Jovah's Angel Read Online Free PDF

found vaguely familiar. Some popular tune of the day; no doubt he’d heard it on some street corner or in a crowded tavern. When Lilah’s voice came swooping down on the opening words of the first verse, he suddenly remembered that he liked the song immensely—it was his favorite; he had never heard anything he liked better. Not until he felt the sting in his palms did he realize he was clapping with the rhythm, as was everyone in the room. Had he known the lyrics, he would have been singing along.
    â€œWho
is
she?” he found time to whisper to Noah between the end of this song and the start of the next, but Noah merely waved at him again and did not trouble to answer. And it did not matter. Lilah had begun singing again, something a little slower this time but just as upbeat, and actually, nothing at all mattered. Caleb grinned foolishly and let his heart be uplifted.
    The concert continued well into the night, the mood of the crowd shifting as rapidly as the tone of Lilah’s songs—although, after her opening number she stayed mostly in the cheerful range of emotions. In fact, from time to time she dipped straight intorowdy, not to say risqué, and more than once her listeners were on their feet, stamping their heels, pounding their hands together, and echoing choruses back at her as she teased them from the stage. It was an exhausting performance, even for the audience; when she at last bowed good night after her third riotous encore, Caleb finally noticed that he was sore, tired, and filmed with sweat all the way to his hairline.
    â€œDoes she sing like that every night?” he asked, dropping into his seat with a sigh of exhaustion. “How does she have the strength?”
    â€œEvery night that I’ve been here,” Noah replied, sinking down beside his friend. “And I think it’s harder on us than on her. She doesn’t even seem tired at the end. Like she could do the whole set over and not notice the effort.”
    Caleb drained his wine (forgotten for this hour or two) and then his goblet of water. “So tell me,” he said, “who
is
this woman? She can manipulate a crowd of Luminauzi socialites as easily as a child can charm his uncle. I consider myself pretty immune to persuasion, but I was dancing in my chair along with the rest of them.”
    â€œWell…” Noah said hesitantly, “she’s an angel.”
    Caleb nodded. “So I gathered. No one but an angel could sing like that. What’s she doing
here
? Kicked out of Cedar Hills for inappropriate behavior? Because you have to admit she crossed the line once or twice.”
    â€œDidn’t seem to bother you at the time,” Noah said sharply.
    Caleb’s eyes widened at the swift partisanship. “All right, then, let’s just say I’ve never heard an angel sing the one about the woman with the three lovers. And I can’t imagine that Micah would be happy to know that one of his host is performing tavern songs for the masses down in the Blue City.”
    â€œShe’s not from Cedar Hills,” Noah said almost grudgingly. “Anyway—if that’s what she wants to sing—it must get tiresome, doing all those endless masses and those dreary requiems.”
    â€œYou still haven’t answered the question.”
    â€œSo what was the question?”
    â€œWho is she? And why is she here?”
    â€œAsk her.”
    â€œYou don’t know?”
    â€œI think you’ll figure it out when you meet her.”
    Caleb took a breath, let it go on a sigh instead of anotherquestion. “Right. Well, then. Another bottle of wine? Looks like we’ll be here for the evening.”
    But the crowd began emptying out sooner than he expected, and within twenty minutes of Lilah’s last number, Seraph was almost empty. Checking the time, Caleb realized that it was later than he had thought; she had sung for nearly two hours, and the time had