A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink Read Free Book Online

didn’t follow.
    She looked down at the box in her hand, hesitant to let it go. She didn’t know everything it held. Not yet. But she knew it was prepared by her parents. She knew it was all she had left of them.
    Galizur’s eyes softened. “It’s as safe here as anything can be in these troubling times. You’ll be back for it before the night is through.”
    She looked at Griffin, though she could not have said why his was the reassurance she sought.
    He stood and crossed the room to stand beside her. “The box will be fine here until we come back up.”
    She rose to her feet, only vaguely registering his use of the word “up” as she turned to place the box on the chair beforeplucking the letter from inside it. If she could leave the strange house with only one thing this night it would be her father’s letter.
    Galizur continued across the room, leading them to the stairway from which he had emerged when they first entered the room. Anna and Darius followed him down the stairs. Helen clung to the iron banister at the top.
    “It’s all right.” Griffin’s voice came from her right, and she flinched at the feel of his hand on hers. “Trust me.”
    His voice was gentle, and when she looked into his eyes, instinctively, she did trust him.
    She braced herself against the fear that rose inside her as she stepped, once again, toward the unknown. At first, she could only hear the footsteps of the others in front of them, but as the dark closed in around her, she believed she could smell smoke all over again. Fighting the urge to cough with the memory, she kept her hand on the smooth railing, letting it lead her downward. It was only the sound of Griffin’s boot steps at her back that kept her from returning to the top of the stairs.
    She noticed the light before she reached the bottom of the staircase. Faintly blue, it reached to her from below. It was not bright, but soft and insistent, even when she finally stepped offthe last stair to the cool stone floor. She wondered if they were near a window or door, for she was certain she could hear the wind rushing somewhere through the tunnel, empty save for her and Griffin.
    “This way.” Griffin’s hand was light on her arm as he led her down a tunnel not unlike the one she had used to escape her burning home. But this passage, at least, was not dark. Torchlight flickered against the damp stone walls, casting shadows that licked toward the ceiling. She did not mind the stone against her bare feet. The ground here was as spotless as the rooms above.
    Helen was surprised when a curve in the tunnel opened onto a large room where Galizur, Darius, and Anna waited. The ceiling now rose far above them, the space expansive in every direction. Hulking machinery lurked in the corners and against the walls, a low humming resonating from its steely forms.
    But none of this, as strange as it was, is what commanded her attention.
    It was the globe, enormous and rising all the way to the ceiling, that stopped her in her tracks. A perfect, massive replica of the Earth, the orb glowed from within, turning slowly in place on an invisible axle. The wind was not so much a windas a breeze, and it was not rushing through the tunnel because of a draft. It moved softly
around
the globe through the sheer force of its size and movement. Helen’s hair lifted in the current caused by its turning. She took a step back almost without realizing it.
    “I… It… What
is
this?” She did not even have the presence of mind to worry about sounding like an idiot in front of Darius.
    Griffin led her gently by the arm. “Galizur will explain.”
    She stumbled forward, even as she wanted to shrink in fear. In the end, her hesitation had no hope against the part of her that was drawn to the object as clearly as if it were calling her name.
    It was beautiful, the azure oceans seeping into the green and gold landmasses that morphed slowly into ridged mountains. As the globe turned, the water seemed to