“It’s a wonderful thing, Ash . . . and you can have it with Janvier. He adores you.”
“I know.” It was a rasp of sound, the need inside her a vast emptiness.
She adored him, too.
And because she did, she had to find a way to tell him the truth.
16
Standing on the roof of the Legion high-rise, the snow having passed, Elena looked at the architect cum structural engineer who had the task of converting it to the Legion’s specifications. “Can you do something with the roof so we can insert a skylight?”
Twisting her lips, the stunning ebony-skinned vampire named Maeve glanced down at the flat surface. “I could, but if you’re wanting to maximize natural light, I say we take off the entire roof and replace it with glass.”
“Can we do that?” Adrenaline shot through Elena. “Structurally, I mean?”
“Don’t see why not.” Maeve’s accent was so modern Manhattan, her clothes so edgy—like the kaleidoscope of color that was the structured, asymmetric ankle-length coat she wore—no one who didn’t know would’ve guessed she’d been born on another continent over five hundred years ago.
The woman, with her high, slashing cheekbones and short crop of tight curls, had used the years to become multiqualified and was considered one of the best in her line of work. “Only thing is,” Maeve continued, “I’d have to work out the weight tolerance—Legion might not be able to gather on it in such large groups.”
Elena looked at the Primary, standing silent to her right. “Preference?”
“Glass.” The rim of blue around his irises appeared to burn in the icy winter light. “If we can gather in a place of earth, we do not need the roof.”
“So,” Elena said, “we make the entire penthouse a glass box.” With floor-to-ceiling windows designed to be opened so the Legion could fly in and out, though they’d have to figure out how to conserve heat in winter for the plants.
“No.”
Maeve blinked at the Primary’s interjection. “No?”
“Can you make the garden deeper?”
“You mean merge two or more floors?”
A curt nod.
“Yes,” the other woman said slowly. “But I think what’ll work best is if we don’t take out the entire floor between the two levels—instead, we can cut it out in parts.” She did a rough sketch on her tablet using a stylus. “See, like this?”
The sketch showed a hollowed-out interior with ledges coming out from the walls in what appeared to be a random formation over three floors, but Elena quickly realized the placement of those ledges meant light would be maximized, creating multiple areas for gardens, as well as landing sites for the Legion. “Brilliant.”
The Primary touched the sketch. “Yes. Can the whole building be thus?”
Maeve blew out a breath, her hands squeezing the tablet. “Wow. Okay, I’m going to have to do more research on the structural aspects of the building to answer that question.” She was making frantic notes as she spoke. “Top three floors, though, that’s a definite.”
Elena was wonderfully astonished at the idea of a high-rise turned into a giant greenhouse, its interior a branching tree through which a winged being could weave all the way to the ceiling. She crossed her fingers that Maeve would be able to come up with a solution.
“We might as well start on the top three floors, then,” she said, after a glance at the Primary to see if he agreed. “Maeve, I know plants, but the building’s going to be your ball game.”
“I’m on it.”
Leaving the other woman to talk to her team, Elena took the Primary to a gardening supplies warehouse, where she organized delivery of pots, soil, freestanding grow lights, and other items. Their next stop was a commercial greenhouse.
Two hours later, enough plants and supplies had been delivered that she put the Legion to work. It would take time for the modifications to the top floors to be completed; in the interim, she’d decided to transform the entire first floor into a place where plants could thrive and the Legion could rest.
Elena understood the need for a haven, a safe place.
With Maeve’s consent and advice, the winged fighters had already knocked down walls that weren’t load-bearing, opening up the space. They’d also ripped up the carpet and cleaned the floor so it was smooth. All of it since six that morning.
As she helped rig things up so this floor would have adequate heat and humidity, then showed the Legion fighters how to handle the more delicate plants, she began to feel her own body relax. Their pleasure in the earth was transcendent, the haunting peace of it wrapping her in its wings . . . until her skin rippled with a cold shiver, her heart punching into her rib cage.
She could hear them, the echo of whispers that together was a mind created of hundreds; it was a rushing, overwhelming sound inside her skull, like a wave crashing inside a cave. “Stop,” she gasped out.
Silence.
The Primary was in front of her seconds later. “The consort does not wish to join our conversation?”
That was when Elena understood the voices had been an invitation. “One at a time,” she said, not sure quite what she was doing but feeling an odd sense of . . . vulnerability around her. “I want to know you one at a time.”
A rustling consternation.
“We are one,” the Primary said. “We are the Legion.”
“This,” she said, brushing her hands over the miniature mandarin orange tree in front of her, “is one. The root systems, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, they all act together with one goal. Yet not one of the leaves is exactly the same. You can be one without being identical copies.”