He arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Eighty-one?”
I scowled at Eve for volunteering my number. I couldn’t have lied—lies cost feathers—but perhaps, I could’ve deflected the archangel’s question with one of myown.
Anything to drag his focus off my lackingwings.
My friend’s skin began pulsing with light, which thankfully stole his gaze away. Eve was shameless. I would’ve been mortified to display my attraction so publicly. I discreetly checked my bare arms, hoping I wasn’t lit up like a glowworm. Thankfully, I was my usual, pallid self, onlywetter.
The archangel crouched, his coppery-turquoise feathers catching every particle of celestial sun drizzling over us. I had the sudden urge to run my palm over his wings, but deliberately touching someone’s wings was a big faux pas. Once you were wed, you could grope away at your partner’sfeathers.
When the archangel unfurled his muscled body, I trailed my eyes up to his—turquoise with a swirl of brown around the pupil. Although our feathers didn’t usually match our irises, hisdid.
“I’ve already earned nine hundred and eighty-seven,” Eve chirruped, even though he hadn’t asked, probably because he’d noticed her wings were practically full. “Only thirteen togo.”
“You’re almost ready to ascend.” He shot her a blinding smile before lowering his attention to what was clutched in his hand—my paperback. He studied it, then gave it back without comment. He probably thought it was trashy. Angels weren’t big on romance, deeming it a human trait, in other words, a paltryflaw.
I dragged my hands through my peach-colored hair, cheeks blazing. Not literally. Angel-fire would only be bestowed upon me a few years after I ascended to Elysium and proved myworth.
Ophan Mira angled her thin body between us. “Excuse me, Seraph Asher, but the Ophanim are eagerly awaitingyou.”
I backed up because her red feathers tickled mynose.
“My apologies, Ophan,” Asher said, winking at me beyond my professor’sshoulder.
He extended his wings as though he were stretching, but angels only spread their wings when they were about to fly or in a show of dominance. Since his booted feet hadn’t lifted off the quartz floor, I assumed it was to put me back in my place for not averting my gaze, which would’ve been the customary procedure to abide by in the presence of such a powerfulbeing.
A small smile played on his lips as he tucked his wings back and walked past me, the tips of his feathers skimming over my forearm, lifting goosebumps.
Once they disappeared around the corner, Eve spun me to face her, hazel eyes so wide her lashes hit her brow bone. “I amsojealous of you right now,Leigh.”
“Ofme?”
“Um, hello, an archangel just wingedyou.”
“Wingedme?”
She rolled her eyes at my ignorance, then gripped my wrist, and towed me toward our dormitories. “If you paid half as much attention in Ophan Greer’s etiquette class as you pay your mortal romances”—she tipped her pert nose toward my book—“you’d know that winging means a male is interested in courting you. We smolder; theywing.”
“I thought he did that because I was beingimpolite.”
Couldhe have been winging me? I’d never been winged before. Not even by another Fletching. Maybe he’d winged OphanMira.
Before Eve could spill more of my milkshake, I shrugged her vise-like fingers off my wrist. “Talking about smoldering, you were giving off a lot oflight.”
She smiled. “You dream about becoming a Malakim, I dream of becoming a Seraphim, but since all seven spots are presently occupied, I’ll settle for being one’s wife. If I need to char Seraph Asher’s pupils off to make him notice me, then so be it. Did you see his eyes, by theway?”
As Eve gushed about his stunning irises, my heart picked up speed, resonating against my eardrums, muting the arias twittered by the sparrows swooping overhead and the rapid footfalls of my peers rushing to the dormitories to change before the eveningfestivities.
“I thought he came down here to acquaint himself with the guilds and meet the Ophanim,” I said as Eve flung open the door of our double, which was one of the largest bedrooms in the guild, spanning fifty or so feet in every direction and entirely adorned in white quartz, except for the ceiling that was made of arched glass. In all that space, though, the furniture was sparse. Only two queen-sized beds, two nightstands, and a long silk-tufted bench had made the cut, angels favoring basic necessities overclutter.
“Are you sure he’s in the market for awife?”
“Leigh, Leigh, Leigh,” she chided me as she pressed her palm against the wall to make her closet door pop open. She dragged it out to expose her rackful of jewel-toned silks, satins, andsequins.
“What?” I tossed my book on thebed.
“How did my father meet my mother?” Hangers clinked as she contemplated herchoices.
I frowned until I understood what Eve was getting at. “When she visited the all-male guilds after she was instated asArchangel.”
