Eve turned toward me, eyes flashing with pity. “I’m sorry. What they did wasn’t fair orright.”
I lowered my gaze to the flower whose petals fluttered like ladybug wings. In so many ways, we shared the same fate—plucked, taken, and tossed, but where it would wither, I would live forever. Unless cut flowers didn’t wilthere?
“I don’t understand how he made it into the system in the first place,” she said. “It ranks souls, and he hasnone.”
The roots of my hair felt like they’d caught fire. “Just because he’s done some bad things, it doesn’t make himsoulless.”
“He’s a Nephilim, and you know, as well as I do, that they don’t have souls. That’s why no Malakim goes to them upon theirdeaths.”
My heart started to bang. “If that were true, he wouldn’t be in thesystem.”
“The Ophanimexplained—”
“They also explained the sky in the guilds was real, so forgive me if I don’t give a crap about what they’ve told us! If Jarod’s in the system, then he has asoul!”
The street turned ghoulishlysilent.
“His father was human,” I added, voice shaking, “andallhumans havesouls.”
Eve’s pointy chin seemed to become pointier. “Nephilim blood poisons souls. Even if he’s ahybrid—”
“He’s the first of hiskind!”
“My mother told me she knew another Nephilim hybrid—soulless like yourTriple.”
“Jarod’s not a Triple. Notanymore!”
“It doesn’tchange—”
“Stop it!” I pressed my palms against my ears, and my aching heart stuttered to a halt, braking the flowof blood beneath myskin.
Eve’s eyebrows pinched together as though in genuineregret.
Slowly, soveryslowly, I lowered my hands. “I need—I need to talk—to talk to Asher. Where’s—where’s Great Oak?” My throat was so dry the words were brittle and hurt to pushout.
Eve sighed. “Come. I’ll take you.” She started down the avenue, past wide-eyedangels.
When I didn’t follow, she returned to my side and took my limp hand. I stumbled after her. She jumped off the ledge behind the waterfall, and I plummeted down with her, her spread wings decelerating our fall, then she tugged me past the waterfall and farther around the Lev, past groups of angels sharing laughs and drinks beside the fountain and couples dining by angel-fire.
I bumped into someone. “S-Sorry.” If it weren’t for Eve’s firm grasp, I would’ve keeled right over from theimpact.
The angel I’d collided with—a man with broad shoulders and an even broader smile—stared down at me, then at my wings. “You can bump into me whenever you want,Silver.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “You’re wasting your breath, not to mention your extraordinarily original pickup line,Jax.”
I gaped dumbly up at him as Eve dragged me farther around the arc, stopping sometime after the fourth waterfall. Three angels dressed in white tunics stood shoulder to shoulder. As we approached, one of them raised a palm. “This restaurant is closed until furthernotice.”
“Erelim aren’t reputed for their intelligence,” Eve muttered to me. Then to them, she said, “I was just here. Have you already forgotten who Iam?”
One of them elbowed the other, then tipped his head toward the mirrored façade behind them. In perfect synchronicity, they parted, sanctioning our entry. Eve released me as she traipsed past them, head held high and gilded wingtips extended as though she were one of theSeven.
The inside of the restaurant—was it a restaurant?—was entirely made of copper from the mosaic floor to the hammered slabs paneling the wall to the copper-toned mirrored ceiling looming the equivalent of two stories high. The only thing not made of copper was the fat tree rooted at the center of the restaurant whose branches either supported slices of green marble or had been whittled into stumps to perchon.
A set of fuchsia wings tipped in platinum swayed from one of the uppermost branches where a wingless waiter deposited two slender flutes filled with something clear andbubbly.
“Do you want me to stay?” Eve askedquietly.
Before I could answer, my name rung out. Seraph Claire broke into a smile statelier than the circlet ringing her black hair. “What a splendid surprise. Seraph Asher was just informing me of your arrival. Join us for a drink. Now that you’ve ascended, you may finally sample something a little more grown-up than AngelBubbles.”
