“Let’s gothen.”
A hand caught mine and reeled me back. And then a pair of thin, rigid arms came aroundme.
“I know I sent you away,” Eve mumbled, “but I hated living without you. I hated our fighting. I want you back, and I swear that if you choose to stay, I will be the friend youdeserve.”
Slowly, I lifted my hands and hugged her back. “I can’t stay, but I appreciate every word you just said. And youhavebeen a good friend.” I smiled. “Most of thetime.”
A strangled laugh leaped from her, followed by a sob. “Pick us, Leigh. Pickus.”
I kissed her cheek, my lips coming away wet with the salt of her sorrow. In all the years I’d known Eve, her composure had never splintered. “You’re going to be a great angel, but use that greatness to better our two worlds,okay?”
A new sob lurched out of her. She pressed her knuckles against her tremblinglips.
I sighed. “I wish you didn’t have to wait a century before returning toEarth.”
Celeste was right. So much had to be changed, and however deeply I wanted to see this change come about,helpit come about, I needed to get back to Jarod before he assumed I’d abandoned himforever.
“I’m ready for my tour,Seraph.”
Chapter 64
Asher stretchedhis great wings and pushed off the glowing quartz floor, then waited for me, suspended among thestars.
“Do you remember when we used to hop between our beds with our arms out and pretend to fly?” Eve calledout.
I looked for her, found her standing beside the Erelim, eyes still shiny but face otherwise composedagain.
“Well, it doesn’t feel like that at all.” She raised asmile.
I returned her smile with a quiet one, then rolled my shoulders, and eased my wingsout.
If I had wings, they’d be stretched from one wall of this office to the other.Jarod’s words tumbled through my mind, shortening each beat of my heart. I stared toward the Arch, toward the Channel that would soon take me home, then snapped mywings.
The ground vanished from beneath my feet, and then all of the angels staring up became no larger than ants. Gasping, I strained my feathers to brake my dizzying climb, then retracted my wings, and plummeted as quickly as I’d risen. An arm caught me around the waist, kept meafloat.
“It’s all right. I got you,” Asher said, as anguish battered my ribs. He angled my body so that my stomach was parallel to the ground. “Stretch your wings back out but don’t flapthem.”
I followed his instructions, the fluid fabric of my pants twisting around mylegs.
“I’m going to let gonow.”
Every muscle in my body spasmed with fear. I was about to plead with the archangel not to let go, but it didn’t feel right to let him hold me, so I bit my tongue and steeled myspine.
His arm unwound slowly, thencompletely.
And I didn’tfall.
We remained suspended in midair, our feathers fluttering in the balmybreeze.
He studied the taut lines of my body before shifting his gaze to the top of the plateau from which rose a seven-pointed stone edifice nestled in the smokyayimthat raged toward the sides of the cliff and tumbled down the rock façade in seven powerful waterfalls. At first, I thought the pointy structure was an island, but then, I realized it moved, floated, like a star discarded from thesky.
“Is that the Shevaya,Seraph?”
“Itis.”
I observed the glowing, unmoored star, then the land wreathing it—the crenellated mountains in the distance dappled with phosphorescent blooms and the dozens of other white islands that rose from the billowingayimlike Muriel’ssoufflés.
Once I’d drunk my fill of this strange land, I turned toward Asher. “So, how do I maneuver thesethings?”
