The doll that resembled Sophia seemed disjointed in the shadows. Shy and pained.
I’m actually afraid of losing her. I actually want another human being around, and I’ve already made her mad.
She should have known Kim’s visit would have more than one downside.
Angela cursed again, finding his book on the hardwood. She flipped pages aside randomly, still angry, searching for answers that always eluded her. When she stopped to glance at the pictures of her angels, her temper softened a little, but it couldn’t stop that gnawing sense of failure from laughing at her inside her head. Then she paused at a paragraph, appalled at the idea that, according to this old monk, humans were nothing to angels, little more than toys that could become possessed and infatuated by them in the blink of a proverbial eye.
No wonder she felt guilty about Kim’s kiss.
In a sense, her angel had been watching her the entire time. Once she entered her dreams, she’d find nothing but regrets.
But at least that was better than nothing at all.
Nine
Surprisingly, he was happier than she’d ever seen him before.
But it wasn’t the kind of happiness born from love or joy. Instead, his face shone with triumph. Angela had suspected for a long time her angels didn’t like each other. If they were in a portion of her dreams together, they either argued or ignored each other.
This time, the beautiful angel could have been emitting his own light.
His victorious smile was that brilliant.
His slender body and high, arching wing bones had been covered in an armor more like fabric than silver, terrible splotches of crimson staining his beautiful hands. Feathers framed him in a bronze aurora, and his pink lips curled around teeth whiter than pearls. His hair had been gathered into a tight topknot, and glass formed into the shape of snakes wrapped around his winged ears.
Far from lovely and delicate, he was the picture of beautiful terror.
Below him, the gray angel waited, tensed for the blow from the magnificent spear in his hands, her figure more vaporous than usual.
Tension and violence permeated the air.
Then the bronze angel turned to Angela, much as he had when Sophia had entered her dreams.
Only his face betrayed horror instead of triumph, and behind him, the sky revealed itself, its ether hazed over with a snow of bloody feathers, falling and falling to an invisible ground. She only had a second to scream back at him, silently as always, before she felt a piece of herself rip away, and all of her mind die in a void that consumed the world.
Ten
Those She interacts with are destined for darkness. It will only be logical.
—IMWALD’S PRIVATE LETTERS
“I’m kind of insulted that you won’t talk to me about last night.” Nina flicked ash into the plate on their table, and then took a long drag from her cigarette. The smoke had a way of bringing back bad memories for Angela, but Nina wasn’t stopping the habit for anyone, even someone who associated smoke with grotesque burns and failed suicide attempts. “I’m not as stupid as I look, you know. Stephanie grilled you about Kim, didn’t she? Sophia’s a spy, Angela. You’ve got to throw her to the curb—”
“Shut up,” Angela hissed back. “She’s not a spy. She hates Stephanie, okay? You don’t know the half of it.”
Sophia was still heading back to their cafeteria table, her tray loaded with the most sugary drinks on Earth and a dish of crisped potato skins. Most of the nearby students ignored her when she stood next to them or asked a question, but a few gave her nasty looks. They were obviously people sympathetic to Stephanie’s cause—whatever that happened to be. Apparently, part of Sophia’s punishment involved others shunning her.
“Whatever you say,” Nina said, setting the stub of her cigarette down, “but I smell a rat. You don’t know Stephanie like I do. She has this magical way of making you think you have her all figured out and then BANG”—she slammed her fist on the table—“suddenly you’re drowning in a social cesspool.”
“Just keep it to yourself for now,” Angela said. She poked at the pudding in her bowl, swirling its insides with her spoon. Sophia’s shadow had fallen on them, and now she spread her skirt to sit, sliding into the chair next to Angela. No “good morning.” No “hello.”
Why is she still mad at me? Because of last night?
Maybe it was more than that. Sophia had a knight in shining armor in Angela, whether she wanted it or not. For various reasons, that could be a blow to her pride.
“I didn’t hear you leave the dorm this morning,” Angela said to her.
Nina raised an eyebrow, glancing up at them as she returned to her peanut butter on bread. She was perusing the newspaper despite the gloom, squinting every so often beneath the reddish glare of the stained-glass storm lamp on the table. The cafeteria was cavernous and resembled an actual cave in many ways besides size, its walls set with huge blocks of crudely hewn stone. The tables—if you were lucky enough to get one—were mostly twisted by water, and the chairs were equally ravaged, their plush cushions worn down almost to their stuffing. Tapestries of the Academy’s history covered the high windows, blocking out the gray sky and replacing it with clumps of blacks, reds, and sickly yellows. The tapestry near their table was easy to understand: the Academy had formerly been centered around the massive tree in its Western District. From what Angela had learned, that area had been off-limits to students for at least sixty years.