“The engagement was my dream, Leigh, notyours.”
I bottled up my desire to shout, because we had an audience, and they weren’t aware of the finer details of my mission. “And what? That was reason enough to throw away fifteen years offriendship?”
Eve’s lashes flapped like the wings of the sparrow swooping around one of thestatues.
“You could’ve talked to me,” I said. “We could’ve discussed it. You didn’t have to—to set me up tofail.”
“But you didn’t fail. Youneverfail.”
Celeste wrapped a hand around my forearm as though to remind me I wasn’t alone. “You really have noshame.”
“Stay out of it, winglet,” Evebarked.
“Don’t speak to Celeste like that,” I answered so sharply that Eve’s entire bodyjerked.
“Piece of cherub dung,” Celeste muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Eve tohear.
Scowling, Eve knotted her arms in front of her body. “Have the Ishim taken pity on you, or do you have no more feathers tolose?”
“Don’t be a bitch, Eve! Celeste’s never done anything to deserve—” The pinch to my wing bones reawakened theirsoreness.
As a feather fell from my invisible wings, the Atrium was plunged in the deepest of silences. Even the fountains seemed to have stopped gurgling and the sparrows to have stoppedsinging.
“How—I thought you’d earned a hundred feathers?” Evesputtered.
I scrutinized the glittery feather. “Idid.”
“But then . . .how?”
Whispers erupted among ouraudience.
“Being around Jarod cost me many.” I didn’t add that most had been molted by choice. It was none of her business. None of anyone’s business. “Aren’t you happy? I won’t be entering Elysium before you afterall.”
She wet her lips. “How many do you have left toearn?”
“Why? You have another sinner to suggest?” My sarcasm made herflinch.
“I’m sorry, okay?” shemumbled.
And it struck me then that I wasn’t sorry. “I’mnot.” I stared around the courtyard, first at the Fletchings amassed in the corners of the grand Atrium, then at Celeste whose forehead was scrunched in worry, then at the bright dome of elysian sky before returning my sun-stung gaze to Eve. “This mission has taught me so much. Has brought me somuch.”
The awe and tenderness that had softened Jarod’s face last night and again this morning filled me with a single certainty—I wouldn’t leave Earth or sign off from him until he and I had a littlechat.
I peeled Celeste’s fingers off my arm. “I need togo.”
“Leigh—” I thought Celeste was about to tell me it was a bad idea, but instead, she said, “Besafe.”
I sent her a quicksmile.
“And call or message me this time.Please!”
I nodded as I exited the guild, leaving behind a whole bunch of little fires I hoped the Ophanim would manage to douse before the smoke reached Elysium and brought down the wrath of theSeven.
As though I’d downed an electrical charge, all of my muscles zinged as I raced down the stairs of the subway station and through the maze of tunnels. The train doors opened just as I reached theplatform.
The carriage smelled rank, but it didn’t prevent me from inhaling great big gulps of air to slow my careening heart. A bead of sweat slid between my shoulder blades and made me shiver even though I was flushed from the heat of my run. As the train rattled in the city’s underbelly, I thought of Eve, of what seeing her had made me feel, and realized that my anger had turned entirely to disappointment, in her and inmyself.
I was done being a feckless doormat, and ironically, it was all thanks to the girl who’d treated me likeone.
