“Oh, yeah. I just… I just really want to know what it’s like… with someone else.”
“Of course. Of course. That’s the way it goes. And no harm in that. We all have to experiment in whatever ways we can. Life is only so long and there are too many options to be so narrow—so fixed on one single thing. Oh, it’s how most people live their entire lives, and I say, ‘Isn’t that a bore?’ I guess you would agree, considering you’re both here.”
When she reached a door that appeared to be her destination, she opened it and stepped aside, waving her arm like she was presenting it to them.
Silver drapes hung from a frame around a king-sized bed with white sheets. A soft white glow came from a chandelier in the middle of the room.
Maggie and Kinzer stepped inside.
It was far more elegant than the outside of this place would have led Kinzer to have believed.
The door clicked shut.
Kinzer whirled around, an instinctive response. He didn’t like the idea of being cornered, especially when he was so concerned about their mission being discovered.
“You like it?” Raya asked, standing directly in front of the door.
She gazed down at her phone as she texted again, then returned her phone to her pouch.
“It’s beautiful,” Maggie said.
“Yes, it is. We keep this one for very special guests, which you are. You deserve something a little more magical… a little more exciting than the average pair.”
Something in the way she spoke suggested she knew what they were up to. But how?
She giggled.
Kinzer and Maggie eyed each other.
“Did either of you really think you were fooling anyone? Especially me? I told you, my gift is reading, and it doesn’t take a great deal of skill to detect fallen… even worse… a clipped. So tell me, what would a clipped be doing with a mortal woman… here?”
The jig was up, even though it had hardly begun.
They backed up to the bed as she approached them.
“You think you’re going to come into my house and fuck with my family? Because I tell you what, clipped… you… thought… wrong.”
She ground her teeth. White wings spread from her back, extending to either side. She lunged at them, her feet lifting off the floor as she soared through the air.
“Kinzer…” Maggie said.
Shit.
He and Maggie dove in separate directions, out of Raya’s path so that she fell onto the bed.
He hurried to Maggie, snatched her by the wrist, and headed out the door.
“Run!” he exclaimed.
“Did you think I was going to do something else?”
As he and Maggie raced down the hall, he glanced behind him. Raya tucked her wings close so she could step through the doorway. The hall was too narrow for her to spread her wings, so she jogged after them.
At the end of the hall, Kinzer and Maggie rounded the corner. As they reached halfway through the hall, Kinzer heard panting behind them. When he checked on their latest challenge, he saw sweat rushing down Raya’s face, her eyes wide, bloodshot as she struggled to combat the flesh that clearly weighed her down.
It was unusual to see a higherling such as Raya, who didn’t embody the beauty of most of the Almighty’s precious creations. But he assumed, contrary to his initial assumption, her disfigurement had not come from fat, but from injections of immortal tumors, a form of torture devised during the War to collect intel from unwilling captives. A higherling could live with the tumors, but they would forever taint their beauty, as the cancer cells could never be fully removed and would eternally leave their victims plagued with the sort of growths Raya clearly was forced to live with.
“You think… you’re good… now,” she called out, struggling between breaths, “but… when I catch up… to you…”
