Page 122 of A House of Gold
"Long enough to see you pull out Meredith's research." He moves closer, each step measured. "I wondered when you'd find it."
"You knew this was here?"
"I knew she was researching something. She spent most of her time in this library, pulling records, cross-referencing contracts." He stops a few feet away. "I didn't know what she'd found until after she died. When I went through her things."
"And you just left it here? For me to find?"
"I left it where she hid it. Where you would find it when you were ready." His jaw tightens. "I couldn't show you directly. The binding prevents me from revealing certain information about the houses without permission from the other six. But I could leave breadcrumbs."
I look down at the folder in my hands. "Missing souls. Forty-seven of them. All angel-bloodlines."
"Yes."
"Someone's collecting them."
"Yes."
"Before the houses can."
"Yes." He moves closer, and I see the tension in his shoulders, the fear carefully locked down but bleeding through the binding. "Show me what she found. All of it. I want to her what you think."
I hand him the folder. Watch his face as he reads through the pages, the notes, the list. His expression doesn't change, but through the binding I feel his emotions spike, alarm, recognition, dread.
"This is worse than I thought. I read this after her death, of course, but I didn’t think about it." he says quietly.
"Worse how?"
He closes the folder, hands it back to me carefully. "The missing souls aren't just disappearing. They're being harvested. And if the pattern your grandmother identified is correct, all of them angel-blood, all from old bloodlines, then someone is collecting specific genetic material."
"For what purpose?"
"I don't know. But nothing good requires forty-seven angel-blood souls." He starts pacing, one hand running through his hair. "The houses would have noticed eventually. We track our contracts carefully. But by taking them right before collection,spreading them out over a century, it's been subtle enough that we each thought it was isolated incidents. Random disappearances. Bad luck."
"Until my grandmother connected them."
"Yes." He stops pacing, turns to face me. "Meredith didn't just discover the pattern. She figured out why it matters. That's what got her killed."
"Her murder wasn’t coincidence,it was a warning."
"To who?"
"To me. To the other houses. To anyone else who might start asking the same questions." He crosses to me, takes my hands. "Your grandmother was brilliant. She saw the pattern, understood the implications, and she died for it. And now you're her heir. You've inherited her contract, her knowledge, and..."
"Her target," I finish. We already knew that. We prepared for it with the binding.
"Yes." Through the binding, I feel his fear crystallize into something sharper. "The protection Wren gave you, the binding that hides you from watchers, it's strong. But if this goes higher than watchers..."
"How high are we talking?"
"Archangels." The word drops between us like a stone. "If archangels are involved in this, if this conspiracy goes to the highest levels of Heaven, then Wren's wards won't be enough. Archangels can override almost any protection. They're not just observers, Raven. They're Heaven's generals. The God’s right hand."
My knees go weak. I sink into the nearest chair. "So I'm not safe. The binding doesn't matter."
"The binding matters. It buys us time. Makes it harder for them to track you." He kneels in front of me, hands still grippingmine. "But if they're determined, if they've already killed your grandmother for knowing too much, then we need to assume they're coming for you too."
Through the binding, I feel his desperation. His need to protect me. His fury that he can't guarantee my safety.
"What do we do?" I whisper.
