I’d only been flown over the human world once before when I’d gotten lost in a sketchy part of Queens. I’d called Eve who’d passed on the message to Ophan Greer. It wasn’t completely uncommon for Fletchings to become disoriented, but it was humiliating. I’d cried so many tears that the city had blurred past me, a mess of leaden concrete and riotouslights.
Asher spread out his wings, and their breadth and beauty pinned my lips shut, but then I remembered he’d brought them out as a means to an end: getting rid of me and my peskyquestions.
I backed up, Jarod’s jacket folded over my rigid arms, lending my skin somewarmth.
“You have nothing to fear. I will not dropyou.”
“I’m not scared of falling,Seraph.”
“Then why are you backing away fromme?”
The smell of Jarod drifted from his jacket and replaced the scent of spice and wind gusting off Asher’s skin. “He was a kid,” I repeated. “Surely, his soul shouldn’t be bound toextinction.”
Asher narrowed his eyes. “He was a child who knew what he was doing. Now,please—”
“How could he know? Humans can’t see what weare.”
Asher pressed his lips so tight they lost their fullness. He looked severe then, and it reminded me that I was in the presence of one of the Seven and probably not behaving accordingly, yet no feather had detached itself from mywings.
Suddenly, Jarod’s nickname popped to the forefront of my mind, and my lids snapped high. “He does know what weare!”
Asher’s lips thinned somemore.
Humans couldn’t see us; only angelscould.
“He’s a Nephilim,” I sputtered. “That’s how he can seeus!”
Like a slow-moving movie, I recalled the way he’d tracked the feather I’d lost in his bedroom. And at Layla’s . . . my wings had snared his attention not Sasha’ssobs.
“I never said that,” Asher growled, snapping his wings and rocketing into the starless sky, leaving me alone on that strip of pavement with no phone, no money, nothing but a man’s jacket and my own two feet to carry mehome.
Had he left because he’d lost patience or because he’d feared revealing classifiedsecrets?
Stunned and disoriented, I waited for him to take pity on me and return. When he didn’t, I started walking, attempting to remember how we’d gotten to RueLevert.
Jarod had warned me this part of Paris was of ill repute, so I was extra conscientious of my surroundings, crossing streets when passersby addressed me too rowdily or lewdly. By the sixth vulgar remark, I put on Jarod’s jacket. And then it hit me to check his pockets. There was no phone, but there was a wad of cash so thick I felt like everyone could see the bulge of it once I’d stuffed it backinside.
At a taxi stand, I got into acab.
“Where to, mademoiselle?” the manasked.
I hesitated. In the end, I said, “Place desVosges.”
I needed to return the jacket to its owner, and I wanted answers. And since Asher couldn’t give them to me, I’d seek them out from thesource.
The source who’d killed an angel-blood.
My conscience waged a war with itself as the taxi cut through the city streets. Jarod was dangerous, but I was immortal, so no true harm could come to me. Besides, he’d had his share of opportunities to hurt me. Sure, he’d taken great pleasure in making me uncomfortable, but tonight, he’d been almost . . .sweet.
Besides the gluttonycomment.
The taxi jolted to a stop at a red light. As I stared at diners sitting in a restaurant that spilled onto the sidewalk, a thought twisted inside my mind. I’d once helped a teenage girl quiet her urge to fill her stomach with pounds of food she’d heave up minutes later. Could one of the feathers I’d lost in Jarod’s home have belonged to this girl with destructivecravings?
If Jarod managed to see the memories contained in feather shafts, then he had angel-blood. But angels didn’t have scores. Not evenNephilim.
EspeciallyNephilim since they lacked souls. Yet he was in the system, so hehadasoul.
I growled in frustration because something didn’t addup.
