Someone tapped my upper arm—the blonde with the large hoops. “My friend and I wanted to thank you.”
“Don’t mention it but watch your drinks next time.” When the girls turned toward Jase to profess their undying gratitude—I swear, they kept him engaged long after saying thank you—I fished my cell phone from the pocket of my teal silk bomber to check the time and noticed a missed text from Muriel.
I smiled as I read it. Even though every Friday I went home for the weekend, every Thursday, without fail, Mimi asked if I’d made other plans and reminded me it was fine if I had. Weekends were sacred family time, and since Mimi was my only family now, I devoted them all to the woman who’d unfailingly cared for me after I lost Leigh.
Leigh . . . Thinking of her still hurt. She’d been my best friend, my sister, my anchor. The night she took her life, I’d been devastated. And then I’d been angry. Angry at Jarod for steering her away from her duty. Angry at Leigh for allowing him to do so. Angry at Seraph Asher for burning her wings and tossing her back on Earth with blistered crescents on her back. Angry that I hadn’t been enough to keep her in this world.
For weeks, I’d hated her, and then I’d hated myself for hating her.
And now . . . now, I simply missed her. The same way Mimi missed Jarod, the boy she’d raised as her son.
My thumbs flew over the screen: I’ll try to get there for lunch, but I need to meet with my advisor, so don’t wait for me if you’re hungry. And then I added: By the way, I got us some tickets to the Saturday matinee of that play I was telling you about. The remake of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Three dots lit up as Mimi typed. Of course, she wasn’t asleep. Muriel never slept, preferring sporadic naps. I watched the dots dance and dance, expecting a long-winded answer, but all she sent was: OK, ma chérie.
Jase called out my name over the hasty twang blaring from the speakers. He was leaning over the bar, inked forearms splayed on the sticky wood, nose an inch from mine. He beheld me with those brown eyes of his, so many shades darker and yet so many shades softer than my own. “Want something to drink, Cee?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I’m going to head back to the apartment.”
“Already?”
“It’s two a.m., Jase.”
“I’ll miss you.” The mishmash of neon signs nailed to the cement walls, ranging from a Speedy Shoe Repairs to a purple outline of a giant eggplant, and a smaller one of a pig with wings—my personal contribution—edged his gelled hair in bright colors.
I rolled my eyes. “You’ll see me in five hours.” I had an early class on Fridays, so my breakfasts coincided with the end of his shift at The Trap.
“I’ll still miss you for five hours.”
I laughed. The boy with whom I shared a two-bedroom apartment in a building wedged between campus and Riverside Drive flashed me his pearly whites. He had such a great smile. Such a great personality, too. He’d make a girl happy the day he decided to settle, and although he joked that girl might be me, it wouldn’t. If my front-row seat to Leigh and Jarod’s relationship had taught me anything, it was that falling in love was messy and painful.
I wanted fun. And easy. Jase was the perfect combination of both.
“Goodnight, Cee.”
“Night, Jase.” I dropped a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Be good.”
“Be better.”
As he headed toward a thirsty customer, I cast a look toward my neon pig. I’d thought of Seraph Asher when I’d bought it and then had smirked when Leon had unboxed the winged swine and nailed it to the wall. My ill-intent had cost me a feather, but damn if it hadn’t been worth it.
Leaving the archangel’s effigy behind, I wove through the dense throng of students and locals, the soles of my shoes sticking to the beer-basted concrete. I made it a few steps before finding myself trapped by two girls with pursed lips.
“Excuse me.” I tried to sidestep them, but both whipped out their wings.
Oh, goody.
The brunette with the glossy curls and gold-tipped blue feathers stuck balled fists on her hips. “I just got told by my split-lipped sinner, and none too kindly, to scurry off. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Celeste?”
I assumed there were posters of me in the guilds because it seemed like every fletching I crossed paths with in New York, be they female or male, had heard of me. “Why do you assume I’d know anything about it?” I stared past them toward the glowing Exit sign.
“Because he was muttering something about getting even with a biker chick with black claws and no ass named Celeste.”
Well, that was rude. I had an ass; it was just petite, like the rest of me. And my nails weren’t filed to points, although how convenient would that be?
“I don’t even own a bike.” I doubted Mimi would be on board with me buying one.
“I think he was talking about your look.” The other fletching gave my combat boots and black leather leggings a perfunctory once-over.
I raised my middle finger and pretended to scratch something on my upper lip. “You think?”
She flushed all the way down to her blonde roots.
“I had a plan for him,” the verity said.
“I’m sorry, Blue, but are you expecting me to apologize for saving an innocent girl from ingesting a pill that would probably have gotten her raped, if not by this man, then by someone else?”
She scowled. “All you’ve done is provoke him.”
“He’ll strike again.” The blonde tucked her red wings into her spine.
Like mine, her wings weren’t gilt-tipped. Her hybrid status tempered my vitriolic tone because, however blinded by the celestial world, the blindfold would eventually fall, and she’d realize her feathers’ lack of luster would condemn her to Elysium’s lowest echelons. The best hybrids could hope for were positions in the guilds as ophanim—teachers—or in Elysium and Abaddon as erelim—celestial sentinels. Only verities got the fun gigs: malakim—soul harvesters—ishim—soul rankers—or seraphim—the crème de la crème of angels, or rather crème de la shit.
“Celeste!” Blue gasped.
My gaze instantly cycled around the room on the lookout for trouble. When I found no one barreling for me, I returned my attention to the girl. “What?”
“You lost a feather.”
Oh.
That.
I glanced down at the fluffy purple, wondering why I’d lost it. For my terrible thoughts about archangels or because I’d stolen another fletching’s sinner? Honestly, I was surprised only one had fallen tonight and that I’d missed the quick stab that accompanied its removal.
When the seesawing feather vanished beneath a pair of strappy stilettos, I looked back at the wide-eyed angels. “Not my first. And not my last.”
I’d stopped counting a long time ago, but suspected I’d lost as many as I’d earned, considering my wings—or rather, winglets—were almost the same density as they’d been before Paris.
The verity crossed her arms in front of a white halter top that made her look utterly angelic. “Why did you give up?”
“What makes you think I gave up?”
My humor was lost on the two fletchings, who exchanged a look, before talking over each other.