At least, no realones.
Demons, the sort humans pictured in their minds, horned beasts who sucked out your soul with their fangs and clawed through your flesh with their talons, thankfully didn’texist.
“Shall we?” Asherasked.
Shaking the image of bloodied, sharp extremities from my mind, I pressed my friend away. “Love you,hon.”
Her eyes sparkled like the waterlilies bobbing in the fountains. “Metoo.”
Was she about tocry?
“Hey.” I picked up her hand which felt cold in spite of the angel-fire irrigating the Atrium’s walls, maintaining the temperature at a pleasant seventy-two degrees year-round. “We’re going to see each other in notime.”
Her red lips wobbled with asmile.
I hugged her again and then I turned around and followed Asher toward theChannel.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “You two are veryclose?”
“We’ve been friends since we were five and were assigned the same bedroom. Believe it or not, we never switchedroommates.”
But that would changesoon.
So much would changesoon.
“So, Paris, huh?” Asher asked as we turned a corner into another pale hallway bathed in glittering night. “Who’s your sinner,Leigh?”
I glanced up at him. “A man called JarodAdler.”
He halted so suddenly my heart jounced against myribs.
“What is it,Seraph?”
Leather whispered over his tanned skin as his chest expanded. “He’s aTriple.”
Had he assumed I would earn the hundred feathers Eve had mentioned in increments? “Heis.”
He stared fixedly at me for so long that I heaved my bag further up myshoulder.
“Why did you take on aTriple?”
Heat replaced the chill that had swamped my veins. “Oh. Uh.” I bit my lip. “Because I’m missing eighty-onefeathers.”
His expression softened, a smile tipping the corners of his mouth. “I’mflattered.”
My fingers froze on my bag strap. “Youare?”
“Iam.”
He didn’t touch me, but the warm blood pumping underneath his skin did. It penetrated every fiber of my being, solidifying my resolve like coolingmetal.
I backed up before I could do something reprehensible like stroke Asher’s glorious wings, which were, again, on full display. The romantic in me hoped he’d deployed them in my honor; the realist sensed they were spread because we were approaching the Channel, and he would need them to fly me out of theguild.
“Don’t spend too much time trying to reform a Triple,” Asher finally said. “They are Triples for specificreasons.”
I swallowed. “Iknow.”
He dipped his chin into his neck as though he didn’t quite believe I understood what I was getting myselfinto.
