I trace my gaze to follow the arm and see that the hand belongs to Fem, whose face is full of concern as he looks at me.
“Just lie still,” he says quietly. “It seems you were injured at our concert, and we all take that upon our shoulders.”
Before I understand it, consciously, I’m shaking my head at him, but even as I deny it, I see him opening his mouth to protest.
Before he can express what he’s feeling, I hear one of the other boys say, “We should have had you backstage. If we’d realized the crowd would be like that, we would have.”
As the sound moves, I try to track it, but my vision is still grey at the edges, and I have to blink a few times. When my eyes can focus, I see Reem there, alongside Fem. They look at each other, their expressions saying something in a language I don’t understand.
Still unable to focus, I hear Fem say, “One of our acquaintancesfound you, got you bandaged up, and brought you back here. I think you might know him? His name is Malam.”
I nod weakly, which Fem seems to note.
“I tried to take the bandage off to tend to you, but it doesn’t look right. I should have been able to help, but it seems the wound was infected somehow. We are having a healer stop by to check your injury, as this is beyond my abilities,” Fem says quietly.
“For now, just rest,” one of them says.
It doesn't matter who, as unconsciousness pulls me into blackness even as the last word is spoken.
As I descend into blackness, more dreams greet me. There are people and shapes and sounds, but no map to follow to understand what is happening. Small things stand out to me.
Shapes written in ash on a table top that some part of me recognizes as runes. There are many runes on the table top. It is in a place I don’t recognize, and there seems to be the ghost of a woman standing behind it. Even as I try to see her more clearly, the dream pulls away.
Then I watch as blood from a cut on someone’s hand is traced into a shape. The hand that contains the cut is masculine, with long, blunt fingers. Tattoos peek out, just showing at the wrist from beneath long sleeves.
Then there is a dream of a young woman who is looking at me with wonder in her gaze. It makes me uncomfortable until I register that she’s looking not at me butthrough me. I turn to see an angel standing behind me, and even as I finish turning, the angel throws a knife.
As I brace for the painful impact, the knife passes through me. I whirl just quickly enough to see it strike the young woman in the middle of her forehead before she drops to the ground bonelessly. I rush to her, feeling desperately that this is something which should not come to pass. Tears wet my cheeks as I crouch over her body, somehow loving her even while I don’t know who she is. Then, out of sudden darkness, a crow flies directly at my face with a scream, and I’m removed from the dream.
My eyes open as I return to consciousness, and, blinking, I see the black ceiling above the four-poster bed in my room at the boys’ house. There are voices, and I turn to see Fem standing at the side of the bed, Reem again behind him.
“Lay still,” he says quietly, “we have the healer.”
Even as I find the meaning of his words and begin to understand, I find that some of the pain and most of the dizziness are gone. The clouds have also cleared from my vision. I feel well enough that I wonder if I even need a healer.
The look I see on Fem’s face, even in the dim candlelit room, tells me he doesn’t share that thought. Since Fem is more experienced with this, I remain quiet as another form enters this space.
The form moves to the side of the bed. Something in me screams silently, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. They wear a cloak with the hood upon their head in a way that hides their face. They look at me, but I cannot see them through the shadows, and then they turn to Fem and Reem.
“Leave us,” they say, and the two boys comply without another word.
The door closes, and the form lowers the hood. As I behold their face, a hiss slips unbidden from my lips. I push myself to stand, stepping back to lean against the wall at the head of the bed.
In the same way, I knew the sword would be found upon the carriage, I know this time that the only weapons in this house do not reside in this room. I am cornered away from the only exit, so I crouch, trapped and injured, while the angel regards me.
They are neither clearly girl nor boy. They are pale with light blue eyes and dark brown hair that just caresses their jawline, the strands curling gently. A scar streaks across one cheek from their chin to their lower eyelid. Under the cloak, they look to be slender and fit, and that same innate sense tells me they are skilled with a blade. That sense also tells me they don’t carry one at this moment.
What has made me move away so quickly, however, is not the bright wings that appeared at their back but instead some sense of them that came to me when they entered the room. As with the other angel, the wings are not corporeal and instead seem to be made of light. The opposite of the wings of shadow that Malam possesses, a nimbus of light, instead of a nimbus of dark.
Unbidden, the memory of the angel I killed as he slumped to the ground plays in my mind’s eye.
They tilt their head as they regard me. “You are so small and meek to have killed one of us,” they say in a raspy voice that doesn’t feel as though it fits them.
I stay still and hope I can find a way out of this.
They must see me looking at their wings because I hear them rasp, “Yes, they can be hidden by some of us who know the trick of it. We had realized you were able to see us for whatwe are, and thought it would be prudent to see if you were able to identify us solely through our wings. Apparently, that is not the trick, based on your reaction when I walked into this room.”
I’m beginning to think about shouting with the hope that the boys may create a distraction. Perhaps that might allow me time to find a weapon.
