The walk back to the welcome desk was strange and oddly quiet.
Had the others seen what I had? Or had I alone seen the Oracle's pain? Was it only me who knew her deepest secret?
The corridor seemed longer now, darker, as though the scene in the water had sucked the light and hope out of the world.
The welcome desk was exactly as it had been when we arrived but somehow the portrait of Michael no longer seemed comforting. I had thought Michael might have been Mathias' saving grace but now that I had seen the darker side of the Archangel... perhaps Mathias had made a mistake.
"I know." Beatrice spoke without looking up from the lined paper before her, her soft voice like thunder in my mind, pulling my attention from the painting to the top of her head. I hadn't even realised I had been staring at the portrait until she'd spoken. "I know who he is to me." She looked up at me then.
"You said you didn't know your parents."
"I did," she paused, "but only because of the pressure being his daughter has put on me, and the hatred I harbour in my heart for him." Storms raged in her eyes "I hope your angel friend doesn't find him, nothing good ever comes from that man."
There was a thick silence between for what seemed to be an age. Did time pass differently here?
The candlelight flickered on a phantom breeze.
"I didn't learn who he was until I arrived here. See, as a half breed, I don't really have rights to any Archive but this one, so I came looking for my parents." The silence that followed was cold, a strange mix of pain and hatred. "I saw what happened to the Oracle that day, how the Archangel had torn her Mate apart, limb by limb, heard him speak of a bastard child, and I had to know. I had to find out who this daughter was." She knew. "And when I did... I cried. I stayed for her, so that I could be close to her and so that she could be a mother at last, even though it's from a distance, even though she thinks I do not know who she is to me."
Her words caught me off guard and reminded me of the letter I had once received from my own mother.
The parchment had once been thick and the ink had been bold; but for centuries I had folded it and unfolded it, I had read it until the words were printed on my memory.
Now the paper was thin and tattered, while the ink had faded to the point that it was unreadable. Not that I needed to read it, I knew every word by heart. I knew where every spelling mistake was, every inkblot, and there were many of them.
Rather than write in the runes she had been taught as a child, she had written it in English letters.
She had told me that she knew it was my duty to take on my father's mantle, and that it was for my own sanity that I had to stay away. She had told me how difficult it was to be a mother without a child, how much it hurt to be unable to hold her daughter close and to tell her how much she loved her.
"She knows who you are, Beatrice, and if you know too, then you should tell her. Let her be your mother. Loving you from a distance will hurt her." I paused and looked deep into her eyes. "Let her hold you, care for you; let her make up for lost time before it's too late. It would be cruel not to." Her face reddened at my words, looking like a scolded child. For a second it looked like she might retort but instead she closed her mouth, shut her eyes, and hung her head.
"I never meant to hurt her. I never meant to be cruel." Her words were little more than whispered sobs. "I thought this way would be kinder, less of a reminder of what she had given up."
"She loves you, Beatrice. She wants you to be happy, and I don't think you are."
She looked up and for a split second there was a glimmer of sadness but then her gaze drifted passed me to the curtain that lead to the Oracle's room.
