Free Dark Union (The Descent Series) by SM Reine

title, but she had only considered it in the most abstract way. She hadn’t really given consideration to what it would mean to have another greatest kopis, much less being in the same place as him.
    After a beat, she said, “I was the one who came before him. I retired.”
    “Kopides don’t retire. They die.”
    She opened her mouth to argue, but didn’t get a chance. Someone shouted.
    Allyson Whatley burst out of the SUV. Elise tensed, but the witch didn’t attack. “Flynn’s having a seizure!”
    “What are the conditions?” Zettel asked.
    She shoved a printout in his face. It was gibberish to Elise, but it must have meant something to him. He scanned them, and then stepped back, shielded his eyes, and scanned the sky.
    A shadow crossed over the sun, and a lone silver feather drifted in front of Elise’s face.
    It was followed by another feather, and another. But she didn’t wait to see if there would be more. Elise shoved Anthony behind the bar, and Zettel was too busy shouting indistinct orders to his team to notice that they had disappeared.
    An angel dropped out of the sky and alighted in the center of the road. His bare feet came to rest on the searing asphalt.
    A voice echoed through the air.
    “I have come.”
    It was a powerful noise, booming and resonant, even though the voice itself was barely more than a whisper. Elise still would have heard it if she was miles away, or utterly deaf. It drove through her mind like a spike.
    She watched from around the side of the building as the angel stretched his wings to their full capacity, which forced Zettel to step back. Each wing was as long as he was tall, and he scattered downy feathers across the desert like hot snow. He blazed with inner light. She couldn’t see his face around the commander’s back.
    Elise wished that she had brought her falchions.
    “If you want to talk to me directly, you’re supposed to arrange a meeting,” said Zettel, sounding more irritated than fearful. Elise hadn’t pegged him for a complete idiot, but she was quickly changing her mind. “You can’t just wander around town like this. There are civilians, you know.”
    The quiet voice roared. “I bear a message.”
    “So bear it to the meetings. The ethereal delegation missed the first one.”
    “We will not be attending any of your meetings.”
    Zettel faltered, stunned to silence. Allyson spoke instead. “The agreement—”
    “We made no agreement.”
    She grew bolder. “So the last three thousand years of summits were… what, a whim?”
    “We’ve fulfilled our promises to the Council of Dis. But the semi-centennial summit has been taken by your human faction, and we have no agreements with you. We won’t submit to your rules.”
    Zettel found his voice again. “It’s the same damn summit it’s always been!”
    The commander’s slight movement allowed Elise to glimpse the angel’s face. He was a young man with coppery hair that brushed his shoulders, and she was stunned to realize that she recognized him. “We obey the laws of no man,” said the angel. He didn’t rise to meet Zettel’s anger, but there was a flash of annoyance in his pale eyes.
    Elise stepped out from behind the tent. “Nukha’il?”
    The angel’s spotted her over Zettel’s shoulder. “Elise?” He completely dropped the Holy Messenger act and sounded normal.
    Zettel whirled to gape at her. He composed his features quickly, but Elise ignored him as she strode forward.
    It had been weeks since she saw Nukha’il. She assumed that he had taken his friend, Itra’il—who had been enslaved and driven to madness—back to the heavenly planes to restore her sanity. Elise hadn’t expected to run into him again. Not two months later, nor twenty years later.
    “Where’s Itra’il?” Elise asked.
    “She rests,” Nukha’il said, folding his massive wings behind him. He was no longer gaunt from being fed a constant stream of drugs, and his skin shimmered with a milky white glow.