Page 23 of Property of Prophet

“I noticed.”

“And you waited until now to mention this?”

“Until an hour ago, I didn’t think you were a fallen angel.”

I stare at her, and she stares right back at me.

“You’re enjoying this.”

Lily’s lip curls in a half smile. “A little.”

That gets another laugh out of me, but the feeling doesn’t last once she reaches for the medical books. We go through those together, her shoulder pressed against mine because the table is too small for us to sit any other way. Lily shows me drawings of muscle and bone, explaining how tendons attach, how nerves branch, how the body heals when it’s damaged.

I already know most of it, and she catches on after the third page.

“You know this.”

“Seems so.”

“Where’s the brachial plexus?”

I tap the diagram without thinking. “Here.”

Her eyebrows rise.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know how I know.”

Lily flips several pages. “Scapula?”

I point.

“Clavicle?”

Another point.

“Median nerve?”

“You gonna keep testing me, Doc?”

Without hesitation, Lily says, “Absolutely.”

There’s something different in her voice now, steadier and more confident because this is ground she knows, and I find myself watching her more than the book. She gets animated when she explains something, fingers moving across the diagrams, words coming faster, and every few minutes she throws another question at me.

I keep getting them right, and eventually she closes the book.

“Prophet, you know human anatomy.”

“Apparently.”

“No. Not apparently. You know it well.”

I look down at my hands, another piece of a man I don’t remember.

“So what the fuck was I doing in Heaven that required me to know how humans are put together?’

“Maybe we should find out.”

Lily puts the medical book away and reaches for the theological encyclopedia. “Ready?”