“But he’s a Triple, Leigh,” she said, as though his number automatically made himdespicable.
“Wasa Triple,” I firedback.
Jarod’s eyebrows jolted, and then his gaze traveled to my wings, to the downy edge of them, before locking back on my face, shock warring with another emotion. I wasn’t really sure what the other emotion was. Maybe it was only shock. A lot of it. Even though we’d spoken about the possibility of Asher amending his judgment, we hadn’t put much stock init.
“Asher’s going to be furious,” Celestesaid.
“Why would he be furious? He made a mistake and corrected it,” Isaid.
“Because he fixed it to get you upthere!”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jarod’s eyes darkened, their shade matching his timbre. “Your kind’s incapable of performing a good deed without a vestedinterest.”
“Our kind is your kind too,” Celestesnapped.
Jarod leaned forward, placing one forearm on each side of the fine porcelain plate topped with a fan-shaped cloth napkin. “Unless I’m mistaken, I have nowings.”
“You have our blood,” shesaid.
“Blood ties us to people; sometimes to the wrong ones. My only affiliation is to the Adler name, to Tristan, and to the woman running myhousehold.”
Celeste balked, but I didn’t. I couldn’t even fault Jarod his disregard for angels. What had they ever done for him besides spoiling his childhood and unjustly stealing his chance at joining ourranks?
“Leigh, I love you like a sister, but staying here is selfish. You might not love Asher, but you know that marryinghim—”
“Marrying him?” I sputtered. “Celeste, he might’ve liked me at some point, but trust me, that point’s in thepast.”
“He wingedyou!”
“In. The. Past,” I replied calmly butfirmly.
Jarod’s fingers balled into fists, which made me regret explaining angeliccourtship.
Celeste shook her head. “You’re deludingyourself.”
“Doesn’t it matter what I want?” My pitch rose. “And what I want is to stay here. I don’t want to marry Asher, because I don’t like Asher. Not in thatway.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “So what? You’re giving up on this chance of a lifetime—of several lifetimes—for a couple of months withhim?”
“Months?” Jarod’s voice was like a bullet zinging through the growingtension.
I couldn’t tell if he was stunned by the idea of having so little time with me or if he calculated our relationship’s lifespan indays.
It didn’t change that I had no desire to marryAsher.
Besides, I wasn’t delaying my trip to Elysium for Jarod. I was delaying it for myself. I wasn’t ready to leave. Once I was, I’d only have a handful of feathers to earn, which I could do relativelyquickly.
“She has thirteen months left to ascend, after which her wings will fall off her back like chickenmeat.”
“Celeste!” I admonishedher.
“The same way your mother lost her wings . . . unless she’d already ascended. Then the Seraphim would have burned them off her back. The pain of that is apparently so excruciating it drives people tomadness.”
“My mother went nuts because my father died, and he was the love of her fuckinglife.”
“Your mother went nuts because she lost an essential part of herself, and that part wasn’t your father.” Celeste crossed her spindly arms. “If you don’t believe me, ask Leigh. She knows this as well as Ido.”
His Adam’s apple jostled, and I realized he’d never been told how his mother had lost her wings. Had he thought she’d just unhooked them and handed them back to the archangels like they were nothing more than Halloweenprops?
