The Witch's Toy ✔

12: darling uriel, uriel, uriel

I started to detach myself from Raphael, avoiding the curious, yet concerned gaze that he'd been watching me with. Once I was completely off of him, the effects of the severed tie with Maalik came at me all at once. My heart squeezed painfully, pulsing fast as if a wound had been opened, and I immediately clambered back onto Raphael's lap, fingers curling around the lapels of his black coat. A soft curse slipped from between my lips.

He was trying to suppress his laughter. I could feel the vibrations from his chest. "That bad, darling?"

"I would rather not feel pain if I can help it, Raphael," I shot back. "It's not my fault you just happen to be the archangel of healing."

"Former archangel of healing," he clarified. Leaning back on the heels of his hand, he tilted his head to one side in consideration. "I suppose it would be God's fault — of it even is a fault in the first place, as you say so."

"It is," I insisted, genuinely hating that I had to keep relying on him to lessen the lasting aches in my heart. I wished I could endure it, but physical pain, for me as least, was harder to endure than ones inflicted emotionally. Any sane person would accept it as the inevitable, but I didn't want to think about it like that. So, maybe I should just learn how to take the physical pain instead of using Raphael to relieve it.

I started to move away from him again, taking deep breaths to brace myself for the impending pain, but he only held me closer to him. Then, he scooped me up, arms underneath my knees and around my shoulders. In my initial shock, I had curled my arms against my chest, but rationality came back to me again. I narrowed my eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know about you, darling, but the ground is quite hard, and I would rather not be sitting on it if I can help it," Raphael responded, kicking off his shoes. He flipped my gray duvet over, placing me on the bed while somehow still having his arm around my shoulder. After climbing in after me, he slid the covers back over us and pulled me against him.

I stared at his black shirt, almost unblinkingly for a few moments before scooting back a few inches. I lifted my chin up, peering at his closed eyes before speaking. "Another memory came back to me."

His eyes opened halfway, the crimson color flickering down to me like twin fires blazing under a watchful moonlight. "What do you remember from it?"

My eyes wavered, and I lowered them. "I remember seeing you for the first time. But there was something around you — an aura, or glow — that made you seem like you didn't belong at all on earth. And..." I trailed off for a moment but continued, "and I saw someone else — someone who called herself my grandmother. She told me her name was Uriel."

"Darling, I'd have thought you would've already noticed the connection by now. With the pendant belonging to your grandmother and Azazel ranting that it was Uriel's, it all seems clear enough." Despite his obvious message of "I thought you were smarter than that," his tone was playful. He was trying to annoy me again through teasing, but I wouldn't let him have the fun of doing so.

"It's because of you toys that I can't focus and put the pieces together," I reasoned. "Every time one of you are consumed by the curse, all you all ever talk about is Uriel. It's an incessant 'Uriel, Uriel, Uriel' that I hear almost like the nagging of a fly buzzing at my ear."

"I see. We've been demoted to mere household insects."

My brows drew together in irritation. It seemed as if I really couldn't hold myself together even though I wanted to. "It was a comparison, Raphael. Don't think otherwise."

He chuckled softly. "Alright, darling."

I was quiet for a bit, the thoughts still combing at me at a thousand per second, but I eventually spoke. "I wonder about Uriel, though..."