I tucked my wings into my back, deciding I would wait for Jarod. I had no desire to soar without him. “Some othertime.”
Asher’s brow crinkled, and his wings, which had started to spread, retracted a little. “Don’t be scared,Leigh.”
“Scared? Oh, Seraph, flying doesn’t scareme.”
“Then why don’t you want to try?” His long golden hair frolicked around his face. He bound it with his fist to keep it out of hiseyes.
“It’s a big milestone for angels. One I’d like to share withJarod.”
Asher’s pupils shrank, and he released his hold on his hair. “By foot, the way is longer, so we should getgoing.”
His tone was edged with something . . . an emotion I couldn’t put my finger on. Annoyance?Frustration?
“You’re mad at me,” Isaid.
“You stopped living the day you met Jarod; you stoppeddreaming!”
“No, Seraph, I never stopped living or dreaming. I merely redesigned my life and dreams to fit with Jarod’s. You can’t open your heart to someone and expect things not to fall out or to slipin.”
His turquoise eyes ground into mine, condemning. Just like Celeste, he thought I was crazy. I didn’t hold it against them. Love needed to be experienced to beunderstood.
He huffed as we crossed beneath the Arch and came to a stop at the top of a knoll. He jabbed at the air, gesturing to the sunken center where gilt-edged smoke curled off the surface of a body of water so wide and round it seemed ridiculous to call it a fountain even though seven colossal angel statues rose in the middle and spurted water from their raisedhands.
“The Lev—it’s the heart of the city.” Asher’s tone wasshort.
He pointed to the horseshoe-shaped rock surrounding the fountain along which coursed the seven waterfalls. Openings were sculpted into the glowing rock, like bay windows. “Every layer of rock comprises a tier of elysian society. At the bottom you have the Neshamaya, where human souls reside and operate businesses open to all—restaurants, shops, clubs. Then the Hadashya, where the new angelslive.”
“Mystop.”
“Yes. Above that, there’s the Yashanya where older angels reside until they elect to retire to the NirvanaMountains.”
“Where are themountains?”
He pointed in the direction the sparrows had flown earlier. “Beyond the sea. You can’t see them from downhere.”
I squinted toward the cleft in the rock, trying to spot what lay beyond, but the miles and narrowness of the opening hid the landscape, so I refocused on the city. “What’s on the fourthtier?”
“The Emtsaya where you’ll be sorted by calling and taught everything you’ll need to know. And then at the top”—he pointed to the plateau from which flowed the waterfalls—“is where I live and work. The Shevaya. Angels and souls—or Neshamim in the celestial tongue—may wander everywhere. Erelim guard the capital and all the cities surrounding it but rarely have need tointervene.”
I followed him down a staircase carved into the rock. Since the Neshamim floated and the angels flew, I doubted the stairs were put to muchuse.
The Arch cast dabs of color on the molten spread that filled the fountain basin and undulated like water but swelled like smoke. I crouched by the edge and dipped my hand inside, the substance licking my fingers like warmclouds.
“Our water is calledayim.”
An iridescent water lily knocked gently into my knuckles, its petals falling open as though to welcome me, or was it the stars it welcomed? Did it bloom at night like the ones in theguilds?
As I rose from my crouch, I repeated the word, rolling it on my tongue, “Ayim.”
“It also fills the NirvanaSea.”
“How verystrange.”
“One day, you’ll find human water strange.” Asher untensed a fraction. “Keeping you here a hundred years isn’t simply to guard you from recognition in the human world. The law was primarily put in place to help you adjust to your newworld.”
It was still a cruellaw.
He led me around the belt of quartz, feeding me more words from the celestial tongue. Angels and humans—not humans . . . souls cloaked in the human flesh of their choosing—stared at us as we passed. Well, at the Seraphim. It wasn’t customary for new angels to be escorted into Elysium by one of the Seven. Usually, the Ophanim brought their students up. But not much about my ascension had beencustomary.
