Watcher: A MM Romeo and Juliet

Retelling (Star-Crossed Celestials Book

1) A.L. Morrow
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WATCHER
STAR-CROSSED CELESTIALS, BOOK 1: A MM ROMEO AND JULIET
RETELLING
A.L. MORROW
Watcher: Star-Crossed Celestials Duet, Book 1

Copyright © 2022 by A.L. Morrow

All rights reserved. No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission from A.L. Morrow. For permission or
other queries, write to: hello@ALMorrowRomance.com
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7345058-2-5
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7345058-4-9

Cover by Claire Holt at Luminescence Covers: www.luminescencecovers.com

Beta reading by Kirk Waite, editing by M.A. Hinkle, both on behalf of LesCourt Author Services: www.lescourtauthorservices.com
Proofreading by Beth Hale at Magnolia Author Services: https://magnoliaauthorservices.com/home/
This story originally appeared in Dark Gods, a limited-edition digital box set published by Enchanted Quill Press.
The characters, places, and events in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are being used fictitiously. Any
similarity to real persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.
www.ALMorrowRomance.com
 AUTHOR’S NOTE

Unlike Shakespeare’s original version of Romeo and Juliet, the Star-Crossed Celestials duet is not a
tragedy. It is a romance—a love story that, by definition, concludes with a happily ever after. This
isn’t to say there aren’t tragic moments in Watcher. There are. Plenty of them. Potential triggers
include scenes of violence and death, as well as implied past sexual abuse of adult characters.
Readers sensitive to these issues may wish to proceed with caution.
O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a
winged messenger of heaven.
— WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET
 CONTENTS

The Cast

1. Jace
2. Jace
3. Jace
4. Cyrus
5. Jace
6. Cyrus
7. Jace
8. Cyrus
9. Jace
10. Cyrus
11. Jace
12. Cyrus
13. Jace
14. Cyrus
15. Cyrus
16. Jace
17. Cyrus
18. Jace
19. Jace
20. Jace
21. Jace
22. Cyrus
23. Cyrus
24. Jace
25. Cyrus

The Star-Crossed Celestials Duet

Also by A.L. Morrow
About the Author
 THE CAST

In this version of Romeo and Juliet, the primary roles will be portrayed by the following characters
…

Romeo … Jace, a Watcher

Juliet … Cyrus, a Messenger
Mercutio, Romeo’s friend … Cassian, a demon
Benvolio, Romeo’s friend … Hesper, a Watcher
Paris, Juliet’s suitor … Xavier, a Messenger
Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin … Eris, a Messenger
Balthasar/Apothecary, an ally … Devlin, a demon
Escalus, Prince of Verona … Astra, an Archangel
Friar Laurence, an ally… Lynx, a Watcher
 1

JACE

T he scent of beer hung in the air like an alcoholic fog. Jace hated it: the rot, the vaguely sweet
undertones, the way it made the vomit on the floor of the men’s bathroom that much more
pungent.
How humans could drink such a beverage in the quantities they did mystified him.
Of course, many would probably say the same about the whiskey he was currently nursing,
absentmindedly turning the glass one quarter of a counterclockwise rotation every few seconds. But
he didn’t care. He was as entitled to his opinion as anyone else—not that he put much stock in the
views of those who frequented dive bars like Nox. Besides, he had enough misery to wallow in as it
was.
“Bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re moping over Lucian again, are you?”
Cassian had a way of saying things that stank of duplicity. In this case, his words were chosen to
sound sympathetic, while his voice had a whine, betraying his annoyance with Jace’s slack shoulders
and moody frown.
That’s what Jace got for befriending demons, he supposed.
Quickly, he snatched at the small notepad sitting on the counter by his wrist and tucked it into his
back pocket instead. He couldn’t let Cassian see. It would only encourage him, convince him that he
was right—and Cassian was exactly the kind of demon that needed no further encouragement.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you squirreling away that little book you like to write your sad-arse
poetry in, mate,” he teased as he slid onto the stool beside him.
“Yeah, yeah, your powers of observation are impressive,” Jace huffed. “Maybe you should be the
Watcher instead of me.”
The demon clapped him on the back and let out a laugh. Then he raised his other hand, flagging
down Hesper from the opposite end of the bar without waiting for Jace’s response. Jace took a sip of
his whiskey as his sister glanced up, grinned, and sashayed over to where they were sitting.
Most celestials could blend in well enough with the humans—well, as long as they didn’t show
their wings, anyway. Hesper was not one of them. Her violet-speckled blue eyes and sleek, dark hair
shone like the stars their ancestors had been born from, and her skin had a moonlike sheen. She was
literally a piece of the heavens right here in Sin City. She knew it, and by the way the other men—
along with a couple of women—in the bar followed her every movement, it seemed they could sense
it, too.
“I was wondering when you’d finally get here,” Hesper said, leaning over the bar in front of
Cassian. Her voice was whispery, dripping with seduction. She reached over to run a hand through
Cassian’s spikey, dyed-blue hair and gave his lower lip a nip, just above the labret piercing
protruding from his chin. “I missed you.”
The demon’s irises turned golden-red, fiery. It was their natural state, the color they reverted to
when he lost concentration—when his baser instincts overtook the literal face of respectability he
constantly struggled to maintain.
Right now, Jace was certain the cause of Cassian’s distraction was Hesper and the raging hard-on
she had undoubtedly given him.
“Have I ever let you down?” he asked her, chasing her mouth for another taste of her lips.
At the other end of the bar, a few men groaned with disappointment, as though only realizing when
seeing Hesper with Cassian that the sultry bartender was already taken. Never to be theirs.
As if any of those broke, beer-bellied assholes ever had a shot with Hesper to begin with, Jace
thought darkly.
Hesper stood up and gave her boyfriend a grin fiendish enough that if Jace didn’t know otherwise,
he might have assumed she was the demon instead.
“Not yet,” she told him. “But there’s still time. We have eternity.”
Cassian laughed. Beneath the bar, he rubbed his palm against the front of his jeans, clearly seeking
some form of relief for the bulge there.
“The usual?” Hesper asked.
“You know it.” His eyes flickered with amber again, then settled on her ass as she turned to fix his
drink.
The usual entailed more than a double vodka on the rocks. It also involved a quick fuck in the staff
lounge when she took her fifteen-minute break. Jace knew this, even though he wished he didn’t. He
learned of this ritual accidentally one evening on his way to the men’s room, that den of stale piss and
vile puke—and the place where Cassian had told him he was also headed a few minutes before.
Newsflash: that wasn’t where Jace found him.
“I’ll be off in twenty,” Hesper said as she slid the drink over to Cassian a moment later.
He lifted the highball. “Then we’ll get off in twenty-five.”
“Five whole minutes?” Jace said, eyebrows raised, as his friend turned back to him, drink in
hand. “Is that due to the thoroughness of your foreplay or your stamina during the main event?”
Cassian laughed again. “What bothers you more, Jace—that Hesper is your sister or that I get laid
on a routine basis, while you keep whinging about Lucian?”
Jace rolled his eyes. “Lucian and I very much remain broken up,” he mumbled into his glass as he
took another drink. “It’s not him that’s the problem this time.”
That got Cassian’s attention at least. He nearly choked on his gulp of vodka before putting down
the glass. “Come again?”
“Is that what you’re going to do later, or do you really want to me to repeat myself?”
The demon feigned a pout. “You wound me. It’s as though you think I have a one-track mind. Well,
I say it takes one to know one—except where you think about cock all day, I dream of nothing but your
sister’s sweet p—”
He went silent abruptly, stifling a chuckle at Jace’s sudden glare, and he raised both his hands in a
show of surrender. “For the record, I was going to say perfume. Hesper’s sweet perfume. It’s
something floral, very lovely. One could say it makes her smell like an absolute angel.”
Cassian scoffed as he placed emphasis on the final word in his sentence, referring to Hesper—
and, in turn, Jace himself—by the loathed term that humans, in their abundant ignorance, had long ago
assigned to their kind.
 “You’re very witty, Cassian,” Jace told him. “If this whole being-a-demon thing doesn’t work out,
you should consider a career in standup. I hear The Archipelago has a popular open-mic night.”
“How do you know I haven’t tried it already?” Cassian smirked. Then he reached over, clasped
Jace on both his shoulders, and gave his body an affectionate shake. “Now tell me, if it wasn’t
Loverboy Lucian that made you into such a miserable wanker tonight, then who did? I’d like to use my
vile ways to teach the gobshite a lesson … And I beg you, leave out none of the sordid details—I like
to do my homework on my future experiments in devilry. It makes the torture so much more effective
that way.”
Devilry: another nonsensical term fabricated by humans, this time in association with Cassian’s
kind.
At least Cassian was an equal opportunist when it came to mockery.
Jace swallowed down the rest of his whiskey. “Have you heard of a Messenger called Rigel?”
“Jericho … Jericho … Jericho …” Cassian repeated Jace’s full name for drama—a barometer of
his displeasure—while shaking his head and letting out a deep, dark sigh.
“First, don’t call me that—you’ll get us all killed, including Hesper,” Jace scolded. “And second
…” He pushed his empty glass aside and propped his elbows on the bar, clutching at his skull like his
head ached. “Second is that I know.”
The demon folded his arms over his chest. His disappointment was palpable, hanging in the space
between their barstools like storm clouds hovering on the horizon.
“Why must you always want what you can’t have?” he said. “You really do this to yourself, my
friend. You need to stop thinking with your prick, find yourself a nice bloke—another Watcher, mind
you—and lie low for a millennium or two until this whole celestial war blows over. Like your sister
and me.”
As though to underscore his point, Cassian glanced toward Hesper, pouring out tequila shots for a
rowdy group of young women. The girls wore fluffy pink boas and beaded necklaces with plastic
dildos on them. They stank of a bachelorette party almost as much as the bathroom stank of beer-
vomit. Hesper happened to look up in time to catch Cassian’s eye, and she pursed her full, red lips
together as though kissing him from afar.
“Don’t you think that’s what I want, too?” Jace looked up at his friend. “It’s not like Messengers
and Watchers are separate species. We’re both celestials, separated by an arbitrary line drawn in the
sand. It’s all completely ridiculous.”
“How dare you imply my very existence is arbitrary and ridiculous,” Cassian said.
But he couldn’t say the words out loud with a straight face. Instead, a cheeky grin curled his lips.
Both of them knew the truth: demons were a critical component in the history behind the celestials’
feud. They were evidence the Watchers had disobeyed the original orders given to them by the First-
Sphere Seraphim who ruled in Themis, their native realm. The Watchers were meant to do exactly
what their name implied—watch over the humans. It wasn’t the Messengers’ fault too many Watchers
decided to take the instruction literally … so literally they procreated with the humans, producing
demon offspring.
It wasn’t the Messengers’ fault leadership in Themis sent them here, either. They were dispatched
to the mortal realm in droves, tasked with cleaning up the mess the disgraced Watchers had made
from mingling with humanity.
What was the Messengers’ fault, though, was that they treated Watchers—even purebred ones with
no trace of demon blood, like Jace and Hesper—as if they were criminals. They rounded them up,
killing some, arresting others. Those who survived were contained in Las Vegas. Sin City. The most
aptly named place on Earth for so-called fallen angels and their demonic descendants.
Now, Jace gave Cassian a wilting look. He was in no mood for his friend’s antics—or the
reminder that physical proof of the enmity between Watchers and Messengers was sitting right in front
of him.
Apparently realizing this, Cassian sobered. He cleared his throat and waved one of hands, urging
Jace to continue. “So, how did you meet this Rigel?”
“I saw him walking out of Nova.” He resumed moodily turning his empty whiskey glass in his
hand as he spoke. It was a useful distraction—one that helped him forget the beautiful, dark-haired
man he’d met earlier, if only slightly.
“And just why, pray tell, were you at Nova, of all places?”
“Lynx sent me. It’s a little thing called reconnaissance. I am part of the Watchers’ underground
army, after all.” Jace lowered his voice at the last part, and he glanced cautiously around the bar, just
as he had when Cassian addressed him by his given name.
“And that’s all the more reason for you to keep your dick zipped safely in your pants this time
around,” the demon scolded.
Who would’ve thought a demon, of all creatures, would ever be the voice of reason in Jace’s life?
The realization made him glower. “Nothing happened yet. We only talked.”
“But you want something to happen, mate. That’s almost the same where you’re concerned.”
Damn Cassian. He’d known him too well for too long.
“What if it was just a fuck? A one-time thing, not forever.” Jace suggested it quickly, desperately,
bargaining with himself as much as Cassian. “You know—a rebound after Lucian.”
The demon quirked an eyebrow, skeptical. “You truly think you’re capable of keeping it casual?
You know how you get. You fall head over heels in a heartbeat.”
“So? Since when is being all-in a bad thing?” Even as Jace said the words, self-doubt churned
inside his chest. He was telling lies neither of them believed.
“Since it usually results in me scraping your wallowing, whiskey-soaked arse off the floor with
an angel-sized shovel.”
Cassian shook his head slowly and sighed.
“If you’re only after a rebound, you could find one in any back alley on this side of town—
Watcher, demon, or human. For cheap, too. Hell, I know a demon or two who’d happily volunteer to
suck you off for free. The reality is, you’re addicted to men you can’t, or shouldn’t, have. It’s really
quite mental. I have half a mind to resuscitate Freud so he can spend some time diagnosing whatever
bits and bobs have gone awry in that handsome little head of yours.”
Jace was too absorbed in his melancholy to even sneer at Cassian’s insult. He simply washed his
hand over his face as though trying to wipe the memory of Rigel from his mind.
“We only spoke for a few minutes. He doesn’t know I’m a celestial, let alone a Watcher. If I could
just see him again—”
“Doesn’t know you’re a celestial?” Cassian let out a snort of skepticism. “You have seen your
sister, right? I hate to break it to you, Romeo, but you’ve got the same gorgeous, heavenly genes as
she does.”
There it was again—another dig at their shared celestial origins.
Laughing, he reached over and ruffled Jace’s already tousled, brushed-up hair. “Those jet-black
tresses and dreamy blue eyes, that moonglow skin … If I was into blokes, you’d be exactly my type.
Lucky for us both, there’s Hesper.”
“Lucky for us both?”
 Cassian nodded. “Lucky for me that I’m the unworthy bastard she chose.” He threw back the rest
of his vodka, then gave Jace a teasing wink. “And lucky for you because I’d wear you out—demon
libido being what it is.”
“Highly unlikely.” Despite his protest, a reluctant grin tilted Jace’s lips, and he laughed. “Also,
I’m seriously rethinking letting you kiss my sister with that foul mouth of yours.”
The demon shrugged. “S’all right. Don’t need to kiss to do what I have planned for us in the
breakroom.”
Jace groaned and winced, once again recalling the night he’d discovered them together—a
memory that haunted him the same way war did a soldier. “Please, for the love of all things not-so-
holy, remember to lock the door this time.” He patted Cassian’s hand on the bar with mocking
concern. “I implore you—for all our sakes. Consider it a public service.”
“I rather like being an exhibitionist, though. This is Vegas, after all. But I suppose if you insist …”
Cassian chuckled, then nudged his friend in the shoulder. “So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan?”
Jace felt his brows wrinkle with confusion, even as Cassian clucked his tongue scoldingly.
“Yes,” the demon drawled, as though the answer should have been obvious. “You know, how are
we to woo your fair Rigel? Write him a sonnet? Send him some daises? Or do you think he’s more of
the wine-and-dine sort?”
The Watcher’s fingertips stilled on his empty whiskey tumbler. Surely, he’d misheard. “You’re
going to help me with Rigel? What happened to it being a shitty idea?”
“It is a shite idea, mate. But I’m up for it anyway—I’m a demon, not a bloody saint. We’ve been
friends for how long now? Two centuries? You know me better than that.”
As though to prove his point on his lack of sainthood, Cassian leaned over the bar to steal a bottle
of vodka and refill both their glasses. But he was right: demons were not known for their altruistic
tendencies, even when it came to lending a friend a helping hand. Knowing this, Jace’s eyes narrowed
shrewdly.
“All right, what’s in it for you?”
“Ah—you’re nowhere near as dim as you look when you’re horny, you know that?” Cassian told
him, pointing a finger in his face before taking a sip from his glass.
Jace had the not-so-subtle feeling he should be insulted, but after decades of friendship, he’d
grown rather used to the demon’s incessant double-edged compliments. They were part of his charm.
“Inevitably your problems become my problems, and I do hate to hear your whinging,” Cassian
continued. “By helping you, I’m also helping myself. Besides, I’ve been told I’m an excellent
wingman, and since you swear this dalliance will be a one-time thing, I see no real harm … Just don’t
tell Hesper—she says I enable you enough as it is.”
Jace glanced down the bar toward his sister again.
That clever little traitress.
Hesper was flirting with a customer now. A human. Leading him on just enough to get a few extra
dollars in her tip. Maybe Cassian enabled Jace’s bad behavior, but the demon’s cunning had rubbed
off on her a bit over the years, too. Still, Jace couldn’t fault his sister for her concern. She’d been
stitching back together the pieces of his perpetually broken heart since they were children. Cassian
had only been doing it for a couple of centuries.
At least this time, Jace understood upfront how things would end with Rigel. A Messenger and a
Watcher could never be; their expiration date was written in the stars before they ever even spoke.
“All right, wingman—you’re hired.” He swallowed down some vodka. “As for the plan, I was
thinking … Rumor has it there’s a unit of new Messengers arriving from Themis in a few days.
They’re reinforcements or some bullshit like that. Apparently, you demons have been up to no good
lately.”
Cassian smirked. “We are a rowdy lot.”
“You know what that means—the red carpets will be rolled out at Nova to greet them. A real gala.
Their social event of the year,” Jace continued. “Everyone will be so focused on impressing the new
arrivals, they won’t notice if a Watcher sneaks into their little welcome party.”
“Infiltrating the Messengers’ hallowed ground, hmm? Sounds dangerous. And devilish. And
delicious.” Jace couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Cassian’s grin so wild. “You find out
when this soirée takes place, and I’ll figure out a way for us to get in.”
The demon’s words barely had time to reach Jace’s ears before a deafening blast thundered
through the air. Jace glanced over his shoulder to see a flutter of bronze and ivory crashing through the
now-shattered glass wall behind them.
Messengers.
As he scrambled to his feet, his heart pounded against his chest like the burst that birthed the
cosmos. Beside him, Cassian let out a furious hiss.
“Bollocks, it’s a raid!”
 2

JACE

“L ooks like someone’s trying to clean up their messes before the new Messengers arrive,” Jace
grumbled as at least a half-dozen winged figures stormed the bar.
Harsh shouts drowned out his voice, overwhelming the chimes of the slot machines in the corner
and engulfing the soft knocks of billiard balls rolling over the scratched-up pool tables by the far
wall.
“Move! Leave your drinks and drop your weapons!”
The celestials were not messing around tonight. Each had swapped his or her street clothes for the
more regal, bronze-tinted breastplates, shoulder pieces, and tassets of their traditional uniforms from
Themis. The stardust-imbued metals gave off a slight glow, and their swords—which they swiped
through the air, pointing and directing people to line up along the far wall—emitted a soft, ethereal
hum. The sound of the distant skies.
Long ago, the celestials used to at least attempt to conceal their presence from the humans. But all
subtlety went out the window after the demons tried to claim the Earth for themselves and the Culling
began. Only demons and Watchers really abided by the old rules of secrecy anymore—and that was a
matter of survival, of trying to avoid detection whenever Messengers got in a snit about something.
Exactly as they were right now.
“We’ve got to find Hesper and get out of here,” Cassian said. His eyes were amber again, though
Jace was certain their change wasn’t from arousal this time. Instead, he suspected it was from fear.
They weren’t the only ones with the same idea. While some of the bar’s patrons—the human ones,
mostly—complied with the Messengers’ orders, many did not. Among the shouting, swaying swords,
and fluttering wings, others were scrambling to escape through the door and shattered windows. Nox
was a seedy place at the best of times; now the dim, dirty bar had descended into sheer chaos.
Nice way to keep the peace, Messengers, Jace thought darkly.
Together, he and Cassian scanned the blur of arms, legs, and feathers around them for Hesper’s
pretty face.
“Jace! Caz! Down here!”
Recognizing the voice coming from the floor on the other side of the bar immediately, the friends
exchanged glances. It was amazing how sometimes one could feel panic and relief at the same time.
Then the pair scrambled to hoist themselves over the bar before they were spotted.
“Are you all right, love? Are you hurt?”
Before Jace even fully registered the sight of his sister crouched on the floor beneath the bar,
Cassian was folding her in his arms, touching his forehead to hers, brushing their lips against one
another’s.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Hesper whispered. She cupped Cassian’s face in her palms, and her
trembling fingertips steadied the longer she held him. “You?”
“Better now that I’ve found you,” Cassian assured her.
As Jace knelt beside them, admiration for their bond and a pang of regret that he lacked someone
who cared for him the same way pierced his heart. He’d thought he’d had that with Lucian. He’d been
wrong. At least Rigel might be willing to help him forget his disappointment, if only for a short while.
Overhead, panicked screams, shouts, and whimpers continued to fill the room.
“Stop! Seize him! Don’t let him escape!”
Each was a reminder their safety was only temporary.
“I hate to break up this touching reunion,” Jace said, “but we can’t hide behind the bar forever.
We still have to find a way out of here.”
Cassian nodded. The reluctance in his face as he let his hands slip to Hesper’s sides was
unmistakable.
“I know a way,” she volunteered. “Follow me.”
The way entailed crawling along the floor for the length of the bar. And that involved dropping to
their hands and knees, moving single file while dodging the fallen, dirty napkins, melted ice cubes,
and cherry stems littered throughout the cramped space.
“It really is quite filthy back here.” Cassian’s lips curled with disgust as they struggled to stay
hidden.
“Considering the alternatives, I’ll take the filth,” Jace reminded him.
The Watcher’s hands were covered with grime, and he was fairly certain he was kneeling on an
orange slice, the moisture seeping through his jeans. But demons had been killed indiscriminately
since the Culling. Any attempt to resist a Messenger’s orders would land a demon a sword right
through the black heart beating inside him, no questions asked. And while celestials and demons lived
indefinitely, immune to human diseases and impervious to their weapons, they were not immortal.
Any stardust-infused metals could kill them.
Including those fucking swords the Messengers were waving around with the nonchalance of a
cheerleader brandishing pompoms.
Cassian paled. “Right you are, mate,” he quickly agreed. “The filth it is. Crack on.”
The demon knew the risks of lingering as well as Jace did. He’d lost both his parents—his
Watcher father and human mother—once-upon-a-time ago during a similar raid on the rundown
neighborhood where he’d grown up in East London. Their crime? Not surrendering their demon son
to the Messengers demanding his captivity. Cassian had told Jace the story decades ago, after a long
night of heavy drinking. It was the only time Jace had ever seen his friend truly somber; the demon
even shed a tear.
Cassian’s loss was also the beginning to the story of how he had wound up meeting Jace and
Hesper.
None of that would matter now, though, if they didn’t manage to get out of Nox soon.
“Where to next?” Jace asked as they reached the end of the bar.
Hesper peered around the corner, then looked back at both males. “When I give the word, we
head left toward the breakroom, then sneak out the back exit.”
Under other circumstances, Jace was certain Cassian would have some smartass comment to
make about the staff lounge—especially because he and Hesper never got to enjoy those first five
minutes of her break tonight.
 But this was not one of those times.
“We’ll trip the alarm,” Cassian protested. “Everyone will hear and come after us.”
“Better that than waiting to see what the Messengers have planned for us if we stay here,” Jace
said. “I like our odds out on the streets a lot better.”
Hesper nodded. Which meant Cassian promptly did, too.
“All right.” The demon heaved a sigh. “I stand corrected. Again.”
Hesper craned her neck to peer around the corner once more. A few seconds ticked by, the silence
between them strained as they listened to the continued brawling around them. Then Hesper flicked
her hand to the left and glanced over her shoulder at them, nodding, before she started forward again.
Biting his lip, Cassian followed quickly behind, disappearing into the shadows of the corridor
leading to the bar’s back rooms. Jace watched them move, crouched to half their height and struggling
to strike a balance between stealth and speed. Then he emerged from behind the counter as well.
And promptly made a grave mistake.
He looked.
Jace’s hands curled to fists at his sides as he glanced right, toward the fray. The scene brought his
blood to a boil within his veins. Everything was happening so quickly—in a matter of seconds, no
matter how slowly he seemed to be absorbing it all. The Messengers were brutalizing Nox’s patrons.
Three of the ivory-winged celestials were restraining resistors, dragging them away from any
possible exit and forcing them to their knees.
Another pair went down the line of men and women standing against the wall. One frisked their
limbs, checking for weapons—celestial blades were rare but not unheard of on the black market. The
Messengers were taking no chances, it seemed. At the same time, another followed closely behind,
grasping the captives by the back of the head and shoving their faces into the wall to hold them still. A
few of the prisoners had bloodied noses or lips, their wounds leaving red, rusty marks against the
paint. Many whimpered from pain or fear—including the girls from the bachelorette party.
Not such a fun night out now, is it, ladies? Jace thought with a mixture of sympathy and disgust.
“Hold still! Hands against the wall!”
It was Xavier, the general of the Messengers’ army.
Jace had seen Xavier before. He was tall and muscular, with a stubble-lined jaw hard enough to
cut stone and dark eyes that—at the moment, anyway—appeared just as ruthless. Wherever
Messengers could be found abusing their power, he seemed to be someplace nearby. For years, the
Watchers had been tracking Xavier, trying to stay one step ahead of him, but he was unpredictable—
not to mention too influential to directly attack. As bad as the relationship between Messengers and
Watchers was, an outright war would be worse than their current feuds.
Now, Xavier moved along the queue of prisoners. As the soldiers frisked and shoved the captives
against the wall, he extended his sword, slashing the clothes against each person’s back. As the fabric
fell away, revealing the skin beneath it, he lightly touched the tip of his blade to the top of the
prisoners’ spine, just beneath the neck and between the shoulder blades.
One by one, the captives flinched and trembled beneath the blade, fearing the wound it might
cause and shivering beneath its iciness. But Xavier’s blade would not hurt them. Yet, anyway. He
wielded it with an entirely different purpose. Jace knew this because he was a Watcher. Because he’d
seen the general at work before.
Xavier was checking each person for a celestial rune—the marking of their kind, Messengers,
Watchers, and demons alike. This far from Themis, only contact with stardust could reveal the rune
buried like a hidden tattoo beneath a celestial’s skin.
 Whether he was looking for a specific demon or Watcher, or simply seeking to smoke out any
potential enemy, Jace could only guess.
Fucking asshole.
“Please don’t hurt me!”
Xavier had worked his way down the wall to the young woman who was wearing a silver sash
that read “Bride to Be” across her shoulders. Her whole body tensed as Xavier sliced through the
shirt she was wearing, a flashy, sequin-covered top designed to reveal more cleavage than conceal it.
Jace started forward, clenching his jaw, ready to knock the Messenger’s sword away from her
skin. This wasn’t right. The girl wasn’t hurting anyone. She’d come to Nox with friends to have fun—
a harmless, irreverent celebration of her upcoming marriage. And Xavier was ruining it.
But as soon as the tip of the Messenger’s sword brushed against the young woman’s flesh, Jace
stopped abruptly.
A celestial rune began to glow between her shoulder blades. It was an amber-toned symbol
composed of lines capped with small circles. This particular letter resembled a pitchfork, and
although Jace knew the letter’s prongs usually pointed up, this time, it appeared upside down—a sign
that its bearer was tainted, dirty and unnatural.
Jace had seen this exact symbol before. It was the same one Cassian bore.
“A demon,” Xavier sneered, leaning closer to examine the rune. “Filth—I knew there’d be their
kind lurking around a place like this.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the young woman protested.
“Silence!”
As Xavier shouted, the celestial pinning the girl to the wall shoved her harder, pulling her back by
the nape of the neck only to push her forward again, banging her head.
Jace bristled—and he wasn’t the only one. The girl let out an unearthly snarl, and she turned
abruptly, tearing herself from her captor’s grasp in one swift, sharp motion. A stream of blood
dribbled down from one of her flaring nostrils where she’d hit the wall, and a pair of short, black
horns curled up on either side of her forehead. Jace hadn’t noticed the color of her eyes before, but
now they were a smoldering amber.
The laughing, blushing bride-to-be was nowhere in her expression. She’d dropped the human
aspect to her façade and was all demon now.
Shit. This isn’t going to end well.
“Jace—let’s go!”
From the shadows of the corridor behind him, Hesper’s voice lashed at him in a low, annoyed
hiss.
But she was too late.
The bride lunged at the Messenger who’d smashed her face against the wall. Her hands were
curled into claws, her narrow fingertips elongated and her pointed nails like knives, as she slashed at
the celestial’s cheek. A thin line of blood bloomed on his skin, stretching from his ear to lip.
“You little bitch—”
The Messenger redoubled his efforts to restrain her. She thrashed wildly, kicking out against the
one who’d done the frisking as he joined in to help his fellow soldier. These were no careless,
untrained moves, either. The bride was a fighter, well versed in the swift cutting motions and jabbing
kicks of demonic martial arts. However young she appeared, she was old—old enough to know the
ancient ways of self-defense.
“Arrest her!” Xavier shouted.
 Jace rushed forward, spreading his wings.
As he moved, he felt the familiar tingling on his back, just below his shoulder blades. The threads
of his T-shirt spread and moved, their texture and shape automatically changing, shifting to make way
for the rapid growth of the feathered limbs emerging from his skin.
“It’s a Watcher …” someone—he wasn’t sure who—breathed.
And it was a Watcher.
He was the Watcher.
Jace’s coal-gray wings were fully visible now, each one stretching out nearly as wide as he was
tall. The deep, sapphire-blue flecks in the feathers matched his eyes, their sheen picking up the dim
light and taking on a vaguely metallic glimmer. He stepped forward, closer to the fray.
“You’re a long way from Nova, general,” Jace said as Xavier turned to glare at him. “This isn’t
really your jurisdiction anymore, is it? You’re on our side of the city.”
The Watchers’ and demons’ side of the city.
The rundown, crime-ridden neighborhood wasn’t exactly a tourist destination like Nova and the
Strip, but it was home not-so-sweet home nonetheless. They had the right to defend it.
“Let her go and I won’t get Lynx involved,” he added. “I’ve been here all night. She’s done
nothing wrong.”
Xavier’s eyes were cold. Sheathing his sword, he folded his arms across his chest in a haughty
and defiant motion. His biceps bulged. “Her mere existence is wrong, Watcher—as is yours, for that
matter.”
“She had no choice in her lineage,” Jace growled.
The Messenger stepped closer then, a slow stalking stride. “No, but your kind did. When the
Watchers chose to sully their celestial bloodlines by taking human lovers, that was most certainly a
conscious decision, wasn’t it? One for which this demon will pay the price.”
Behind Xavier, the girl let out another low, feral snarl. She struggled against her two Messenger
captors, baring her teeth, which now appeared as jagged and sharp as her nails.
“Exactly my point. No matter her nature, she is ultimately innocent.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Watcher.” Xavier’s voice had sunk deeper now. A violent rumble
simmered beneath it.
Around the bar, everyone was still, silent, waiting. There was no chattering. No sounds of cue
sticks snapping against stripes or solids at the pool table. Not even the trio of slot machines tucked in
the corner beeped with more cheer than a rundown shithole like this deserved. In all the years he’d
been coming to Nox, Jace had never heard it so quiet.
“Let. Her. Go.” Now he crossed his arms, too, and his eyes narrowed. If a pissing contest was
what Xavier wanted, then a pissing contest he would get.
Xavier scoffed. Jace wasn’t sure if the Messenger was mocking him or the demon behind him.
“And allow her to continue corrupting humans?” He glanced over his shoulder at the girl just as one
of the soldiers jerked her head to the side, pulling roughly on her hair. “You would have me give her
the opportunity to create even more demon children than she probably already has?”
The general turned back to Jace. As he did, he unfolded his arms from across his chest and spread
his bronze-flecked ivory wings behind him. He lifted his palms, and hazy spheres of golden light
began to hover over his fingertips: celestial energy, harnessed and ready to destroy any earthbound
creation it touched.
Jace didn’t have to be a soldier to understand Xavier was poised for attack.
But backing down was not an option. He’d gotten off that bus two stops ago, when he decided not
to follow Hesper and Cassian out to the back rooms behind the bar. So he uncrossed his arms and
extended his wings to their full span as well.
Then, as Jace rose to hover in the air so he could look down on Xavier, he threw the first punch.
 3

JACE

T echnically, it wasn’t a punch—not in the way the humans threw punches, anyway. Instead, it
was Jace’s own orb of celestial power, harnessed from the otherworldly force that flowed with
the blood through his veins. He gathered it in his palm and catapulted it through the air.
“Bloody hell, now we’ve got to fight, too.”
From behind him, Jace heard Cassian’s voice, as annoyed as it was resolute, while the burst of
energy barreled toward Xavier. The sphere’s light was blue and fiery. Like Xavier’s, its color
matched Jace’s aura, his eyes, and the accent colors on his wings.
“Go—hurry! Don’t let him do this alone.”
That was Hesper next. Jace heard the shuffling of footsteps and the fluttering of wings unfurling. In
a mere heartbeat, she and Cassian were at his side.
The Messengers could say what they wanted about the fallen Watchers and demons, but at least
they were loyal.
Yet Jace had no time for sentimentality. As quickly as he had thrown his sphere, Xavier dodged it,
part lunging and part flying to the left. The blue light shot through the space where the Messenger’s
face had been only a few moments before. It crashed against the ceiling above a cluster of Nox’s
patrons. Plaster and drywall rained down as the surge of celestial energy destroyed all matter in its
path.
“Look out!” someone shrieked.
Those closest to the impact ducked, covering their heads with their hands and crouching to avoid
the falling debris. Several weren’t fast enough. In a matter of seconds, they were covered in
wreckage, cuts, and blood.
From where he floated between Jace and his prisoners, Xavier scowled. “You dare to attack me,
Watcher? Or should I say Jericho?”
Jace faltered, his wings sagging at the mention of his given name. “How do you know my name?”
“Your kind thinks you’re all so clever,” Xavier snapped, sneering. “You’re not the only celestials
who know how to watch over other creatures undetected. We make a habit of knowing who you are—
especially when who you are happens to be the great-grandson of the first fallen Watcher himself.”
The reminder of Jace’s ancestry was meant to wound him as much as a slash from a celestial
blade.
And it did exactly that.
The words settled in Jace’s core like a rock, like something dense and heavy, oppressive and
unbearable. It didn’t matter that he had never met, never known, his great-grandfather. Nor did it
matter that other Watchers succumbed to human temptation soon after. Jace’s blood was tainted by his
relative’s notorious transgressions anyway.
By all accounts, the Watcher Stellan had been the amorous sort. Over the millennia, he’d taken
many lovers—male and female, human and celestial, siring both demons and other Watchers. If
Stellan and his demon offspring hadn’t been rounded up and slaughtered well before the Culling, Jace
supposed he and Hesper would have had too many demon ancestors scattered across the continents to
count.
Now the brother and sister were the last of their family line. It was a fact they paid for daily, both
innocent in the matter, with no control over their lineage. Exactly like the demon-bride still resisting
her Messenger captors across the room.
“Fuck. You. Xavier.” Each syllable was slow and seething on Jace’s lips. He wished he’d thrown
his sphere a moment ago with the intent to kill, not simply to startle and warn the Messenger.
But something in the way Xavier glowered, a vein in his neck tightening and throbbing, told Jace
he’d get the chance to strike again.
“I must admit, I’ve been hoping to find you like this since the moment I arrived in Las Vegas.”
Before Xavier even finished speaking, he lifted his palms once more, replenishing the glowing
spheres in his hands. Immediately, he hurled both orbs toward Jace, aiming for the latter’s chest.
“No!”
Gritting her teeth, Hesper dove in front of Jace, pushing out her own pair of spheres—lighter in
color and more violet than Jace’s but just as powerful—from her slender, luminous arms. Her orbs
collided with Xavier’s, exploding into a shower of gold and pale purple light. Sparks flew across the
space, searing the counter and stools, pool table and peeling wallpaper, before speckling the exposed
skin and clothes of celestials, demons, and mortals alike.
That was the thing about destruction: it didn’t discriminate based on bloodline.
Screams erupted as the humans nursed another set of wounds. A Messenger or two recoiled as the
sparks burned their bare limbs. Yet Xavier remained placid, unruffled. He inhaled deeply, flexing the
muscles in his arms. In seconds, the faint blush of the scorch marks on his skin faded, then
disappeared altogether.
Jace reeled from the blast, twisting one of his wings in front of his body like a shield. He gasped
as the deluge of celestial fire singed the tips of some of his feathers. They would wither and fall out
by morning now, but it was a small price to pay. His ribs would not have healed as quickly had the
orbs struck him directly.
“Hesper! Are you all right, love?”
As Jace threw himself free of the protection of his wing, he spotted his sister on the ground, fallen
in her hurry to defend him. Cassian reached out to her, pulling her to her feet. She dusted dirt from her
hands and knees, and although a few of her violet-accented gray feathers were in rough shape, it
seemed they’d done their part to protect the rest of her from the blast.
Guilt pierced Jace’s chest. She’d risked bodily harm to spare him the same. He had to go to her,
thank her and reassure her. The instant he started forward, though, Xavier’s glare changed. He
glanced between Jace and Hesper, his eyes widening as they skirted over the pair’s distinctly similar
facial features, hair, and skin.
“And Jericho’s sister is here, too,” he mused darkly. “At last, I can clean up two loose ends
instead of one.”
Shit.
Hesper wasn’t active in the Watchers’ militia. She preferred to lay low, to wait this war out—just
like Cassian suggested Jace also do. Now her identity was compromised.
Panic pulsed across Jace’s body, spasming in every muscle—and he wasn’t alone. Fury burned in
Cassian’s eyes. The demon growled, and curled, ebony horns emerged among the spikes of his dyed-
blue hair. He flashed his teeth, which now looked as sharp as knives and capable of just as much
damage. Something in his face reminded Jace of a rabid wolf. It was a startling reminder that the
demon was neither celestial nor human, but another sort of untamed creature all his own.
“You’ll have to make your way through me first,” Cassian raged at Xavier as he crouched in front
of Hesper, guarding her, poised for attack.
Not that Hesper needed Cassian’s protection.
This was a fact she promptly proved all over again when she pulled a slim dagger from her boot.
The handle was elegant, and the blade glistened and hummed the same way Xavier’s sword had, both
forged from a stardust alloy. Jace had found the weapon on the celestial black market during the early
days of the Culling. He’d bought it for her as a birthday present and taught her to use it himself.
Hesper had been a quick study, too—a natural with a blade, exactly like he was.
Xavier had no idea the hurt he’d just invited upon himself in threatening her.
“Another demon,” the Messenger snapped at Cassian. “This night just keeps getting better. And as
for making my way through you, I fully intend to.”
In a swift, seamless motion, the Messenger withdrew his sword again and swooped forward,
aiming for Cassian and Hesper. His jaw was hard with determination—determination to drive his
blade to the hilt through the black heart beating within Cassian’s ribcage, Jace assumed.
He couldn’t let that happen any more than he could let Xavier hurt Hesper.
But as Jace leapt to meet Xavier in the air, Cassian let out a burst of laughter. A self-assured grin
curled the corners of his mouth as he pulled a pair of matching daggers from the scabbards attached to
his belt. The blades were both longer than Hesper’s—and more menacing, with one side sleek and
sharp, the other serrated like a gap-toothed saw. Jace hoped never to feel either side against his skin,
and he didn’t envy anyone who had that misfortune.
“Don’t worry about us, mate,” Cassian called over to him. “We’ve got this—your sister’s safe as
houses with me. Help the others.”
Cassian jerked his head toward the demon-bride, still snarling and trying to break free from the
Messengers holding her captive behind Xavier. He was right. Hesper and Cassian were more than
capable of defending themselves. Jace had to remember the others, the innocents lined against the
wall with torn shirts and rubble on their shoulders. They were the reason he had gotten involved in
this mess to begin with.
Nodding, Jace changed course, heading toward the prisoners by the pool tables. On the periphery,
he saw a flicker of violet light and heard the scrape of metal on metal: Cassian blocking Xavier’s
first swipe with his sword. Jace raised his hands and felt the tingling warmth in his palms as his own
celestial powers swirled into sapphire-tinted spheres at his fingertips.
“Want to reconsider letting the girl go?” he asked the Messengers clinging to the demon-bride.
One of the soldiers raised a brow in defiance. “What was it your friend said? Oh, right, you’ll
have to make your way through me first.” He loosened his grip on the demon only so he could
generate a sphere of his own.
Jace’s gaze darted toward the girl. If he timed this well—and if she moved quickly—she could
break free. Their eyes locked, and amidst the fury and fear that burned in her amber irises, there was
gratitude and understanding. A silent meeting of their minds.
“Now!” Jace shouted.
 He hurled his spheres toward the Messengers, forcing both of them to duck. A burst of the
soldier’s golden light soared past Jace’s head, narrowly missing his ear before colliding with one of
the slot machines across the bar.
And in the fray, the bride snarled, stomping on the other soldier’s foot as she tore herself free. She
swiped at her remaining captor’s face again, but instead of aiming for his cheek, she went for one of
his eyes.
“Damn you, filthy demon!”
The soldier fell to his knees, clutching at his face, trying to stopper the blood gushing down his
cheek. He made a halfhearted attempt to catch the demon-bride’s hand as she slipped away.
But it was too late and far too feeble an attempt. The girl was gone, out of reach and scrambling
over the shattered glass by the broken window before disappearing into the shadows of night.
Jace’s chest swelled with satisfaction, yet the shouts, crashing, and swirls of multi-colored
celestial light speeding by him were reminders there was no time to rest. An all-out brawl was rising
across the bar. Emboldened, other demons and Watchers bared their horns and wings. Jace recognized
some of them—and that was no surprise: this building held more than a seedy dive bar; the suites in
the shabby high-rise on the floors above were home to many Watchers and demons. They called it
Nocturna. The old, converted hotel was their safe house and the equivalent of the Messengers’ Nova
across town.
Still, there were more demons and Watchers here than Jace had even expected.
Which also prompted the humans to panic.
Chaos erupted in every corner. Scorch marks and dents scarred the walls where misaimed
celestial orbs struck. Glasses and bottles of alcohol shattered on tables and behind the bar, littering
the place with jagged shards and the fetid stench of booze. Stools and chairs toppled. Fallen gray and
ivory feathers joined the smears of blood on every surface. One of the pool tables collapsed beneath
the weight of a demon who’d been knocked across the room by a Messenger’s blast; Jace couldn’t
distinguish the sound of breaking bones from splintering wood.
“Jace!”
Hesper’s voice reached his ears just as he felt a line of burning pain across his bicep. He turned
quickly, firing a sphere at the chestnut-haired Messenger who attacked him. No hesitations and no
questions asked. The soldier fell back, collapsing into the crowd and disappearing into the chaos, but
the damage was done. Jace grimaced, looking down at his wound. It was angry and deep—made with
a celestial blade. It wasn’t bad enough to kill him, but until it healed, it would hurt like hell.
“Come on, mate—now’s our chance!”
Cassian’s hand closed around his wrist, dragging him toward the broken window, Hesper at their
heels. They joined the swarm of humans and demons still fleeing through the rubble, helping one
another over the glass-strewn ledge.
“I started this,” Jace protested. “I can’t leave them.”
“You didn’t start this—they did when they smashed their way in here,” Hesper reminded him as
she jerked her head in Xavier’s direction. Her eyes glinted angrily, their violet flecks growing more
prominent, practically pulsing with rage. “You gave everyone else here a fighting chance to get out.”
Her stare flicked back to him then, and she gasped, noticing the blood seeping up from his injury
and soaking his T-shirt. “Besides, you’re hurt. We have to get you out of here.”
Jace glanced around the bar once more, wanting to resist, but a tremor of pain raced up and down
his arm—a reminder his next wound could be fatal. “Fine,” he grumbled.
Yet as Cassian started helping Jace over the window’s ledge and through the broken glass, another
surge of golden light—larger, brighter, and more blinding than any other celestial orbs darting through
the space—burst before them.
For a moment, Jace stumbled back, blinking and disoriented, falling against an equally unsteady
Cassian and Hesper. His arm slipped from Cassian’s grasp, and he raised his hand as a shield against
the brightness. Around them, others did the same, stunned into stillness. Almost immediately, Nox fell
to a strange silence. Aside from the weak, repetitive chimes of a broken, tipped-over slot machine, no
one dared to make a sound.
“Enough.”
As the light began to subside, Jace squinted to look around his fingertips, then slowly lowered his
hand to see who had spoken.
The female was another celestial—one far more imposing and resplendent than even Xavier.
Dressed in a traditional white tunic with gold jewelry and bracers, she was tall, with long, auburn
hair and skin that still shimmered as if she’d arrived from Themis only yesterday. Her ivory wings
were plush, fuller than the other Messengers’. They were the sign of a celestial who spent much of her
day inside the safety of Nova’s walls, giving orders and making laws. If she had ever seen a battle
like this one, it was long ago.
Jace recognized her immediately. He’d spent far too long watching the comings and goings of the
Messengers not to. She was Chancellor Astra, the celestials’ leader. She was also another word the
humans had long ago invented to explain their hazy understanding of supernatural beings to
themselves.
An archangel.
One of the few First-Sphere Seraphim who chose to live in this realm.
“Lux aeterna.”
Eternal light. It was the vow that bound all celestials—a sign of their purpose, regardless which
realm they visited. They were born to be protectors of all things bright and pure: truth, justice, peace,
equality. And it was why Watchers like Stellan, who’d let his lust overcome him, had been
condemned.
The refrain echoed within Nox’s remaining walls as Messengers quickly sheathed their blades in
favor of crossing an arm over their chests and lowering their heads. Astra’s gaze drifted over her
soldiers’ faces … over the destruction they caused … over the hurt and huddled Watchers, demons,
and humans that remained.
“Lux aeterna,” she finally repeated, inclining her head.
Only then did the Messengers lift their gazes and stand at ease.
And then Astra frowned.
Walking deeper into the space, she stooped to gently brush the cheek of a human whimpering
beneath a high-top table while clutching a visibly broken wrist against her body. Moving on, Astra
righted a tipped barstool, then shook the hand of the Watcher who helped her lift it from the rubble.
Her sandaled feet crunched over shards of glass, and her tunic snagged on a damaged stretch of
counter. A nearby Messenger hurried to help her free from the splintered stone and wood, but she
refused his help, returning it with a withering glare instead.
Watching Astra move slowly through the bar, Jace’s heart quickened its pace. She was furious—
and not at Watchers or demons. She was angry with the Messengers. As though also realizing this,
Cassian gave him and Hesper a sideways glance.
“Well, Mummy is certainly not happy,” he muttered. The corner of his mouth crooked upward, and
he raised a brow in dark amusement.
 Jace’s thoughts exactly. Well, almost exactly—his inner monologue didn’t have a lingering
English inflection.
Finally, Astra paused in front of Xavier. “What were your reasons for ordering this raid,
general?”
Xavier stood tall. He met and held Astra’s stare as he spoke. “I received a report of a Watcher
disturbing the peace. We tracked the suspect to a nearby neighborhood, and when he gave chase, we
believed him to be hiding here.”
Liar. There was no fucking report.
Jace could see that truth in the way the general glanced around the room quickly, a hint of
desperation in his eyes.
“And did you find this disruptive Watcher?” the chancellor asked sharply, in a way that indicated
she already knew the answer to her question.
The general’s gaze dropped—subtly, almost imperceptibly, but it did. It was an admission of
defeat every bit as much as his response. “I did not.”
“I see.”
The taut line of Astra’s mouth reinforced her displeasure. She glanced around the room again with
purpose, as if to underscore the unfortunate state of Nox’s ruins. The broken slot machine—Celestial
Spins, according to the name printed on the illuminated panel crowning it—let out another slow, sad
chime. Then its cracked screen sparked and went dark, the scattered images of nines, stars, and angel
wings vanishing behind the glass.
That was fine with Jace. He’d always hated how the Messengers had turned their celestial
ancestry into a novelty at Nova, opening up a cosmos-themed hotel and casino in one of the complex’s
buildings. Because Nox was a piece of shit compared to Nova—along with pretty much any other
Vegas resort—it wouldn’t have surprised him if the beat-up, old slot machine had once sat on the
gambling floor of Nova itself.
Poetic fucking justice to see that shitshow they call a game get fried.
“I was unaware so much force was necessary to track down one Watcher,” Astra mused out loud.
“The Watcher in question is exceptional, Astra.” Xavier’s chin jutted out defiantly, and his eyes
wandered the bar again as though searching for some sorry asshole to claim he’d been hunting if the
chancellor pressed him further.
He stopped searching when his gaze locked with Jace’s. Then he smirked.
Son of a bitch.
Jace’s breath hitched in his lungs. The fucking prick was going to say he’d been after him. And
why not? Watcher Jericho, descendant of the first fallen celestial, would make quite a prize—or he
would if he had, in fact, been disturbing the peace instead of drowning his loneliness in a tumbler of
whiskey. Jace glowered. He started forward, ready to blast the bastard back to Themis, but Hesper’s
hand on his forearm gave him pause.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Even Cassian gave him a small shake of his blue-tinged head. He was a demon—he thrived on
chaos and mischief—but he was no idiot.
Yet Astra ignored both Xavier’s excuse and the way his eyes seemed trained on Jace. Instead, she
stepped forward until she was standing closer to the center of the room so all could see her.
“Hear this,” she announced. “There must be no more bloodshed among Messengers, Watchers,
and demons. This strife between us has existed long enough. Look around you for proof of the
senseless destruction it has caused.”
 A few followed her instruction, cringing at the sight of the blood spatters and broken furniture all
over again. Jace retracted his wings and folded his arms over his chest. His own still-bleeding wound
tugged uncomfortably, but he clenched his teeth against the pain. He wouldn’t show Xavier his
weakness.
“Any celestial or demon who disobeys this decree will face swift and exacting punishment.”
Astra’s eyes narrowed as her gaze found Xavier once more, and her next words seemed pointed,
intended specifically for him. “Regardless of their role or rank. There will be no exceptions. We must
end this madness.”
“Swift and exacting?” Cassian echoed under his breath as Astra turned to leave the same way she
arrived. He snorted. “We’ll see.”
Across the bar, Xavier’s stare found Jace’s again, and a shadow crossed over his eyes. With or
without Astra’s decree, the so-called madness was far from over. He could feel it.
“Yeah,” Jace agreed, bitter, “we’ll see.”
 4

CYRUS

E ris hadn’t returned to Themis in so long that Cyrus was surprised she recognized him. Of
course, considering how slowly celestials appeared to age—most never looking older than an
average thirty-something human—he supposed she had only to think of the last time they’d
spoken. That had been before she left Themis for her assignment in the Messenger army. Cyrus had
changed very little over the past few hundred years.
Neither, it appeared, had Eris.
“Cousin! At last!”
There was so much to see as he and the other new arrivals from the celestial realm were escorted
through Nova. Yet the moment he heard her voice, Cyrus tore his gaze from the soaring, gold-plated
ceilings and snowy-white columns that decorated the space. He watched, recognizing her
immediately, as she broke rank with the other Messengers flanking the entrance of the gathering room
and closed the distance between them.
The second Cyrus was near enough to touch, Eris threw her arms around him. Her honey-blonde
hair—so much like his own, only neater—swirled around both their shoulders like a veil as they
embraced, and when she stepped back to look at him more closely, he noticed her brown eyes, long
lashes, and lightly freckled nose still resembled his also.
“Eris, it has been too long.” Cyrus smiled, grateful to have a familiar face to welcome him in this
strange, foreign city. “You look well.”
“I’m better now that you’ve arrived,” she said, clasping both his hands in hers. “We’re far from
the stars here, Cy—you’ll have to catch me up on all the news from Themis later. I can’t wait to hear
how the family is doing and how things have changed.”
Cyrus chuckled, squeezing her hands back as they resumed walking, heading deeper into the room
together. “Not much has changed back home—I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment,” Eris teased, nudging him. “As long as Ursa’s still up to her
usual hijinks, I suspect you’ll have plenty of entertaining stories to share.”
She had a point, Cyrus thought, picturing Eris’s younger sister in his mind. The three of them had
been quite close long ago, with Cyrus midway between both their ages. Even as a child, Ursa had
been a free spirit, hard to contain. She’d sneak out at night to catch gibbous flies in glass jars or
wander off randomly to explore the rocky Hills of Janus. Cyrus often went with her, his inquisitive
mind always craving adventure. But Eris … Eris would pout and threaten to tell on them before
finally caving and tagging along anyway—strictly to make sure they were safe, of course.
The trouble Ursa caused was nothing compared to the stories Cyrus had heard of the demons here
on Earth, but it had been enough to keep his aunt and uncle in a constant state of amusement and
worry. The reality was that celestials were no angels—not all the time, anyway, and certainly not in
the sense that humans believed them to be.
“Let’s just say your sister has graduated from breaking bones to breaking the hearts of certain
Seraphim,” Cyrus told his cousin. “She still manages to make your mother lose sleep at night.”
Eris’s eyes widened. “A Seraph? Really? That sneak—she never said a word to me. You’ll have
to tell me all the details later.”
“I will, don’t worry.” Cyrus chuckled at her eagerness. He’d underestimated how much he had
missed her. Being together again made him feel centuries younger, a flood of happy memories
warming his core.
“But first, I should like to meet our new arrival.”
Another voice interrupted. They had reached the far end of the room, and a tall, female Messenger
stood before them. She was clearly a leader, Cyrus thought—confident, with wise eyes and a kind but
stern expression. She was also one of the few celestials who wore her ivory wings exposed upon her
back. Her feathers were elegant; tinged with gold, they caught the light, shimmering slightly like
flecks of sun.
“Chancellor Astra, this is my cousin, Messenger Cyrus,” Eris told her.
She bowed her head slightly, a sign of respect. Even if Cyrus hadn’t recognized Astra’s name as
the celestials’ local leader, he would have understood Eris’s gesture as a sign of deference and
intuited her station.
“Ah, so this is Cyrus.” Astra’s expression brightened as she gazed upon him. “Welcome to Nova.
Your reputation precedes you. I daresay you’ll make Second Sphere after you’ve completed your
peacekeeping assignment here in Las Vegas.”
“Chancellor.” Following Eris’s lead, Cyrus also inclined his head. “This is a peacekeeping
assignment? I had been told we were at war with the demons and Watchers. Is that no longer the
case?”
Astra tilted her head as she considered his question. “Our focus has shifted recently. To speak of
war is to encourage further hostilities among our kind. We must leave the days of bloodshed behind
us. The Watchers and demons are well contained at this point. Provoking them further is fruitless. We
should instead be seeking to reestablish camaraderie with our celestial brothers and sisters.”
“Do you expect us to befriend the demons, too?” barked a harsher tone emerging from one of the
clusters of Messengers gathered around them.
Cyrus needed no introduction to the male joining their conversation. A hundred years had passed,
and every time he closed his eyes, he still saw the handsome, stubble-lined face and broad shoulders
of the celestial standing before him. The sound of Xavier’s deep voice and the feel of his smooth,
sun-kissed skin was forever seared into Cyrus’s memory—whether he wanted them to be or not.
Not being Cyrus’s current preference.
Although his question had been intended for Astra, Xavier kept his gaze on Cyrus. A piercing,
unwavering stare. The distance had not caused him to forget either, it seemed. On the periphery, Cyrus
noted the way Eris gaped at them, evidently noticing the two males were not strangers.
“You have been listening to the humans too much, Xavier,” Astra scolded, terse but gentle.
“Demons are not inherently evil. They are chaos personified, the embodiment of the very recklessness
from which they were conceived, that is all. Like any of us, they possess both light and dark.”
“So you would have us befriend them?” Xavier challenged.
Astra’s eyes narrowed. She was annoyed. Xavier would realize that if he would look at her
instead of him, Cyrus thought, but the Messenger’s stare remained steadfast. To Cyrus, this meant two
things: first, Xavier was equally stunned to see him here—and second, Xavier must be very high-
ranking to be able to speak to Astra this way without consequences.
“There are many in Themis who believe the demons have been adequately punished for their
uprising,” Astra informed him. “I happen to share their opinion.”
Xavier’s stance stiffened, and his dark eyes smoldered. Cyrus wasn’t sure if he was angrier at
Astra’s response or at the unannounced appearance of his former lover before him.
“Don’t mind Xave,” Eris interjected. “He’s only cross because he disagrees with Astra’s edict
forbidding further bloodshed among celestials and demons.”
Finally, Xavier looked away, glaring at their leader. “It is a dangerous policy.”
“It is an order.” Astra’s tone was sharper now, all patience gone. “And general or not, you will
obey it.”
Xavier glowered, the face Cyrus had once found so beautiful vanishing in a flash of hideousness.
He had seen this side of Xavier before; he knew better than to provoke him further. The bigger
question was if Astra also knew this—and if she cared.
“And you agree with this edict, too?” Xavier asked Eris, nodding toward her.
For a moment, Eris hesitated. She glanced anxiously between Astra and Xavier as though
uncertain whose wrath she feared the most.
“I think peace is always the preferred alternative,” she finally said.
She didn’t say no, Cyrus noted, even if she didn’t say yes.
Perhaps celestial politics were as complex in the mortal realm as they were in Themis.
“Spoken like an aspiring diplomat,” Xavier muttered. Shaking his head, he crossed his arms over
his chest in smug disagreement.
One of Astra’s thin, copper-colored eyebrows arched. “We could all learn to use a bit more
diplomacy.”
The fury was still there, simmering just below Xavier’s surface. Cyrus could tell; he could see it
in the way the vein beside the other man’s Adam’s apple pulsed erratically, a supernova only barely
contained beneath his skin. Years ago, Cyrus would have tried to soothe him. He would have placed
his hands on either side of Xavier’s handsome, chiseled face and touched their foreheads together,
holding him while offering reassurances that all would be well.
But those days were as far as away as Themis itself now was, so Cyrus only turned to Astra and
smiled.
“I couldn’t agree more about the need for diplomacy,” he told her. “If my orders are to promote
peace, then I am all too happy to do my part.”
Astra’s lips curved into a warm, moonlike crescent, and she reached out to clasp Cyrus’s hand. “I
am very pleased to hear that, Messenger Cyrus.” Stepping back again, she raised her right arm and
crossed it over her chest, the golden bracer she wore shifting slightly as she moved. “Lux aeterna,”
she said, inclining her head.
There was comfort in the familiar gesture—in knowing the celestials’ salute was the same
whether here on Earth or far off in Themis. It calmed Cyrus. It helped him forget Xavier’s outrage.
Relaxing, he repeated the motion, crossing one of his wrists to his heart.
“Lux aeterna,” he echoed.
The words sparked a ripple across the room, the other Messengers murmuring the same in rapid
succession. The gentle refrain sounded almost like the beating of wings, as though every one of the
celestials had bared their feathers and risen into the stars together.
 Grudgingly, Xavier repeated the words as well.

“WHAT WAS ALL THAT ABOUT ?” Eris asked him later as they stood in her suite, admiring her partial
view of the Las Vegas Strip.
Cyrus tore his eyes away from the scene on the street below. Everything was mesmerizing, so
much brighter and grander than he’d ever expected—even with all the training he’d been given in
Themis. Darkness had fallen by now, and the city was alive with light in a way that reminded him of
the celestial realm … but also didn’t. Neon lights flickered and glowed like the stars visible from
Themis, their swirls of pale blues, soft yellows, and glaring reds forming a patchwork in the sky.
Across the street, a series of fountains unleashed water into the air. The jets danced and swayed
rhythmically, synchronized. They made Cyrus think of the geysers that erupted around the Hills of
Janus. And then there were the buildings themselves: so tall, so elegant, each one reaching toward the
clouds. They were not unlike the decadent settlements of the First-Sphere celestials back home.
Even Xavier was here, just as he had been years before in Themis.
That was part of the problem, though, wasn’t it?
“What was all what about?” Cyrus asked Eris as he shifted his sights to her.
She placed a hand on his arm, studying his face. “The tension between you and Xavier upstairs.
Do you know him?”
Cyrus sighed, considering his cousin’s question. She’d always been perceptive. He should have
known she’d ask about this from the moment she noticed the way he and Xavier stared.
“You’ve been away from Themis for quite some time, Eris,” he said softly. “Your sister hasn’t had
all the melodrama in the family. You missed many things—including a heartbreak of my own.”
Eris’s eyes widened, the bronze specks that accented their shades of deep brown flickering
curiously. “You and Xavier, you mean?”
Nodding, Cyrus crossed toward the pristine, cloud-white sofa that curled around the room. Like
so much of what he’d seen inside Nova, it seemed to mimic all things celestial: the sky, stars, moons,
and suns—even Themis itself. The Messengers had certainly taken every effort to design their
headquarters, their residence, in a way that evoked the same memories and feelings of their natural
home.
“Xave and I were together for many years,” Cyrus explained, looking up at Eris. “I had never had
such strong feelings for another before … until he betrayed me.”
Her face fell. “But how … what happened?”
Closing his eyes, Cyrus pinched at the bridge of his nose as though trying to block the flood of bad
memories threatening to burst through the dam he had carefully constructed around them in his mind.
“Cousin … How did he hurt you?” Eris whispered. Approaching, she knelt beside him and gently
touched his face, tilting his head up so she could look him in the eyes. His own hands dropped to his
lap once more. “Was he unfaithful to you?”
“Not how you’re thinking—not with another lover. But there are other ways to be disloyal.”
“I’m so sorry, Cy. You’ve always been such a bright, gentle light. I can’t bear to see anyone hurt
you.”
Cyrus cringed, his mind rebelling at her words. The small boy in him—sensitive and curious, his
parents’ only child and eager for company—was long gone. He didn’t follow Ursa on adventures
anymore; he made his own path. The fact that he was here, a well-decorated Third-Sphere celestial
soldier who’d seen more realms than Eris herself, proved that.
“Bright and gentle? You make me sound soft and weak.”
Eris shook her head and let out a nervous laugh. “That’s not how I meant it. You’re kinder and
more pleasant than most of the others—Xavier, especially. You have the warmth of a sun in your
smile, while they’re fading dwarf stars. That’s not a weakness. It’s a special kind of strong.”
“A special kind of strong” still sounded a bit questionable to Cyrus, but he didn’t argue. Instead,
he raised a brow, one corner of his mouth quirking up into an amused, crooked grin.
“All right, Eris. If you say so.”
“And I do,” she insisted. Then her brow buckled with worry once more. “Do you want to talk
about it? Is there anything I can do to help make it easier?”
She wasn’t going to let this go so easily, was she? Typical Eris—always hovering, often
overwhelming. She was clearly determined to pick up exactly where they left off as children: looking
out for him as though he was her own younger brother, caring for him in all the ways her own sister
resisted. It was exactly what strained her relationship with Ursa centuries ago. Cyrus wondered how
many times Eris had done the same to others since.
Managing an appreciative grin, he sighed. He could—and would—handle Xavier himself. No one
was better equipped to the task than he was. If Eris knew their history, she’d understand.
“You’re very kind, cousin, but there is nothing to discuss,” he told her. “What happened between
Xave and I doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago.”
“Not long enough, though, if it still troubles you the way it seemed to earlier. Do you wish to
return to Themis now that you know he’s here?”
At this, Cyrus chuckled and squeezed one of her palms reassuringly. “And miss this opportunity to
get reacquainted with my favorite cousin? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Eris laughed again. The lingering concern finally slipped from her face, and she playfully poked
him in the knee. “There’s the light in you that I remember so well.”
She rose to her feet and strode toward the nearby kitchenette. After opening one of the sleek,
white cupboards, she began pouring out two glasses of a familiar, bronze-flecked beverage.
“And as for getting reacquainted, we’ll be spending plenty of time together,” she added as she
worked. “I’m the training coordinator for you and the other reinforcements, and Astra has kindly
agreed to give you the suite next door to mine so we can live close by.”
And so the hovering begins, Cyrus thought, more amused than annoyed. Eris was Eris. He knew
what to expect at least, and he was far more patient with her than Ursa. “That’s fantastic.”
His voice sounded a bit less enthused than he’d intended. If she noticed, she didn’t let on. Instead,
she returned to where Cyrus was sitting and offered him one of the glasses in her hand.
“Aster wine?” he murmured, surprised, as he raised his glass to watch the metallic flakes floating
in the familiar-looking liquid.
It was a reminder of home, the celestials’ traditional celebratory beverage. Bubbling and
beautiful, with a clove-like aftertaste. He hadn’t expected to find such luxuries here. The Messengers
truly had thought of everything necessary to recreate a piece of Themis while stationed in Las Vegas.
“Of course,” Eris said. “Nothing but the best for you, cousin, as we mark the occasion of your
arrival.”
Cyrus grinned. “It’s perfect. Thank you for thinking of it.”
She tilted her glass toward his then, lightly tapping the rims together in a toast. “To bright lights,
be they in the sky or on the ground.”
 5

JACE

“A rgh …Jacefuckhissed
…”
and clenched his fist as Hesper peeled back the gauze and bandages she’d used
to wrap his wound from the brawl at Nox. The fresh air on his slashed bicep had felt good for a
moment; it was cool, soothing. But then the bandage pulled against some of the fragile, newly healed
skin, drawing a line of blood to the surface once more, and the searing pain of the celestial blade that
had sliced him open returned.
“Be nice,” Hesper scolded softly.
“I am being nice,” he mumbled. “Believe me. There’s a stream of profanity still running through
my head.” He lifted his eyes to hers, mustering a wry smile.
Crossing from the refrigerator with a bottle of beer, Cassian lifted one of the kitchen chairs by its
top rail. He spun the chair in his palm so it faced out from the table, then sat down on it in reverse, the
chair’s back between his legs. His eyes glinted mischievously as he leaned forward to examine the
festering wound while Hesper cleaned it.
“Aw, that’s just a scratch, mate,” he teased.
Hesper swatted Cassian’s arm playfully, then reached for another handful of cotton pads across
the kitchen table. “Stop. You’re going to make him think he can get away with swooping in and
playing hero all the time.”
“Hero?” The demon quirked his brow and, laughing, popped the cap on the bottle in his hand and
took a swig. “Heroes don’t need their big sister and best friend to jump in and save their sorry arse.”
Jace scoffed. “My sorry ass? I seem to remember saving your hide once or twice in the past.”
“And when you see my handsome mug every day you’re just as grateful that you found me in that
ditch as I am—admit it!”
Sure, Jace and Cassian could laugh about how they met now, but it wasn’t so funny at the time.
It’d been before the Rising. Before the Culling. And certainly before the Messengers started using Las
Vegas to contain Watchers and demons, crafting a web of celestial runes to keep them within the city
limits while allowing humans their usual free rein. Jace and Hesper had been living in London then—
they’d moved around frequently in those days, not just because they liked changing scenery but
because it was easier to avoid run-ins with the Messengers. Together, they had perfected the art of
blending in.
And the night they met Cassian, they’d been blending in so well they’d passed themselves off as
the American cousins and sole heirs to the estate of a recently deceased English nobleman. They were
even hosting a ball at his townhome. It’d been easier back then to find properties belonging to the
freshly departed, pay off the undertaker or solicitor, and invent false identities to lay claim to the
estate. There were no pesky cell phones or social media accounts to go silent, for one thing, and
Hesper always had a talent for sweet-talking strangers.
Jace recognized Cassian for what he was—a demon—immediately. He saw the way Cassian’s
eyes turned amber as he stared unabashedly at Hesper from across the ballroom. No matter how many
years passed, some things never changed.
Cassian wasn’t at the ball to court a woman, though. He was a gatecrasher, there to steal a pair of
serrated, celestial blades—the same ones that he’d wielded in the fight at Nox the other night. The
daggers had once belonged to his Watcher father, and he’d tracked them there. Unbeknownst to Jace
and Hesper, their long-lost, dearly departed fake cousin Viscount Harrison Atherton had been a
collector of oddities with a special penchant for black-market goods.
These were facts Jace learned midway through the third quadrille, just a few minutes after he’d
slipped away to his stolen study with the fair-haired Lord Charles Woodson.
“You’re certain you’ve locked the door?”
“I’m certain I’ve locked the door,” Jace had reassured Woodson before pressing a kiss to his
mouth and his back against a nearby bookshelf.
Woodson had moaned against Jace’s lips. The sound was filled with relief and hunger, the
whimper of a person finally receiving a taste of something he’d craved his entire life: the touch of
another man. Jace would have drunk up that moan like fine wine if he could have; he would have
drizzled it on his morning toast and savored it like honey.
But he couldn’t, so he’d settled for unbuttoning the young man’s trousers instead. As Woodson’s
cock, already nail-hard and leaking precum, sprang free from the fabric, his head whipped back
against the bookcase, knocking some of Atherton’s dusty texts to the floor with a series of thuds.
Don’t come yet. Please don’t fucking come.
It was all Jace could think as he’d hurriedly unbuttoned his trousers as well, spat in his hand, and
gathered both their cocks in his palm. These repressed English gentlemen were prone to spilling
themselves far too soon, and he wanted to savor the young man’s long yearned-for release as much as
his own.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” Jace had murmured, running his thumb along Woodson’s smooth-
shaven jaw as he stroked their cocks in his other hand.
The young man’s eyes flickered closed, and a faint smile played on his lips. “No one’s ever
called me beautiful before,” he whispered.
“You should be told that you are every day.”
That was when Jace heard the clash of metal against wood, followed by profanity.
“Feck!”
Jace jerked his head toward the sound. There was Cassian, standing in the shadows by the desk
that had belonged to Atherton, a pair of scabbards in his hands. He’d stumbled over a chair while
trying to make his escape.
Woodson’s eyes widened with alarm, even as his cock quivered and erupted in Jace’s hand.
Panicking, he’d pulled away, hurrying to contain and cover himself. “I thought you locked the door!”
he’d gasped.
Jace had. The fucking demon must have been in the room before they got here. Sighing, he’d
tucked away his hard-on and buttoned his trousers. It was such a shame to be interrupted like this.
Whatever the amber-eyed bastard was stealing made little difference to him. This wasn’t his home,
and he’d be moving on again in a few weeks.
 But Cassian didn’t know this. His eyes flickered wildly, knowing he’d been caught. He dove for
the closest window, and when it wouldn’t open, he broke it to leap through.
Shit. Here comes the cavalry.
The sound of breaking glass had attracted every servant and do-gooder guest from the ballroom
across the hall. Jace had tried to reassure them there was nothing to be concerned about, but while he
returned to the ballroom to play host, some of the men gave chase anyway, racing into the darkness
after Cassian. He’d only found out about their hunt for the demon later, when they’d returned to the
party, the recovered weapons in hand.
Fearing the worst, Jace went on a search of his own. He found Cassian the next morning hiding in
a ditch not far from the townhome, shivering, badly beaten, and without his coveted blades. The men
who’d pursued him had apparently been anything but gentle when reclaiming the stolen goods—not
that it mattered much; Cassian’s wounds would be fully healed in a few more hours.
“I know what you are, same as you know me,” Jace told the demon as he’d helped him to his feet.
“Why didn’t you defend yourself against the humans?”
Cassian had dragged his sleeve across his mouth, wiping away blood from his broken lip. “Same
reason you’re passing yourself off as a bloody gentleman, angel,” he’d choked.
“Messengers.”
They both said the word at the same time, united in their shared goal of keeping their identities
safe from those who would hunt them.
Cassian had been like a brother to Jace since, staying with him and Hesper, traveling with them
and pretending to be Hesper’s betrothed—which, eventually, more or less became the truth. Jace even
gave him back the blades he’d been attempting to steal.
“They were your father’s. You have much more of a claim over them than I do,” he’d told his
newfound friend as he’d slid the daggers across Atherton’s desk. He wished he’d had a similar
memento of his own father; returning the weapons to Cassian, their rightful owner, was simply the
decent thing to do.
“Besides,” he’d added, glancing up at a portrait of the former master of the house, “I don’t think
he’s coming back for them anytime soon.”
Now, Cassian smirked at Jace in the kitchen as they recalled the memory of the day they met. The
shabby apartment the three of them shared in Nocturna was a far cry from Viscount Atherton’s well-
appointed townhouse. The curtains hadn’t been changed since midway through the previous century;
the handle on the door to the refrigerator was broken, and the carpets were matted and stained. It was
easily the shittiest place they’d ever lived, but they’d gotten used to it.
Together, they’d made it home.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m grateful for that dirty ditch,” Jace bantered back, waving the hand on his non-
injured arm dismissively. “But mostly because I’ll always treasure the memory of your smug face
covered in mud and horseshit. Too bad photography hadn’t been invented yet.”
The demon let out a roar of laughter as he slapped his hand against the table, knocking a box of
fresh gauze to the faded linoleum floor when its uneven legs quaked.
“Really?” Hesper huffed and leaned down to pick up the container. Cassian whistled approvingly
at her backside, and she rolled her eyes as she stood straight again. “Jace, you better settle down with
someone soon,” she told him as she opened the package and began to wrap his freshly cleaned and
bandaged wound. “I’m not sure how much longer I can put up with having the two oldest frat boys in
the universe under the same roof.”
“Oh, you love us,” Cassian insisted.
 She did, too; her mouth twitched into a half-smile while she worked, giving her away. “I’ll love
you more if I don’t come home to an apartment filled with empty bottles and takeout containers like I
did last night after work.”
Nox was still closed to patrons, but that didn’t stop Tynan, the manager, from asking Hesper and
other staff to help with repairs and restocking. There had been no vodka on the rocks or quickies in
the breakroom for Cassian last night, nor would there be tonight. But that was no problem—at least
not with what Jace and Cassian had planned for the evening: crashing the Messengers’ gala at Nova.
Briefly, Jace thought how he felt like a child again, sitting there while Hesper doted on him,
tending to his wound and scolding his bad behavior. She even looked like their mother, with those
violet-like flecks in her blue eyes and their similar mannerisms. Most startling of all, though, was her
sixth sense that Cassian and Jace might be up to no good somehow. If they thought she wouldn’t
approve of their going to Nova before the shitshow with Xavier at Nox the other night, she most
certainly wouldn’t now.
Best to dispel any suspicions she might have.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Jace joked. “I’ll keep Caz in line.”
Hesper’s eyes narrowed, and she held his stare pointedly as she tied off his wrapping,
intentionally ensuring it was just a little too snug to be comfortable.
Clearly, he’d gotten to her by invoking the mom card.
Jace laughed. “Relax, I’m teasing. You don’t have to cut off my circulation.”
“Have to and want to are completely different things, baby brother,” she told him, smirking, as
she rolled down the sleeve of his T-shirt.
Across the table, Cassian raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what he’s complaining about. You can
tie me up as tight as you like any time, Hesper.”
As she crossed toward the sink to wash her hands, Hesper glanced over her shoulder and gave the
demon a sultry look. “That’s a punishment you only get for good behavior, not bad.”
And here they go. Again …
Two hundred years of flirting, banter, and walking in on the two of them sometimes felt like two
thousand, Jace thought.
No matter. With any luck, he’d be doing the same with Rigel in a few hours.

S HEOL S TREET WAS EVERYTHING its name implied: bleak, rundown, and lawless. Tucked in Nocturna’s
shadows just a few blocks away, it was home to the demons’ red-light district, along with a string of
other seedy businesses. Among them was Perdition, the celestial black market—the largest and most
impressive of its kind that Jace had ever seen.
The marketplace was unusually quiet this evening. Most Messengers were at Nova, not skulking
around in hooded clothes, pretending there were no ivory wings embedded in their backs while they
searched for illegal indulgences and knickknacks smuggled from Themis. That was the thing about the
Messengers: they pretended to be high and mighty, but they groveled in the dirt as much as anyone
else, even if they went about it differently. The brawl at Nox was case in point.
“This is your master plan to get into Nova tonight? A forgery.”
Jace was skeptical as he followed Cassian through the maze of stalls. Each table was piled high
with different items—stardust-imbued shields and daggers, aster wine, silks from Janus—only some
of which were authentic. A figure whose face was hidden behind a black veil watched over a display
of vials, jars, and bottles filled with murky fluid in various colors. Most looked like poisons, others
like preserved body parts. And in a far corner, cages of squawking, snarling creatures had been
stacked to the water-stained ceiling. Jace didn’t want to look closer; the sounds of the animals were
unsettling enough as it was.
This was what demons did when given control of a former pawn shop.
“Ah, but it’s not just any forgery. It’s the forgery—an invitation to Nova made by the greatest there
is,” Cassian insisted, undeterred by Jace’s cynicism. “Dev’s more than an artist, mate. He’s a bloody
miracle worker. Who do you think fakes all the paperwork for anyone trying to leave our little Sin
City paradise here? Dev. Who do you think copied the runes off actual Messenger weaponry to make
the fakes over there look real?” The demon waved his hand vaguely at one of the tables as they
passed. “Dev. And who do you think mimicked—”
“I get it,” Jace interrupted. “It was Dev.”
Cassian chuckled. “All right, no need to get snippy.” He led them past a pair of Watchers arguing
over who saw a set of bronze-toned bracers first, then pointed to a booth toward the center of the
space. “Speak of the devil.”
He picked up his pace, Jace following behind, as they cut behind a couple of stalls to close the
gap between them and the forger.
“Devlin, my man.”
Cassian leaned in to greet the male at the table as though they were old friends, clasping hands
and bumping shoulders. For all Jace knew, they were old friends. He and Cassian were close, but the
demon had deeper ties to the underworld than he did. It was how he’d tracked down his father’s
daggers two hundred years ago.
“I was wondering when you were going to turn up,” Dev said, returning the gestures.
As Cassian pulled away from Dev, Jace saw the latter had a slight frame—he was scrawny, even
—and there was something like a spider in the jerky way he moved his limbs. Like most of the other
proprietors at the black-market stalls, he was also a demon, amber-eyed with a pair of blunt, three-
inch horns curling up through his shaggy raven-black hair.
“This is the famous Jericho, I take it?”
Dev extended his hand to Jace, gripping his palm firmly. Jace opened his mouth to protest the use
of his given name, but Cassian caught his eye and shook his head, so he didn’t. Watcher Jericho,
descendant of the first fallen, probably carried more weight and credibility with Dev’s sort than the
fairly anonymous Watcher Jace did anyway.
“I heard what you did at Nox the other night,” the forger told him. “Thank you for protecting my
sister.”
“Your sister?” Jace echoed. The image of the demon-bride flickered through his mind. Of course.
He saw the resemblance now. “Right. Glad she got away. Wedding’s still on, I hope?”
Dev nodded. “Lola tied the knot last night.”
The male’s overgrown bangs fell across his eyes, covering half his face—along with most of a
long, jagged scar down his cheek, Jace noticed. Demons usually inherited their Watcher parent’s
healing capabilities, which meant one thing: a celestial blade made that mark. Whether that blade had
been wielded by a Messenger or not, Jace could only speculate. But given Dev’s choice in profession
—a job that showed complete disregard for celestial law—he could make an educated guess.
“So, we hate to eat and run, as it were, but have you got our order ready, Dev?” Cassian asked.
“Just finished an hour ago,” the smaller of the two demons replied.
Unlike the tables run by the owners of the other stalls, Dev’s wasn’t covered with trinkets or
swords. His surface was scattered with different types of papers, quills, pens, and wax seals. A pile
of organized chaos. He rifled through the stacks, his ink-stained fingers flipping past half-finished
copies of certificates, letters, and records. Finally, he pulled two small squares of thick, handmade
parchment from the pile. With a pretend flourish, he handed one to Cassian.
“There you have it. An MMF Special,” he announced. There was a fiendish smile on his face, and
he and Cassian exchanged a cackle at whatever inside joke lie between them.
Jace’s lip twitched in a grin, unable to resist. “Okay. I’ll bite. What’s an ‘MMF Special?’”
Dev laughed harder. “A Messenger Mindfuck. My code for anything I make that’s meant to screw
with those assholes at Nova.”
Jace let out a chuckle.
Yes, it was definitely a Messenger who’d cut him.
“I can’t think of anything that’ll chap Xavier’s ass more than seeing you two turn up there tonight
—and there won’t be a damn thing he can do about it because of Astra’s latest order,” the demon
added. His sigh turned pensive, his stare dreamy, as if he was envisioning the look on the general’s
face. “Wish I could be a fly on the wall.”
“This is perfect, mate,” Cassian told Dev. He glanced back and forth between the original
invitation in the forger’s hands and the copy he had been given. “The lettering, the gold watermark—
all of it. Even that holograph in the corner. Well done.”
He flashed the invitation to Jace so he could see for himself.
“They’re identical,” Jace murmured, unable to hide his admiration.
Cassian was right: Dev was good. An artist. Their invitation looked authentic—aside from the
fake names that had been written on it. He and Cassian could spend the ten-minute walk to Nova
arguing over who got to be Messenger Cielo or just his plus-one.
“I told you Dev’s the best,” Cassian boasted, laughing as he nudged the smaller demon with
unmistakable pride. “You know, it pains me to think you’d assumed I hadn’t taken your need to get
your rocks off as seriously as my own. I wouldn’t let you down.”
Jace smirked. “You still owe me from the Woodson incident back in London, if I’m recalling
correctly.”
The taller demon chuckled. “Aww, sweet Woodson—the one that got away. I can’t believe you’re
still pining for him even after all these years. You really do fall fast and hard, mate.”
As if Jace needed the reminder.
“Well, this—” Cassian gave the forged invitation a quick waggle before tucking it into his pocket.
“—Is on me. Consider yourself repaid.” Turning to Dev, he took out his wallet. “How much for your
fine craftmanship, my friend?”
But Dev waved his hand dismissively, and his ochre stare met Jace’s. “On the house. Consider it
a thank-you for helping Lola.”
Cassian put his wallet away again. “Even better.”
At one of the booths they’d passed on their way in, the Watchers were still arguing over the same
pair of bronze bracers. The situation was escalating—a growl of profanity followed by gasps from
passersby who’d paused to watch the disagreement unfold. Then one Watcher shoved the other,
knocking him into the stall. A spray of weapons, scabbards, and leather belts and harnesses flew into
the air behind him, clattering to the ground. In a second, celestial orbs would inevitably join the fray.
“Ooooh, now that doesn’t sound too pleasant,” Cassian said. With a wink, he clapped Jace on the
shoulders and started steering him through Perdition again, this time in the opposite direction from
which they came.
“That’s a tangle we don’t need you to get involved in—not when fair Rigel awaits,” he teased.
 6

CYRUS

N o one could possibly remember all these names, let alone the faces to go along with them,
Cyrus thought.
Recognizing the uselessness of trying, he sipped his wine and smiled politely as he made
small talk with the latest group of celestials Eris was attempting to introduce him to. It didn’t help that
celestials’ names were traditionally drawn from a limited pool of cosmos-inspired words—stars,
planets, astronomical phenomenon. So far, he’d met at least four Stellas, three Lucians, and half the
galaxy’s worth of constellations. They all tended to blend together after a while.
“Las Vegas can be overwhelming. Have you seen much of the city yet, Cyrus?” a blonde celestial
with a fondness for giggling asked.
“Only the Strip.” He glanced quickly at Eris to make sure he’d gotten the name right, and she
nodded. “But I’ve heard from a reliable source that our training coordinator will be expanding our
radius soon enough.”
The female tittered again, understanding that Eris was both the training coordinator and his
reliable source.
“Cyrus and the new arrivals have not yet been to Nocturna,” Eris explained, as though his words
needed further clarification.
Nocturna. Cyrus remembered the name from his training. The area where most Watchers and
demons lived. A place so dangerous the humans’ own police force kept away whenever possible,
leaving the Messengers to uphold their laws instead. And as to be expected, the presence of
Messengers among the Watchers and demons was about as welcome as rain at a picnic. Cyrus and the
other recruits had been advised never to go there unarmed—not if they wanted to keep both their
wings attached to their bodies, anyway.
It was a warning Cyrus took seriously. He had seen the photos of severed, bloodied wings strewn
about the pavement and heard stories of how long they took to grow back. He was no coward, but he
was rather fond of avoiding weeks of bedrest and pain.
Most celestials with an iota of common sense would agree.
Including, apparently, the giggly blonde. At the mention of Nocturna, she raised her brows. “Is that
so? Brace yourself, Cyrus. It’s nothing like it is here. I do hope it doesn’t send you packing.”
“I’m sure it won’t. Nothing can be worse than a run-in with solis wolves, and I can hold my own
with them.”
Her laughter returned, and she reached out to shake his hand. “I’m sure you’re right, but just in
case, it was lovely to meet you.”
 “You, too, Lucy,” he said.
Confusion flickered in the woman’s eyes, and her smile faltered slightly before she turned away.
Strange. Had he done something wrong? He hadn’t thought the customs of celestials on Earth would
be that different from those in Themis—especially considering all the effort the Messengers had put
into ensuring Nova was so similar to their distant home.
Then Eris leaned closer. “That was Lucia,” she whispered in his ear.
Cyrus grimaced. Of course it was. Yet another light-adjacent name. His stare whipped in Lucia’s
direction. She had already made her way around to the other side of a comet-shaped ice sculpture and
was talking to someone else. Too late to apologize. Then their eyes met as Lucia glanced over her
shoulder at him; she frowned as she spoke, clearly gossiping about him to her new companion.
“I’ve offended her,” Cyrus muttered. “Perfect.” He drained the last sip of wine from his glass.
“Day two at Nova, and my list of enemies is already longer than my friends.”
Eris merely patted him on the arm sympathetically. “Fear not, cousin. You’re simply nervous.
Another glass of aster wine will help. I’ll get you one.”
At this point in the evening, Cyrus was on his fourth glass of aster wine and beginning to think the
alcohol might be part of the problem, not a potential solution. But Eris had his empty glass in her hand
before he could protest. His head swam, and his cheeks felt warm as he watched her weave across
the reception room toward the bar in the distance. Surely, the alcohol was stronger here than it had
been back home. Maybe Nevada’s desert heat had something to do with it—maybe the temperature
altered its potency … that, or his tolerance.
Cyrus certainly hoped the explanation was that simple.
“I’ve been looking for you all night.”
Damnit. Xavier was here. And although that fact wasn’t necessarily shocking—Nova was his
home as much as it was now Cyrus’s—it wasn’t a comfort either. He could do with that fresh drink
after all. Hopefully, Eris would hurry.
“Xave.” As the general came to stand beside him, Cyrus offered only a minimalistic greeting: a
curt nod and his name. Considering how their relationship ended back in Themis, acknowledging
Xavier’s presence at all felt terribly generous.
“So, I see you’ve made your way to Las Vegas at last,” Xavier said. He kept his eyes forward,
looking out into the crowd, his hands clasped behind his back. As stoic and impassive as Cyrus
remembered him. “One might almost assume you’ve followed me across the stars.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t realize you were assigned here,” Cyrus said.
“Like I said: almost.”
Cyrus gave a light scoff. “And I’d almost forgotten how arrogant you can be.”
Xavier turned to look at him then. As he stared at his former partner, the celestial’s gaze was as
steady and piercing as it had been yesterday, when they spoke together with Astra. His eyes wandered
slowly over Cyrus’s face as if it had been a hundred years since he had seen the strong lines of his
cleanshaven jaw, admired the way his golden hair drifted haphazardly across his forehead, or counted
the shades of brown that dappled his irises.
Until yesterday, it had been.
“Would it have truly changed your willingness to accept this assignment if you’d known I was
here?” Although Xavier’s voice held its usual confidence, he spoke more softly than usual. He was
uneasy, Cyrus realized. Perhaps he even regretted what had passed between them all those years ago.
But regret was not an apology. And an apology didn’t mean all could be forgiven—and it
certainly didn’t mean all would be forgotten.
 Cyrus looked away again, and his mouth worked silently as he thought about how best to respond.
Saying yes would give Xavier too much power over him; saying no would let him off the hook. And
the truth was that Cyrus didn’t really know the answer to Xavier’s question himself.
In any case, the other male didn’t wait for his reply. “I always knew you’d get here eventually.
You have a way of making the stars align for yourself that I don’t have—and never did.”
“That’s a poor excuse for the things you’ve done, Xave.” In the distance, Cyrus spotted Astra
making her way through the crowd, smiling warmly and shaking hands. “I wonder what our chancellor
would say if she knew everything I do about you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Cyrus thought he saw Xavier’s strong, self-assured expression falter.
He thought he saw his stubbled cheeks grow paler and those broad, muscular shoulders go slack.
“Have you really been carrying this resentment for me within you this entire time?” Xavier’s
voice was strained, as though the idea of Cyrus loathing him for a century was both hurtful and
surprising.
Of course, he could be faking, trying to find and burst through any seam in Cyrus’s heart that he
could find. It wouldn’t be the first time, and now that Cyrus was in Vegas, he doubted it would be the
last of Xavier’s attempts to manipulate him.
He wouldn’t let Xavier succeed.
“Resentment? No,” Cyrus told him. “Regret that I stayed with you as long as I did? Absolutely.”
He couldn’t help himself: his eyes flicked back over to Xavier. He wanted to see—to know, not
just hope for—the hurt in his face.
And there it was.
Xavier took a step back as though he’d been punched in the gut, and his gray eyes turned darker,
stormier. Immediately, guilt spasmed in Cyrus’s chest. After he and Xavier had broken up, he’d spent
many nights struggling to fall asleep, rehearsing what he would say and how he would act at a moment
exactly like this. He’d be indifferent, cool, and biting. He’d be like Xavier himself.
The problem was that treating Xavier the way he treated others didn’t feel half as rewarding as
Cyrus had thought it would. Spite was a part of Xavier’s identity, not his own.
Now, Xavier turned those wounded eyes toward him. “I see,” he said softly. “For what it’s worth,
I’ve thought of you this entire time, too—but with quite a different sentiment.”
The admission caught Cyrus off guard. His breath hitched in his lungs. He wasn’t sure what was
more pathetic: Xavier’s words or the fact that he wanted to believe them—that he did believe them.
Sighing, he stepped forward, following after Xavier as he began to retreat. He should say something,
do something. Just because Xavier could stand to leave things this way between them again didn’t
mean Cyrus could.
Maybe Eris was right about the softness in him after all.
“Xave, wait—”
The brawnier celestial simply shook his head. “You have every reason to be angry still, Cy.
You’re right. I deserve it.”
Cyrus paused, still reaching out to brush Xavier’s arm when he turned and slipped into the crowd.
The latter’s words echoed in his mind. He’d almost have preferred if Xavier had shouted, argued, or
cast aspersions. It would’ve been what he’d expected. But this kindness—this humility—was
unusual.
And it stung.
Xavier’s words stung worse than any insult because they made Cyrus into the villain.
Was that what Xavier intended?
 Frustrated, Cyrus ran a hand through his hair. He loathed this uncertainty, the way Xavier ran
circles around his heart, shaking the once-steady ground beneath him. A hundred years had passed, but
this much hadn’t changed.
Where is Eris with that wine?
Cyrus turned, searching for his cousin, but found himself face to face with Astra instead. The
chancellor stood still, her head tilted to the side, as she watched him, and when their eyes met, she
gave him a sad smile.
“My apologies,” she said. “I did not mean to eavesdrop. I only came to ask how you’re settling
in.”
She could not have been there long. How much had she seen? Heard? While it couldn’t have been
much, it was certainly more than Cyrus preferred. Frowning, he looked down at his feet and shifted
uncomfortably.
“Xave and I have a complicated past.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “It won’t get in the way
of my duties here—you have my word.”
“I didn’t presume that it would,” Astra assured him. She was dressed as elegantly as she had been
yesterday, her wings still exposed. As she stared at Cyrus, her eyes glinted like the precious metals
around her neck. “In fact, I am rather pleased to learn that you’re already acquainted with Messenger
Xavier.”
“You are?” Cyrus felt his brows crease as his gaze whipped toward hers.
Astra glanced around them cautiously a moment, her auburn hair swirling around her shoulders
like a shawl. Finding them suitably alone, she wrapped her arm through Cyrus’s and guided him
toward a secluded corner not far from a wall of windows overlooking the city.
“I am,” she confirmed as they walked. “I’m not sure what they told you about your mission before
you left Themis, but I meant what I said yesterday about the need for keeping the peace. Las Vegas is
not the celestial prison it once was, shortly after the Culling. Watchers and demons are free to enjoy
the city as they see fit. Many choose to remain in the neighborhoods that have traditionally been theirs
—Nocturna, in particular—because it is what they know.”
As they stood by the windows, Astra nodded toward the scene of the darkened city stretched out
before them. In the distance, the main tower of what looked to be another hotel complex or apartment
building caught Cyrus’s attention. The poorly lit, flickering neon sign on the roof was hard to read, but
he’d seen it in pictures. He knew what it said.
Nocturna.
Unlike the other buildings he’d seen along the Strip so far, Nocturna had a lonelier appearance.
For one thing, there were fewer lights in that section of the city—fewer buildings, too, and the ones
that were there seemed squat and shabby. Cyrus suspected that if he looked again in the light of day,
he’d find more with boarded-up windows and collapsed roofs than not. The bland desert and harsh
mountain backdrop did nothing to help the area’s barren, abused feel.
“There’s comfort in the familiar,” Cyrus said, “no matter how bleak the familiar might be.”
“Precisely.” Astra tipped her head in a single nod. “And although the old ways have changed,
there remains much resentment between Messengers and Watchers because of the poor choices both
sides have made in the past. That resentment has given way to tension—and that tension to violence.”
“Hence the order Eris mentioned yesterday forbidding bloodshed between celestials,” Cyrus
murmured.
“Correct. We are enemies, but we needn’t be. I would like to put an end to this strife.”
“And that’s where I come in?”
 “You and the other new arrivals from Themis, yes.” Astra looked up at him. “You are here to help
me keep the Messengers in line, to ensure they don’t overstep their boundaries or provoke further
animosity among our kind.”
There was an expectant glint in her eyes, as though her words had only scratched the surface of
her true intentions for him. Cyrus studied her a moment, puzzled, struggling to read between the lines.
Then he heard Xavier’s voice from across the room. The male was standing on the periphery of a
group of Messengers while one of them recounted a story about a brawl at some bar called Nox. The
ringleader—who was loud-voiced and seemed to have a perpetual smirk frozen on his face—
brightened as soon as he spotted him.
“Isn’t that right, general?” he asked, drawing Xavier into the conversation.
“It’s true,” Xavier replied. “The bride-to-be was a demon.”
“See, everyone?” The ringleader’s expression turned smug, as though some wild twist in his tale
had just been confirmed.
Astra frowned as, together, they watched the group.
And Cyrus understood immediately. “You wish for me to spy on Xave?”
The idea made his stomach clench and his spine turn to ice. He ran a hand along the back of his
neck, feeling the prickles that had formed on his skin, and thought about how he’d threatened Xavier
with telling Astra about his indiscretions a few moments ago. Even when he’d said the words, he’d
known they were a lie; he never could. Betrayal came naturally, easily, to Xavier, but it didn’t for
Cyrus. Neither did revenge.
Yet Astra shook her head, and an amused grin played at the corners of her mouth. “Think of it
more as taking the opportunity to steer him toward peace. He knows you, trusts you—even if you
don’t trust him. He will listen to you if you advise him against something. He will want to please
you.”
Her eyes flicked toward Xavier again, and Cyrus’s gaze followed. The cluster of celestials had
grown around him. Even with his lips creased in a hard line and his arms crossed sternly over his
chest, it was clear the others admired him, craved his approval. He was a natural leader—always had
been. Whatever he believed, the rest would, too, and if Cyrus could influence him favorably, how
could that be so bad?
Perhaps Astra was onto something. Steering wasn’t spying. It was being Xavier’s compass, subtly
drawing him toward good, being the Messenger’s North Star. Xavier was a one-being wrecking ball,
a single-minded force capable of inflicting damage wherever he went, even upon those he claimed to
love. Cyrus knew this firsthand. And although he hadn’t planned to put himself in his ex’s path again,
he couldn’t turn his back on the chance to prevent him from hurting others, could he?
“I won’t manipulate him,” Cyrus said at last, focusing on Astra once more. “I won’t take
advantage of his feelings for me or lead him on. I can’t do that to him … or to myself.”
He hurriedly added the last part, remembering how Xavier had a way of taking anything Cyrus
offered him—and then some. The other male was an emotional glutton, thieving from Cyrus’s heart as
though it was an endless cavern of fine gems and rare metals. It had taken Cyrus far too long to
reassemble the pieces of his life after leaving Xavier. He would not subject himself to that torment all
over again.
“Of course not, Cyrus, nor would I ask you to.” Astra placed a hand on his forearm as if to
reassure him. “That would be cruel and unfair to you both. I am not interested in causing pain, only
healing it—for all of us.”
Skeptical, Cyrus glanced back over at Xavier. Eris was among the bystanders clinging to his
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
There are six of these strange compositions, upon the stories of
David and Goliath, of David and Saul, of Jacob and Leah, and
others. Some years later they undoubtedly suggested to Sebastian
Bach the delicate little capriccio which he wrote upon the departure
of his brother for the wars. Apart from this they are of slight
importance except as indications of the experimental frame of mind
of their composer. Indeed, beyond imitation and to a small extent
description, neither harpsichord nor pianoforte music has been able
to make much progress in the direction of program music.

Kuhnau’s musical narratives were published in August, 1700. Earlier

than this he had published his famous Sonata aus dem B. The work
so named was appended to Kuhnau’s second series of suites or
Partien. It has little to recommend it to posterity save its name, which
here appears in the history of clavier music for the first time. Nor
does this name designate a form of music akin to the sonatas of the
age of Mozart and Beethoven, a form most particularly associated
with the pianoforte. Kuhnau merely appropriated it from music for
string instruments. There it stood in the main for a work which was
made up of several movements like the suite, but which differed from
the suite in depending less upon rhythm and in having a style more
dignified than that which had grown out of experiments with dance
tunes. In addition, the various movements which constituted a
sonata were not necessarily in the same key. Here alone it
possessed a possible advantage over the suite. Yet though in other
respects it cannot compare favorably to our ears with the suite,
Kuhnau cherished the dignity of style and name with which tradition
had endowed it. These he attempted to bestow upon music for the
clavier.[6]

The various movements lack definite form and balance. The first is in
rather heavy chord style, the chords being supported by a dignified
counterpoint in eighth notes. This leads without pause into a fugue
on a figure of lively sixteenth notes. The key is B-flat major. There
follows a short adagio in E-flat major, modulating to end in C minor,
in which key the last movement, a short allegro in triple time, is taken
up. The whole is rounded off by a return to the opening movement,
signified by the sign Da Capo.

Evidently pleased with this innovation, Kuhnau published in 1696 a

set of seven more sonatas called Frische Clavier Früchte. These
show no advance over the Sonata aus dem B in mastery of musical
structure. Still they are evidence of the efforts of one man among
many to give clavier music a life of its own and to bring it in
seriousness and dignity into line with the best instrumental music of
the day, namely, with the works of such men as Corelli, Purcell, and
Vivaldi. That he was unable to do this the verdict of future years
seems to show. The attempt was none the less genuine and
influential.

In the matter of structure, then, the seventeenth century worked out

and tested but a few principles which were to serve as foundation for
the masterpieces of keyboard music in the years to come. But these,
though few, were of vast importance. Chief among them was the
new principle of harmony. This we now, in the year 1700, find at the
basis of fugue, of prelude and toccata, and of dance form, not
always perfectly grasped but always in evidence. Musical form now
and henceforth is founded upon the relation and contrast of keys.

Consistently to hold to one thematic subject throughout a piece in

polyphonic style, skillfully to contrast or weave with that secondary
subjects, mark another stage of development passed. The fugue is
the result, now articulate, though awaiting its final glory from the
hand of J. S. Bach. To write little dance pieces in neat and precise
form is an art likewise well mastered; and to combine several of
these, written in the same key, in an order which, by affording
contrast of rhythms, can stir the listener’s interest and hold his
attention, is the established rule for the first of the so-called cyclic
forms, prototype of the symphony and sonata of later days. Such
were the great accomplishments of the musicians of the seventeenth
century in the matter of form.
 V
In the matter of style, likewise, much was accomplished. We have
had occasion frequently to point out that in the main the harpsichord
remained throughout the first half of the seventeenth century under
the influence of the organ. For this instrument a conjunct or legato
style has proved to be most fitting. Sudden wide stretches,
capricious leaps, and detached runs seldom find a place in the
texture of great organ music. The organist strives for a smoothness
of style compatible with the dignity of the instrument, and this
smoothness may be taken as corollary to the fundamental
relationship between organ music and the vocal polyphony of the
sixteenth century.

On the other hand, by comparison with the vocal style, the organ
style is free. Where the composer of masses was restricted by the
limited ability of the human voice to sing wide intervals accurately,
the organist was limited only by the span of the hand. Where
Palestrina could count only upon the ear of his singers to assure
accurate intonation, the organist wrote for a keyboard which,
supposing the organ to be in tune, was a mechanism that of itself
could not go wrong. Given, as it were, a physical guarantee of
accuracy as a basis for experiment, the organist was free to devise
effects of sheer speed or velocity of which voices would be utterly
incapable. He had a huge gamut of sounds equally at his command,
a power that could be mechanically bridled or let loose. His
instrument could not be fatigued while boys could be hired to pump
the bellows. So long as his finger held down a key, or his foot a
pedal, so long would the answering note resound, diminishing,
increasing, increasing, diminishing, according to his desire, never
exhausted.

Therefore we find in organ music, rapid scales, arpeggios rising from

depths, falling from heights, new figures especially suited to the
organ, such as the ‘rocking’ figure upon which Bach built his well-
known organ fugue in D minor; deep pedal notes, which endure
immutably while above them the artist builds a castle of sounds;
interlinked chords marching up and down the keyboard, strong with
dissonance. There are trills and ornamental turns, rapid thirds and
sixths. And in all these things organ music displays what is its own,
not what it has inherited from choral music.

Yet, notwithstanding the magnificent chord passages so in keeping

with the spirit of the instrument, in which only the beauty of harmonic
sequence is considered, the treatment of musical material by the
organists is prevailingly polyphonic. The sound of a given piece is
the sound of many quasi-independent parts moving along together,
in which definite phrases or motives constantly reappear. The
harmony on which the whole rests is not supplied by an
accompaniment, but by the movement of the several voice-parts
themselves in their appointed courses. And it may be said as a
generality that these parts progress by steps not wider than that
distance the hand can stretch upon the keyboard.

During the first half of the seventeenth century the harpsichord was
but the echo of the organ. Even the collections of early English
virginal music, which in some ways seem to offer a brilliant
exception, are the work of men who as instrumentalists were
primarily organists. In so far as they achieved an instrumental style
at all it was usually a style fitting to a small organ. The few cases
where John Bull’s cleverness displayed itself in almost a true
virtuoso style are exceptions which prove the rule. Not until the time
of Chambonnières and Froberger do we enter upon a second stage.

About the middle of the seventeenth century Chambonnières was

famous over Europe as a performer upon the harpsichord. As first
clavicinist at the court of France, his manner of playing may be taken
to represent the standard of excellence at that time. Constantine
Huygens, a Dutch amateur exceedingly well-known in his day,
mentions him many times in his letters with unqualified admiration,
always as a player of the harpsichord, or as a composer for that
instrument. Whatever skill he may have had as an organist did not
contribute to his fame; and his two sets of pieces for harpsichord,
published after his death in 1670, show the beginnings of a distinct
differentiation between harpsichord and organ style.
Title page of Kuhnan's "Neue Clavier-Übung".
The harpsichord possesses in common with the organ its keyboard
or keyboards, which render the playing of solid chords possible. The
lighter action of the harpsichord gives it the advantage over the
organ in the playing of rapid passages, particularly of those light
ornamental figures used as graces or embellishments, such as trills,
mordents, and turns. A further comparison with the organ, however,
reveals in the harpsichord only negative qualities. It has no volume
of sound, no power to sustain tones, no deep pedal notes.
Consequently the smooth polyphonic style which sounds rich and
flowing on the organ, sounds dry and thin upon the weaker
instrument. The composer who would utilize to advantage what little
sonority there is in the harpsichord must be free to scatter notes here
and there which have no name or place in the logic of polyphony, but
which make his music sound well. Voice parts must be interrupted,
notes taken from nowhere and added to chords. The polyphonic web
becomes disrupted, but the harpsichord profits by the change. It is
Chambonnières who probably first wrote in such a style for the
harpsichord.

He learned little of it from what had been written for the organ, but
much from music for the lute, which, quite as late as the middle of
the century, was interchangeable with the harpsichord in
accompaniments, and was held to be equal if not superior as a solo
instrument. It was vastly more difficult to play, and largely for this
reason fell into disuse. The harpsichord is by nature far nearer akin
to it than to the organ. The free style which lutenists were driven to
invent by the almost insuperable difficulties of their instrument, is
nearly as suitable to the harpsichord as it is to the lute. Without
doubt the little pieces of Denis Gaultier were played upon the
harpsichord by many an amateur who had not been able to master
the lute. The skilled lutenist would find little to give him pause in the
harpsichord music of Chambonnières. The quality of tone of both
instruments is very similar. For neither is the strict polyphony of
organ music appropriate; for the lute it is impossible. Therefore it fell
to the lutenists first to invent the peculiar instrumental style in which
lie the germs of the pianoforte style; and to point to their cousins,
players of the harpsichord, the way towards independence from
organ music.

Froberger came under the influence of Denis Gaultier and

Chambonnières during the years he spent in Paris, and he adopted
their style and made it his own. He wrote, it is true, several sets of
ricercars, capriccios, canzonas, etc., for organ or harpsichord, and in
these the strict polyphonic style prevails, according to the
conventionally more serious nature of the compositions. But his fame
rests upon the twenty-eight suites and fragments of suites which he
wrote expressly for the harpsichord. These are closely akin to lute
music, and from the point of view of style are quite as effective as
the music of Chambonnières. In harmony they are surprisingly rich.
Be it noted, too, in passing, that they are not lacking in emotional
warmth. Here is perhaps the first harpsichord music which demands
beyond the player’s nimble fingers his quick sympathy and
imagination—qualities which charmed in Froberger’s own playing.

Kuhnau as a stylist is far less interesting than Froberger, upon

whose style, however, his clavier suites are founded. His importance
rests in the attempts he made to adapt the sonata to the clavier, in
his experiments with descriptive music, and in the influence he had
upon his contemporaries and predecessors, notably Bach and
Handel. Froberger is the real founder of pianoforte music in
Germany, and beyond him there is but slight advance either in style
or matter until the time of Sebastian Bach.

What we may now call the harpsichord style, as exemplified in the

suites of Chambonnières and Froberger, is relatively free. Both
composers had a fondness for writing in four parts, but these parts
are not related to each other, nor woven together unbrokenly as in
the polyphonic style of the organ. They cannot often be clearly
followed throughout a given piece. The upper voice carries the music
along, the others accompany. The arrangement is not wholly an
inheritance from the lute, but is in keeping with the general tendency
in all music, even at times in organ music, toward the monodic style,
of which the growing opera daily set the model.

But the harpsichord style of this time is by no means a simple

system of melody and accompaniment. Though the three voice parts
which support the fourth dwell together often in chords, they are not
without considerable independent movement. They constitute the
harmonic background, as it were, which, though serving as
background, does not lack animation and character in itself. In other
words, we have a contrapuntal, not a polyphonic, style.

A marked feature of the music is the profuse number of graces and

embellishments. These rapid little figures may be akin to the vocal
embellishments which even at the beginning of the seventeenth
century were discussed in theoretical books; but they seem to flower
from the very nature of the harpsichord, the light tone and action of
which made them at once desirable and possible. They are but
vaguely indicated in the manuscripts, and there can be no certainty
as to what was the composer’s intention or his manner of
performance. Doubtless they were left to the discretion of the player.
At any rate for a century more the player took upon himself the
liberty of ornamenting any composer’s music to suit his own whim.
These agrémens[7] were held to be and doubtless were of great
importance. Kuhnau, in the preface to his Frische Clavier Früchte,
speaks of them as the sugar to sweeten the fruit, even though he left
them much to the taste of players; and Emanuel Bach in the second
half of the eighteenth century devoted a large part of his famous
book on playing the clavier to an analysis and minute explanation of
the host of them that had by then become stereotyped. They have
not, however, come down into pianoforte music. It is questionable if
they can be reproduced on the pianoforte, the heavy tone of which
obscures the delicacy which was their charm. They must ever
present difficulty to the pianist who attempts to make harpsichord
music sound again on the instrument which has inherited it.

The freedom from polyphonic restraint, inherited from the lute, and
the profusion of graces which have sprouted from the nature of the
harpsichord, mark the diversion between music for the harpsichord
and music for the organ. In other respects they are still much the
same; that is to say, the texture of harpsichord music is still close—
restricted by the span of the hand. This is not necessarily a sign of
dependence on the organ, but points rather to the young condition of
the art. It is not to be expected that the full possibilities of an
instrument will be revealed to the first composers who write for it
expressly. They lie hidden along the way which time has to travel.
But Chambonnières, in France, and Froberger, in Germany, opened
up the special road for harpsichord music, took the first step which
others had but to follow.

Neither in France nor in Germany did the next generation penetrate

beyond. Le Gallois, a contemporary of Chambonnières, has
remarked that of the great player’s pupils only one, Hardelle, was
able to approach his master’s skill. Among those who carried on his
style, however, must be mentioned d’Anglebert,[8] Le Begue,[9] and
Louis and François Couperin, relatives of the great Couperin to
come.

In Germany Georg and Gottlieb Muffat stand nearly alone with

Kuhnau in the progress of harpsichord music between Froberger and
Sebastian Bach. Georg Muffat spent six years in Paris and came
under French influence as Froberger had come, but his chief
keyboard works (Apparatus Musico Organisticus (1690)) are twelve
toccatas more suited to organ than to harpsichord. In 1727 his son
Gottlieb had printed in Vienna Componimenti musicali per il
cembalo, which show distinctly the French influence. Kuhnau looms
up large chiefly on account of his sonatas, which are in form and
extent the biggest works yet attempted for clavier. By these he
pointed toward a great expansion of the art; but as a matter of fact
little came of it. In France, Italy, and Germany the small forms were
destined to remain the most popular in harpsichord music; and the
sonatas and concertos of Bach are immediately influenced by study
of the Italian masters, Corelli and Vivaldi.
In Italy, the birthplace of organ music and so of a part of harpsichord
music, interest in keyboard music of any kind declined after the
death of Frescobaldi in 1644, and was replaced by interest in opera
and in music for the violin. Only one name stands out in the second
half of the century, Bernardo Pasquini, of whose work, unhappily,
little remains. He was famous over the world as an organist, and the
epitaph on his tombstone gives him the proud title of organist to the
Senate and People of Rome. Also he was a skillful performer on the
harpsichord; but he is more nearly allied to the old polyphonic school
than to the new. A number of works for one and for two harpsichords
are preserved in manuscript in the British Museum, and these are
named sonatas. Some are actually suites, but those for two
harpsichords have little trace of dance music or form and may be
considered as much sonatas as those works which Kuhnau
published under the same title. All of Kuhnau’s sonatas appeared
before 1700 and the date on the manuscript in the British Museum is
1704. Pasquini was then an old man, and it is very probable that
these sonatas were written some years earlier; in which case he and
not Kuhnau may claim the distinction of first having written music for
the harpsichord on the larger plan of the violin concerto and the
sonatas of Corelli.[10]

Two books of toccatas by Alessandro Scarlatti give that facile

composer the right to be numbered among the great pioneers in the
history of harpsichord music. These toccatas are in distinct
movements, usually in the same key, but sharply contrasted in
content. The seventh is a theme and variations, in which Scarlatti
shows an appreciation of tonal effects and an inventiveness which
are astonishingly in advance of the time. He foreshadows
unmistakably the brilliant style of his son Domenico; indeed, he
accounts in part for what has seemed the marvellous instinct of
Domenico. If, as is most natural, Domenico approached the
mysteries of the harpsichord through his father, he began his career
with advantages denied to all others contemporary with him, save
those who, like Grieco, received that father’s training. Alessandro
Scarlatti was one of the most greatly endowed of all musicians. The
trend of the Italian opera during the eighteenth century toward utter
senselessness has been often laid partly to his influence; but in the
history of harpsichord music that influence makes a brilliant showing
in the work of his son, who contributed perhaps more than any other
one man to the technique of writing not only for harpsichord but for
pianoforte.

Little of the harpsichord and clavichord music of the seventeenth

century is heard today. It has in the main only an historical interest.
The student who looks into it will be amazed at some of its beauties;
but as a whole it lacks the variety and emotional strength which
claim a general attention. Nevertheless it is owing to the labor and
talent of the composers of these years that the splendid
masterpieces of a succeeding era were possible. They helped
establish the harmonic foundation of music; they molded the fugue,
the prelude, the toccata, and the suite; they developed a general
keyboard style. After the middle of the century such men as
Froberger and Kuhnau in Germany, Chambonnières, d’Anglebert,
and Louis and François Couperin in France, and Alessandro
Scarlatti in Italy, finally gave to harpsichord music a special style of
its own, and to the instrument an independent and brilliant place
among the solo instruments of that day. Out of all the confusion and
uncertainty attendant upon the breaking up of the old art of vocal
polyphony, the enthusiasm of the new opera, the creation of a new
harmonic system, the rise of an instrumental music independent of
words, these men slowly and steadily secured for the harpsichord a
kingdom peculiarly its own.
 FOOTNOTES:
[1] It should be noted in passing that during the early stages of the growth of
polyphonic music, roughly from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, composers
had brought over into their vocal music a great deal of instrumental technique or
style, which had been developed on the crude organs, and on the accompanying
instruments of the troubadours. In the period which we are about to treat the
reverse is very plainly the case.

[2] At the head of Sebastian Bach’s Musikalisches Opfer stands the Latin
superscription: Regis Iussu Cantio et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta. The initial
letters form the word ricercar.

[3] Cf. Vol. VI, Chap. XV.

[4] Suites were known in England as ‘lessons,’ in France as ordres, in Germany as

Partien, and in Italy as sonate da camera.

[5] There was a form of suite akin to the variation form. In this the same melody or
theme served for the various dance movements, being treated in the style of the
allemande, courante, or other dances chosen. Cf. Peurl’s Pavan, Intrada, Dantz,
and Gaillarde (1611); and Schein’s Pavan, Gailliarde, Courante, Allemande, and
Tripla (1617). This variation suite is rare in harpsichord music. Froberger’s suite on
the old air, Die Mayerin, is a conspicuous exception.

[6] 'Denn warum sollte man auf dem Clavier nicht eben wie auf anderen
Instrumenten dergleichen Sachen tractieren können?’ he writes in his preface to
the ‘Seven New Partien,’ 1692.

[7] So they were called in France, which until the time of Beethoven set the model
for harpsichord style. In Germany they were called Manieren.

[8] D’Anglebert published in 1689 a set of pieces, for the harpsichord, containing
twenty variations on a melody known as Folies d’Espagne, later immortalized by
Corelli.

[9] Le Begue (1630-1702) published Pièces de clavecin in 1677.

[10] See J. S. Shedlock: ‘The Pianoforte Sonata,’ London, 1895.

 CHAPTER II
THE GOLDEN AGE OF HARPSICHORD
MUSIC
The period and the masters of the ‘Golden Age’—Domenico
Scarlatti; his virtuosity; Scarlatti’s ‘sonatas’; Scarlatti’s technical
effects; his style and form; æsthetic value of his music; his
contemporaries—François Couperin, le Grand; Couperin’s
clavecin compositions; the ‘musical portraits’; ‘program music’—
The quality and style of his music; his contemporaries, Daquin
and Rameau—John Sebastian Bach; Bach as virtuoso; as
teacher; his technical reform; his style—Bach’s fugues and their
structure—The suites of Bach: the French suites, the English
suites, the Partitas—The preludes, toccatas and fantasies;
concertos; the ‘Goldberg Variations’—Bach’s importance; his
contemporary Handel.

In round figures the years between 1700 and 1750 are the Golden
Age of harpsichord music. In that half century not only did the
technique, both of writing for and performing on the harpsichord,
expand to its uttermost possibilities, but there was written for it music
of such beauty and such emotional warmth as to challenge the best
efforts of the modern pianist and to call forth the finest and deepest
qualities of the modern pianoforte.

It was an age primarily of opera, of the Italian opera with its

senseless, threadbare plots, its artificial singers idolized in every
court, its incredible, extravagant splendor. The number of operas
written is astonishing, the wild enthusiasm of their reception hardly
paralleled elsewhere in the history of music. Yet of these many works
but an air or two has lived in the public ear down to the present day;
whereas the harpsichord music still is heard, though the instrument
for which it was written has long since vanished from our general
musical life.

Practically the whole seventeenth century has been required to lay

down a firm foundation for the development of instrumental music in
all its branches. This being well done, the music of the next epoch is
not unaccountably surprising. As soon as principles of form had
become established, composers trod, so to speak, upon solid
ground; and, sure of their foothold, were free to make rapid progress
in all directions. In harpsichord music few new forms appeared. The
toccata, prelude, fugue, and suite offered room enough for all the
expansion which even great genius might need. Within these limits
the growth was twofold: in the way of virtuosity and refinement of
style, and in the way of emotional expression. That music which
expands at once in both directions, or in which, rather, the two
growths are one and the same, is truly great music. Such we shall
now find written for the harpsichord.

Each of the three men whose work is the chief subject of this chapter
is conspicuous in the history of music by a particular feature.
Domenico Scarlatti is first and foremost a great virtuoso, Couperin
an artist unequalled in a very special refinement of style, Sebastian
Bach the instrument of profound emotion. In these features they
stand sharply differentiated one from the other. These are the
essential marks of their genius. None, of course, can be
comprehended in such a simple characterization. Many of Scarlatti’s
short pieces have the warmth of genuine emotion, and Couperin’s
little works are almost invariably the repository of tender and naïve
sentiment. Bach is perhaps the supreme master in music and should
not be characterized at all except to remind that his vast skill is but
the tool of his deeply-feeling poetic soul.
 I
It will be noticed that each of these great men speaks of a different
race. We may consider Scarlatti first as spokesman in harpsichord
music of the Italians, who at that time had made their mark so deep
upon music that even now it has not been effaced, nor is likely to be.
His father, Alessandro, was the most famous and the most gifted
musician in Europe. From Naples he set the standard for the opera
of the world, and in Naples his son Domenico was born on October
26, 1685, a few months only after the birth of Sebastian Bach in
Eisenach. Domenico lived with his father and under his father’s
guidance until 1705, when he set forth to try his fame. He lived a few
years in Venice and there met Handel in 1708, with whom he came
back to Rome. Here in Rome, at the residence of Corelli’s patron,
Cardinal Ottoboni, took place the famous contest on organ and
harpsichord between him and Handel. For Handel he ever professed
a warm friendship and the most profound admiration.

He remained for some years in Rome, at first in the service of Marie

Casimire, queen of Poland, later as maestro di capella at St. Peter’s.
In 1719 came a journey to London in order to superintend
performances of his operas. From 1721 to 1725 he seems to have
been installed at the court of Lisbon; and then, after four years in
Naples, he accepted a position at the Spanish court in Madrid. Just
how long he stayed there is not known. In 1754 he was back again in
Naples, and in Naples he died in 1757, seven years after the death
of Bach.

Scarlatti wrote many operas in the style of his father, and these were
frequently performed, with success, in Italy, England, Spain, and
elsewhere. During his years at St. Peter’s he also wrote sacred
music; but his fame now rests wholly upon his compositions for the
harpsichord and upon the memory of the extraordinary skill with
which he played them.

We have dwelt thus briefly upon a few events of his life to show how
widely he had travelled and in how many places his skill as a player
must have been admired. That in the matter of virtuosity he was
unexcelled can hardly be doubted. It is true that in the famous
contest with Handel he came off the loser on the organ, and even his
harpsichord playing was doubted to excel that of his Saxon friend.
But these contests were a test of wits more than of fingers, a trial of
extempore skill in improvising fugues and double fugues, not of
virtuosity in playing.

Two famous German musicians, J. J. Quantz and J. A. Hasse, both

heard him and both marvelled at his skill. Monsieur L’Augier, a gifted
amateur whom Dr. Burney visited in Vienna, told a story of Scarlatti
and Thomas Roseingrave,[11] in which he related that when
Roseingrave first heard Scarlatti play, he was so astonished that he
would have cut off his own fingers then and there, had there been an
instrument at hand wherewith to perform the operation; and, as it
was, he went months without touching the harpsichord again.

Whom he had to thank for instruction is not known. There is nothing

in his music to suggest that he was ever a pupil of Bernardo
Pasquini, who, however, was long held to have been his master. J.
S. Shedlock, in his ‘History of the Pianoforte Sonata,’ suggests that
he learned from Gaëtano Greco or Grieco, a man a few years his
senior and a student under his father; but it would seem far more
likely that Domenico profited immediately from his father, who, we
may see from a letter to Ferdinand de’ Medici, dated May 30, 1705,
had watched over his son’s development with great care. It must not
be forgotten that Alessandro Scarlatti’s harpsichord toccatas,
described in the previous chapter, are, in spite of a general
heaviness, often enlivened by astonishing devices of virtuosity.

Scarlatti wrote between three and four hundred pieces for the
harpsichord. The Abbé Santini[12] possessed three hundred and
forty-nine. Scarlatti himself published in his lifetime only one set of
thirty pieces. These he called exercises (esercizii) for the
harpsichord. The title is significant. Before 1733 two volumes, Pièces
pour le clavecin, were published in Paris; and some time between
1730 and 1737 forty-two ‘Suites of Lessons’ were published in
London under the supervision of Roseingrave. More were printed in
London in 1752. Then came Czerny’s edition, which includes two
hundred pieces; and throughout the nineteenth century various
selections and arrangements have appeared from time to time, von
Bülow having arranged several pieces in the order of suites, Tausig
having elaborated several in accordance with the modern pianoforte.
A complete and authoritative edition has at last been prepared by
Sig. Alessandro Longo and has been printed in Italy by Ricordi and
Company.

By far the greater part of these many pieces are independent of each
other. Except in a few cases where Scarlatti, probably in his youth,
followed the model of his father’s toccatas, he keeps quite clear of
the suite cycle. The pieces have been called sonatas, but they are
not for the most part in the form called the sonata form. This form
(which is the form in which one piece or movement may be cast and
is not to be confused with the sequence or arrangement of
movements in the classical sonata) is, as we shall later have ample
opportunity to observe, a tri-partite or ternary form; whereas the so-
called sonatas of Scarlatti are in the two-part or binary form, which
is, as we have seen, the form of the separate dance movements in
the suite. Each ‘sonata’ is, like the dance movements, divided into
two sections, usually of about equal length, both of which are to be
repeated in their turn. In general, too, the harmonic plan is the same
or nearly the same as that which underlies the suite movement, the
first section modulating from tonic to dominant, the second back from
dominant to tonic. But within these limits Scarlatti allows himself
great freedom of modulation. It is, in fact, this harmonic expansion
within the binary form which makes one pause to give Scarlatti an
important place in the development of the sonata form proper.

The harmonic variety of the Scarlatti sonatas is closely related to the

virtuosity of their composer. He spins a piece out of, usually, but not
always, two or three striking figures, by repeating them over and
over again in different places of the scale or in different keys. His
very evident fondness for technical formulæ is thus gratified and the
piece is saved from monotony by its shifting harmonies.
A favorite and simple shift is from major to minor. This he employs
very frequently. For example, in a sonata in G major, No. 2 of the
Breitkopf and Härtel collection of twenty sonatas[13] measures 13,
14, 15, and 16, in D major, are repeated immediately in A major. In
20, 21, 22, and 23, the same style of figure and rhythm appears in D
major and is at once answered in D minor. Toward the end of the
second part of the piece the process is duplicated in the tonic key. In
the following sonata at the top of page seven occurs another similar
instance. It is one of the most frequent of his mannerisms.

The repetition of favorite figures is by no means always

accompanied by a change of key. The two-measure phrase
beginning in the fifteenth measure of the third sonata is repeated
three times note for note; a few measures later another figure is
treated in the same fashion; and in yet a third place, all in the first
section of this sonata, the trick is turned again. Indeed, there are
very few of Scarlatti’s sonatas in which he does not play with his
figures in this manner.

We have said that often he varies his key when thus repeating
himself, and that such variety saves from monotony. But it must be
added that even where there is no change of key he escapes being
tedious to the listener. The reason must be sought in the sprightly
nature of the figures he chooses, and in the extremely rapid speed at
which they are intended to fly before our ears. He is oftenest a
dazzling virtuoso whose music appeals to our bump of wonder, and,
when well played, leaves us breathless and excited.

The pieces are for the most part extremely difficult; and this, together
with his ever-present reiteration of special harpsichord figures, may
well incline us to look upon them as fledgling études. The thirty
which Scarlatti himself chose to publish he called esercizii, or
exercises. We may not take the title too literally, bearing in mind that
Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord’ was intended for practice, as
were many of Kuhnau’s suites. But that Scarlatti’s sonatas are
almost invariably built up upon a few striking, difficult and oft-
repeated figures, makes their possible use as technical practice