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Inej's Papa always told her about the feeling of falling in love. It's like flying, dear, he always said. You know, that moment when your feet leave the clouds and you are sprinting up, up, and then down and butterflies flip in your stomach? That's what you will feel. Her Papa tells poems about the day he met her Mama, the joy that burst in his chest, the realization that she was the most beautiful creature that God had ever laid on the earth and skies. Inej grew up eager to feel that same feeling — the delicious ache, the thrumming in her stomach, the lightness that comes with love. God only knows her surprise when that feeling that she thought to be poetic and melodious caught her off guard — sudden, thunderous, dangerous. She hadn't planned on falling for someone she shouldn't have even met. And yet…
Thing is, angels are God's favorites. They bring peace and just rules to the world, they learn songs of harmony that they sing to every creature on earth, they weave the fate of living beings and they love every creature on earth with the gentleness that God embedded them with.
Demons… demons are shy of the light of God. They rule death and vices, sadness and anger and lust and every other terrible emotion or impulse that haunts humans. Obsession, degradation, illnesses, and a number of other things Inej has always been afraid of. And how could she not? She, an immortal being grown in light and gifting love to the world, couldn't merely comprehend the immensity of grief and anger that led demons into action. She will never know of death, and yet she saddens for the short lifespan of the beings dwelling on earth. God made it so that their lives would be cut short, but the tremendous moment of death, controlled by demons, still frightens Inej.
That's why she would have never expected that feeling — the hurricane in her stomach, the sensation of flying and then falling and falling, to be felt for none other than a demon. A demon of the worst kind, even. For this demon had known the light of God and shun from it, favored Hell to Heaven and anger to love. And Inej literally saw him, while waltzing through the clouds she saw him and her world stopped, and when it started sprinting again it was more colorful and joyous and loud and her stomach had flipped up and down with a roar.
That's what you will feel, her Papa had said. And it was. It has been, for quite some centuries now, unspoiled in its beauty and vulnerable intensity.
"You are late," the demon, Kaz, says now, as she slides through his open window and falls light on her feet on the dark floor. He gets close to the window and watches left and right to make sure that nobody followed her, before closing it in her wake.
"No one followed me," Inej mumbles, offended that Kaz would believe her, the Wraith, to make noise enough to be noticed or, Heaven forbid, followed.
"It's always good to be extra careful, love," he smiles then, getting closer to her. Inej gets closer too — not touching, yet, just breathing in the same air and looking longingly up — or down, in Kaz's case — at each other.
"I missed you, Wraith" he whispers.
She is not proud of that specific nickname. Wraith is a tad too close to the demon experience, for her liking. Wraiths are pitiful things that are condemned to an eternal, invisible death on earth because they refuse to let go of life, and demons always make sure to torment them the extra amount. Wraiths make Inej's heart swell with sadness. But— of all the angels in the skies, she is amongst the kindest and, at the same time, amongst the most dangerous. She is fast and agile, invisible at times with her fast movements and careful stealth methods. Her Papa taught her speed and her Mama discretion, and she made both qualities hers to turn into weapons.
"What does a feather soft creature like you need weapons for?" Kaz asked, one of the first times they met.
Inej's mind goes blank, every time — distant, dissociated.
Once, she was careless enough to wander the human realm, huge wings and naive expression and heart, and all. She was young, at the time — kind, innocent. The men she met hadn't been young, or kind, and definitely not innocent. Ever since that day, she turned her scars into shields and her fear into a weapon, kindness struggling to stay afloat under all her rage and shame.
She told Kaz, that day that he asked her, because if someone knows the pains of life it's a demon, as they are the ones to push hostility and anger in the hearts of human beings. She had expected him to make fun of her. Instead, he had said that long, long ago, a man had taken the life of his brother. His angel brother.
"Angel? And is he… how is he…?"
Kaz had looked at her with something dangerous in his beautiful, bitter coffee brown eyes, and she had understood. He once was an angel, and now he isn't anymore. His brother once was an angel, and now he is—
"Dead, he is dead."
"It's impossible, we are immortal."
That's the day Inej had come to know the real extent of their immortal life. Immortal beings, angels and demons are, waving the life of every living creature and respected by every being. Except humans. Humans get greedy and jealous, under the breathed whispers of demons in their ears and the blinding envy that takes them in front of angels. They alone in the skies and earth and undergrounds are able to end an angel or demon's life. And God has no say in it, Inej had found out. It just lets this happen to its beloved creatures of light.
So, the love that she had believed to be against God's will, she clung to, as it was healing to speak with a demon of the struggles of existence, as it was comforting to find that as she feared touch, so did he. They took it slow in the beginning, wary and hidden in their shells. First, against each other, and then, with time, against the rest of the world. They had started meeting more and more, in Hell where the presence of angels often goes unnoticed, as they usually go and control the proceedings of things in the name of God's divine rules. Always careful not to be seen, though, hands never touching in public, eyes never meeting each other's.
Now, though, in the private darkness of Kaz's little office slash bedroom slash home, they can stare eye in eye, long for each other, and their hands can gently caress each other's in a sweet brush of thumb over wrist and palms pressed together. Inej sighs into the touch, eyes closing for a brief moment at the bliss. Her stomach dances and her feet feel high in the air even when planted on the ground, and her heart swells with affection.
The man in front of her — the once angel now demon — is acrid and rough, all sharp edges and mean remarks and unkind actions and yet, and yet his heart is still kissed by the light of the skies, still gentle underneath all the hardships and violence he has endured and inflicted. And for how crooked and unkind and vengeful this demon is, Inej can't not be enraptured by his funny wit, his gentle touches, the soft way he speaks to her and her only.
"What human are you plotting on destroying today, my love?" she teases once their hands have stopped exploring and their palms are firmly slotted together, their fingers intertwined. Kaz rolls his eyes to the ceiling — to the skies so far from him — and he tugs her to sit on his bed. It took years, but they have reached a point in which he lets himself go so rapidly and all encompassing, with her, that he looks almost boyish. Just a young man, despite the centuries weighing on his shoulders, enthralled at the idea of getting vengeance against bad humans in the name of good humans. This is a thing he does — he sees the world in bad and good, white and black, ever incapable of recognizing that humanity is more complex than that. He himself, Inej always reminds him, is a demonstration of that complexity. He is not good, or bad — he was born light and song and love, and he turned dust and anger and fear, but always, always linked to the strings of goodness from which he was born.
"There's this woman, right?" he starts speaking, voice as rough as the rest of him, like stone against stone. "She killed her sister's son because she was envious, and—"
"And whose fault is for the envy in her heart?"
"Not mine," Kaz is quick to justify himself, a frown taking shape on his face. Inej sighs — she might not be Kaz's responsibility, but many and many more humans taunted by ill intentions are. Matthias advised her to be more open to the job of demons, just a few decades ago. She had stared at him wide eyed and confused, because he was renowned for his faithful, dutiful heart and for his hatred towards demons. But that day, while they played together a sweet harmony on the harp, she had complained about how hard it was to infuse humans with love and gentleness, when demons trapped their hearts and minds with countless vices and wicked suggestions.
They wouldn't be humans, if demons didn't do their job as we do, Matthias had teased, ever so serious. They would be no different from us, if their hearts were just pure light and unspoiled love.
So, after countless arguments with her lover about his villainous job of haunting humans through their own minds, she has been slowly making space to acceptance and the realization that angel and demon energy is necessary for humans to be— humans, as entrapped into inner fights and pulled from righteous path to agonizing descent into darkness as they are.
" — eaten by a bear."
Inej snaps from her waking slumber, and she looks at Kaz like he is a stranger. His smile is wide and devilish, showing white teeth and an excited glint in his dark eyes. He looks beautiful — he is beautiful. Inej wonders often what he might have looked like, when he was an angel, and her mind can never come to a conclusion. She is too used to his grayed wings — still feathered, but scarred and burned and the color of ash, — to the dark circles around his eyes, to the sharp canines and little, crooked horns on top of his head.
"They will grow with time," Kaz always complains, but Inej knows he is incredibly proud of his horns nonetheless. He was afraid they would never grow, that he would be a half demon for the rest of eternity — neither angel, nor demon, heart aching to loss and torment and unable to fit in any plane of existence. She knows that those horns mean the sky, to him. They mean that he belongs, that he is crooked and vile and imperfect but that the path he chose chose him back and welcomed him like a son.
"A bear?" she asks now.
"She plans to visit a zoo," he shrugs. "And the bear might break her spine and leave her agonizing and—"
Inej puts her hands on Kaz's mouth, eyes wide with disgust. "You know I love you and I— am okay with your job," she rapidly says, a half smile forming on her lips. Kaz matches her smile. "But I can endure just so much violence."
"You are weak hearted, Wraith," Kaz teases.
"On the contrary," she proudly remarks, sitting straighter and holding Kaz's hand in hers. "My heart is strong. It's my stomach that can't tolerate a step to step description of a human eaten by a bear."
"It would, if it was one of the humans that—"
"We are taught compassion and forgiveness," she harshly interrupts.
"And do you, Inej?" he asks, still tantalizing but also, somehow, incredibly soft. "Do you feel compassion and forgiveness for all humanity?"
She sighs, and she chooses not to admit out loud how right Kaz is. It feels wrong. It feels human and complex and different from the purpose she was created for. It's the truth, though, and she keeps it in her heart for herself, Kaz and God only to know. She is not forgiving towards the men that ages ago broke her and turned her into something dangerous and crooked. She is not forgiving towards whoever acts like that, and time after time she has failed in her task of infusing goodness in their hearts. She sees those acts and the evil thoughts of those people and she just gives up, turns to the other side, infuses their victims with healing and gentleness and forgiveness — forgiveness that she, a perfect being made of light and love, is unable to gift equally to humanity as she should. She begs fragile human beings to forgive, but she is not able to do so herself, even though it should be second nature to her.
The rest of the day goes by softly — Kaz cooks for her, and he holds her hand often, and he kisses her knuckles and smiles at her with his most boyish and sweet smile — the one all lips and no teeth, all gleaming eyes and blushed cheeks. She kisses said flushed cheeks, just once, and he jostles under her touch.
"Sorry," he says, eyes big with shame and guilt. He has nothing to be sorry for, though, for she knows — she knows. They don't touch for the rest of their day together, but the spoiled air of Hell around them is infused with love and affection and care. They speak and they laugh and she tells him about a dream she had of exploring the skies on a flying boat and he tells her of a dream he had of ruling a crooked city as a powerful criminal. They have tea — her — and coffee — him — and they listen to music from Kaz's cranky phonograph.
When it's time to leave, she spits out something that has been sitting in her chest for decades now. "Would you like to come to mine next time?"
The smile that welcomes her is so fond and incredulous and delighted that she can't not kiss it, slow, soft, asking for permission with her eyes set on his. He smiles just a tad more, as he leans forward to meet her lips.
☆☆☆
Inej paces back and forth and back and forth through her living room, puffs of clouds rising around her with the speed and strength of her steps and agitated jumps. She shouldn't be so nervous, nothing bad can really happen — but she is afraid nonetheless. What if some guard catches him? He is almost as fast and stealthy as she is, but she is the Wraith, and he is just a demon with a limp caused by his fall to Hell — which is hilarious, but Inej has learned not to tease him about it, because he gets crabby whenever she does. Also — he hasn't been here in centuries. He lived here with his brother, for Heaven's sake. What did she have in mind? It's probably too much for him. He probably approached the gates of Heaven and felt sick and turned to Hell with his nonexistent tail between his legs.
She groans, impatient and worried, feeling anger surge to herself for such a rash decision — is it really rash, if she has thought about it for almost a century?
That's when she hears a tick against her window. She snaps to attention, step light and fast as she approaches the window and opens it, just as another little pebble is thrown that way and hits her shoulder.
"Ouch," she hisses.
Before she realizes, Kaz has entered through the window. He leans heavily against his cane, panting like he has run miles.
"You know that you could have just entered, instead of throwing— rocks? You spent too much time in the human realm, didn't you?"
"I was—" he wheezes. "I was scared I got the address wrong."
"You, Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, thought you got my address wrong?" she teases, handing him a glass of water — not holy water, lest he is allergic to it like most demons are, despite his divine origins. Their fingers brush, and she feels her wings flap joyously at the contact with her lover.
When he stops panting, he tells her that he has had to run from the gate to her quarters, because despite his efforts a guard sniffed rotten smoke scent from Hell and they immediately got on the search. Inej laughs and reassures him that he smells just fine.
"Slightly burnt coffee and firewood smoke. And cider," she says, delicately brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. He smiles, soft, so soft for a demon, and she wants to take him hand in hand and show him to everyone and tell them Look! Look how complex and beautiful this creature that I love is! Look how happy he makes me! As things are, she is just happy to lean her head in the crook of his neck and sit peacefully on her tangerine orange sofa.
"It's nice, your place," he says, eyes darting all around like he usually does, inquiring and curious and smart. "Much more in the shades of yellow than I anticipated."
"Did you believe our homes to be all white and holy?"
Kaz shrugs, carefully surrounding her hips with his arm as they adjust more comfortably on the sofa. "Yeah?" he admits, and he laughs when she jokingly shoves him with a shoulder. "My home is the mirror of what your kind probably believes demons' homes to look like. I just assumed—"
"It's not," she screeches, too high pitched and vehement in defense of Kaz's room. It's not her fault she loves that place to the Heavens and back. "You have a coffee brewer and fresh oranges and lilies in vases of water. Your walls are not black, but rasin purple, and I find the fireplace smoke smell pleasing."
Kaz exhales a breathy laugh. "You always romanticize things, dear Inej." Then, softer, he adds, "And I love that you do, you amazing idealist angel."
She feels it then, the thrum of her heart and the music of love surging in her chest, as it always, always happens when she and Kaz just talk and laugh and hug like that. She is about to recline her head back and beg for a kiss, when—
—she hears knocks on her door.
Both she and Kaz startle apart, and she jumps up as he freezes. Their eyes, comically wide and worried, lock in quiet, muted fear. They wait — for whoever is on the other side of the door to go, or perhaps to see it they had just imagined the knocks out of their fear of being discovered together.
They understand they hadn't imagined the knocks when they keep raining on her door.
"Comin'," she yells, and Kaz hisses.
"You could have kept pretending you weren't home."
"I am an angel! I am too honest for my own good," she says in a strained, panicked whisper.
"Well, now you are about to invite your other honest angel friends in and they are going to see your demon boyfriend," he snaps.
He is bothered, Inej knows, by the interruption, by fear. He left this ruled world ages ago and now he has to live under fear of the angels' law just because Inej was stupid enough to invite him over. If the memories of his brother and of his past life here, and the fatigue of running on his limp leg on clouds too soft for his step were not enough to discourage him from ever visiting again, she is sure that this is dissuasion enough.
"Out of the window," she instructs.
"I just arrived," he complains, voice rougher than usual now that he is whispering. "My leg needs rest."
"You can fly?" she weakly suggests.
"Oh yeah, why didn't I think about it?" he says, venomous as he often is when he gets nervous. "Perhaps because everyone will spot a demon flying between all this fucking blinding white."
"Language," she reproaches him, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms in front of herself. He is being unreasonable and whiny. She doesn't have it in her heart to push him out of the window on his weak leg and have him run back to Hell until he is limp with exhaustion and pain, and she doesn't have cabinets big enough to host him. Which leaves only—
"No," he anticipates her, receptive as usual in reading the mischievous look in her eyes. "I am not wearing angel clothes. They will not even fit."
"I have some dresses big enough to look like shirts to you. You might leave your trousers on," she urges him to stand and she pushes him in her bedroom. There, after fumbling with her closet and throwing a bunch of shirts on the ground, she finally finds something that might fit Kaz.
"My wings are verging on black," he hisses, almost desperate.
"We could find an excuse," she begs. "Please, let's at least try."
"I could stay here until they go."
"Your smell is rather, er, biting. Whoever it is will know someone was here."
"You said you like my smell," he jokingly says, looking pathetic and boyish and gorgeous, beautiful, I love him.
"I do, you preposterous being. I am glad that is what you are worried about when there could be guards on my threshold."
"Not guards," a voice chimes, far too amused for Inej's liking. Both she and Kaz startle. She jumps so high that she ends up on her ceiling, and he shakes so strongly that he lets her dress slash shirt fall on the ground.
Her bedroom door is still open, and she spots who has just entered in her living room. Uninvited, she thinks, with anger bursting in her chest.
"Fuck," she snaps.
Kaz looks up at her with disbelief. "Wraith, you just slurred."
"In the house of God," another voice adds.
Inej flies down from the ceiling and she bursts the door fully open, until she is met with an incredulous-looking Matthias and a smug-looking Jesper.
"This," she hisses, "is my home, not God's. And you entered without asking."
"We have been knocking for hours," Jesper whines.
"It was merely five minutes," Matthias rectifies.
"If you had told us that you were meeting with your," Jesper's smile gets cocky, "secret boyfriend, we wouldn't have come to hang out."
Inej's mouth falls slack. "Wha— What? Who talked about a secret boyfriend? I have, um, a cousin over. He is just getting changed and—"
"Inej," Jesper sighs theatrically. "Sweet, sweet Inej. You have been sneaking out for centuries and you always come back all happy and starry eyed. We know. Now, who is the lucky guy?"
Inej wants to push her two best friends out. Perhaps she can convince them that Kaz really is a demon cousin, or that he is a friend, or that he is just an angel who fell into some human's chimney. Yeah, she can say that, for sure. She is about to sell the story of her poor cousin, back from the human realm covered in soot and begging her for a change of clothes, when Kaz appears behind her, annoyed eyes and dark black clothes and all.
Both Matthias and Jesper go wide eyed, and she readies herself. She is so ready for them to yell at her about God's rules and her love who shouldn't be and how she betrayed their whole kind. Her wings fall limp on her sides, and she feels her heart in her throat. She closes her eyes, ready, so, so ready for the scolding, when—
"Kaz?" Jesper yells, just as Matthias' eyelids fall thin and he mumbles, "Demjin," with a growl.
Inej's eyes snap back open and she looks from Kaz to her two friends.
"You know each other?"
"Jesper here never leaves the Crow Club," Kaz says, voice harsher than usual and a tad annoyed, but not angered. "And Helvar is, somehow, Nina's boyfriend. I talked to you about Nina."
"You— did," Inej says, mouth ajar and mind fuzzy with incredulity. "She is a demon," she adds, as a matter of fact.
Matthias nods.
"She is a demon," she repeats, louder.
"Yeah, and I am surprised that he managed to come here unannounced. Nina would have made so much noise and commotion and they would have found her immediately."
"I was smelled by guards," Kaz says, and he sits on one of Inej's chair like nothing is wrong. Jesper and Matthias sit as well. Inej stands there, unable to move an inch.
"Of course you were, you smelly demj—"
"Wait, Matthias," Inej prods. "Nina is a demon. You hate demons."
"I find demons' morale unpleasant," Matthias agrees. "But they are not evil."
They are, she wants to retort. Kaz is different, because he saw the light of God once and he has fallen to Hell because of all the rage and pain and anger he felt for the loss of his brother — and that is something she can relate to. Kaz's chords are still linked to those of God, still lightened with love and goodness, she would always repeat to herself. She believed Kaz to be different — she has never really talked to any other demon, though, too judgmental and scared as she was. But what if… what if Matthias is right? What if his advice of decades ago to just try and be open was not just the advice her heart required to reassure herself about her relationship with Kaz, but something that Matthias intended for all demons? Some demons, at least.
"If Kaz is here," Jesper says, showing Inej's chair to her as to invite her to sit down with them — in my own home! The audacity, she thinks. "Does it mean that I can invite Wylan over? We could send a letter to the higher-ups and beg to finally abolish the no angels and demons mixing rule!"
Inej chokes on her own spit. "Wylan?"
"His demon boyfriend," Kaz whispers to her ear. The look on his face is infuriating. For all that he was so scared of being caught with her just a few minutes before, he now looks smug and relaxed, like he loves that she was so naive that she never noticed her friends to also have mingled with demons.
She glares at him and his smart smile dies on his lips.
"Are you angry?" he says, and he sounds pretty pitiful, which is something she feels smug about.
"That you never told me you saw Jesper at the Crow Club and Matthias hand in hand with your demon friend?" she shrieks. "Perhaps a little bit, what do you say?"
He visibly gulps, shifting where he is seated. "I thought they wanted to keep the secret. It was not my place to—"
"He is right," Jesper tries to interfere.
"Hush, you. You never told me! Why?"
"We just thought you to be too rule abiding," Jesper mumbles. "And we could have never imagined you of all angels to love a demon. Half demon."
"Demon enough to have your dreams become nightmares from now onto the rest of eternity," Kaz snaps, acrid.
"Geez," Jesper starts, and both Inej and Matthias promptly yell "Language," in tandem. Jesper's mouth falls shut.
An uncomfortable silence falls on the table they are sitting around, and Inej notices how everyone else shifts uncomfortably on their seat. She is good with silences, though, they free her mind from stimulus and give her reprise to think. That's what she does now, eyes held straight ahead and fiery — she thinks.
If her friends believed her to be so good she would never engage with something so evil as Hell's progeny is — it must mean the rest of the angels see her just as good. She is the mirror of faith and perfection, to everyone who doesn't know about the men, the weapon she turned her body to become, her sneakings to Hell's halls to meet one of its demons. If she of all angels fell for a demon, it must mean she must not be the first, and her friends are proof enough. If she of all angels is seen with her lover demon, perhaps— perhaps the letter won't be necessary.
In her heart, she also knows that God knows, because it guides her every step and it fondles gently her every decision, even the most despicable and questionable — like not extending her forgiveness to rapists and falling in love with a demon. Which means there's just the rest of the angels to convince to open their gates to these vile creatures that, as Matthias said, are none other than the other face of the coin to angels. One side brings light and love, the other side brings sickness and anger. One side brings peace and one side brings hatred. One side brings life and one side brings death. And isn't this what God intended for its mortal creatures on earth? Isn't this mixture of feelings and paths what makes them so special?
"You will not sneak out of the window," she says, breaking the silence.
Kaz looks up at her. "Of course not, love. Helvar can push me into a bag and bring me back to Hell, mayhaps?"
Ah, he is still being sarcastic. She would have laughed, if it was any other day, or maybe she would have looked at him deadpan, with a raised brow and waited for him to admit deafeat. But this day she wants to finally, finally break free from the chains and hands holding her down — avid human hands holding her arms, strict godly rules holding her scared and away from her lover, her faithful morale holding her wary of creatures that are just as complex as she is — she is an angel, and yet she feels rage and vengeance and anger. They are demons, and yet they might feel love and hope and the aching pull towards light. It's not only humans who are intertwined into such different threads and paths. It can't be just humans.
She stands from her chair.
"No, Kaz," she whispers his name just for him to hear. He smiles. "You will not sneak out, period. Come have a walk with me and see the rain ponds?"
Kaz surges up and forward, smile unwavering, eyes scared but set on hers with a determination that matches hers. He offers her his hand — bare, ungloved, soft. She takes it and, under all the Woah and applause from Jesper and the victorious smile from Matthias, she pushes her door open and brings change onward with the power of her love. Step after step under the eyes of all the angels, under the scrutiny of God, she feels it all over again — what his dad always talked about. She feels her feet leave the clouds, because they do — she and Kaz take flight hand in hand. Her stomach churns, delighted, and her heart beats, unspoiled in its joy. And there's the rumbling, the thunder — only that it's not only in her heart and stomach. It's the huge, golden gates, that with a wailing groan shift in their place and then disappear in thin air. She knows it's a doing from, as Jesper calls it, the higher-ups, but she can't shake off her heart that maybe, just maybe, it's a little bit her and Kaz's doing as well. That their love to finally be shown in the open, hand in hand, eyes set on eyes, shifted something for the best.
What really, really matters, though, is the feeling of Kaz's bare palm against hers, the brush of wind around them and the all encompassing affection that fills her heart with light, and love, and kindness, and songs so hopeful and majestic as they have never been composed before.