time with a straddle. She slid her arm behind his back, supporting his weight. Her skin was a fever against his spine. He leaned his head against her shoulder, his breath hitching as the bone in his leg complained.
They sat there on the altar. Two broken things in a ruined sanctuary.
"We need to move." Raynare whispered into his hair.
"Where."
"Nowhere safe."
She pulled away slightly to look at him. Her eyes were hard again, but the fear was still there, deep in the violet depths.
Suddenly, the gray light in the church flickered.
A small, black crow landed on the jagged edge of the broken stained glass. It didn't chirp. It didn't move. Its eyes were glowing with a faint, sickly green light.
A familiar.
Raynare stiffened. Her wings exploded out from her back in a violent spray of black feathers. The wind from their expansion knocked over a silver chalice on the altar.
"The Gremory." She hissed.
She grabbed the wooden crutch from the floor and shoved it into Ren's hand. Her fingers dug into his arm.
"Can you walk?"
Ren gripped the wood. He looked at the crow. He felt the ancient resonance in his chest thrum. The system was waking up.
[ RESONANCE STABILIZED. ] [ STATUS: UNSEEN. ]
"I can crawl if I have to." Ren said.
He stood up on one leg, leaning his entire weight into the crutch. The world tilted. The stone floor felt like it was made of water.
Raynare grabbed his waist, pulling his arm over her shoulder. She was his strength. He was her reason to flee.
They moved toward the back exit of the church, a limping shadow and a fallen star.
Outside, the rain had stopped. But the air was cold.
A tall, slender figure stood in the middle of the overgrown graveyard. She wore the Kuoh Academy uniform. Her dark hair was tied back in a perfect ponytail. Her violet eyes were flat. Lethal.
Akeno Himejima.
She wasn't smiling.
"My President wants her property back." Akeno said. Her voice carried over the wind like a death sentence. "And I have always wanted to see how a Fallen Angel screams."
Yellow lightning sparked between Akeno's fingers, turning the gray morning into a strobe light of impending violence.
Ren tightened his grip on Raynare's shoulder.
The hunt had truly begun.