“My mother.” Shaded by a fringe of lashes, her eyes glittered like her wings.
I’d gotten so sidetracked by examining the girl before me that my mind needed a couple seconds to play catch-up and remember what question she’d answered.
Right. Her last name.
I squinted at the ground, assuming I’d find a lone feather lying there. After all, her mother Celeste was an angel. The pavement didn’t sparkle with black down. It hit me that she must’ve been referring to her biological mother.
“Why such interest in my family name, Adam?” Naya tipped her face up, which parted her curtain of blonde hair. The trickle of light streaming from the pub snagged on the fine slope of her nose, the bow-shape of her lips, and the graceful point of her chin. “Don’t you have one?” She asked this pleasantly, even though there was nothing pleasant about her tone.
If anything, it sounded like a challenge, and although I wasn’t one to shy away from challenges, I was done losing feathers for the day. At the rate I was earning them, I tried to stick to no more than one loss per week.
The air churned as Emmy stepped toward me and took my forearm. “Adam’s last name is Tobiasson.”
Naya studied my expression. “You don’t say . . .”
Emmy hugged my arm tighter, giving Naya another once-over. “So, we were heading home.”
“How fortunate for me.” Naya smiled, her lips separating to reveal flawless white teeth.
Of course, her teeth were flawless. After all, the girl wasn’t human. Yet her hair . . . It was full of volume, half-wavy, half-straight, as though she’d spent her afternoon rolling between the sheets.
My skin tightened at the image that thought sparked. I shrugged Emmy’s hands off my arm, whisked away my wings, and set off at a brisk pace down the street. I’d been planning on leaving London in the morning, but I was bumping it up to tonight.
When I reached the white mews with the shiny black door and white Grecian columns, stuck between identical narrow white houses with black doors and white columns, my cheering crowd chime sounded. I fished my phone from the back pocket of my jeans, got comfortable against a pillar, and opened the message.
GALINA: Have you seen the news, love? A serial killer is painting Chicago red. Meet me in the Windy City?
A link to an article appeared on my screen. I clicked on it and skimmed the paragraphs. Well, pluck me.
GALINA: Big D thinks you should stay in London to keep an eye on the Familia, but I think it’d be nice to get the gang back together. It’s been too long.
ME: I suppose I could do round trips.
A GIF of a dancer pumping her hands in the air lit up my screen.
GALINA: Awesome. Everyone’s on their way already. I got us this real perty house which we can use as our base.
I didn’t ask how she’d come by the house. Galina had a way with people, humans and angels alike, and that way gave her access to a multitude of perks.
GALINA: Unless you prefer to sleep at Emmy’s. Or at your next sinner’s . . .
ME: I need to relocate or my fathers will get suspicious. Send me the address. I’ll meet you there in a couple hours.
After pocketing my phone, I tapped my foot impatiently. I could just hear Papa chiding me about how impatience stripped life of its sweetness. As a two-century old ascended, he had the luxury of patience. Once I was confined to the angelic world with nothing better to do and too much time to do it, I’d learn to sit on my ass and grin at dawdling people.
Emmy and Naya approached at a snail’s pace, chattering on about angels-only-knew-what. Possibly the London weather—forever lousy—or perhaps Emmy was listing the amenities that came with the apartment—none.
“You’re not a runaway, right?” Emmy asked as they finally reached number 9 Queen’s Gate.
Naya hoisted her handbag farther up her wing-free shoulder, pushing her crazy hair out of the way, and sat her small suitcase on its wheels. “Why would you assume that?”
Bloody Abaddon, her voice . . . Raucous with a side of purr. If ascending didn’t work out for the heiress, she could always land a job at an adult call center. The thought twisted my lips into a crooked grin. Daddy-dearest would just love that.
Emmy gestured to her. “Just crossing my Ts. I don’t want to get in trouble with the authorities.”
“I’m a tourist on a mission to discover your town and its people.” She gestured to the colorful neighborhood with such excitement I almost fell for it, but every guild resident knew Naya was after one thing and one thing alone: reaching Elysium pronto. A feather-getter not a sightseer. “Maybe you could show me your favorite spots in the city? Unless you’re busy with your internship.”
Spending time with Emmy was probably part of Naya’s reformation tactic. In spite of all the work I’d done on the girl in between my shorhim missions, the human still couldn’t help herself from snatching things that weren’t hers.
Emmy’s blue eyes twinkled as she stepped onto the stoop of her family home. “I’m usually busy with Adam.”
Your schedule’s about to be wide open, darlin’.
I wanted to feel bad, but all I felt was relief. Where my best friend Noah got attached to everything that moved—be it animal, human, or angel—I got attached to nothing. Especially humans. What was the point? I was Elysium-bound, and although some of them would eventually find their way there, I wasn’t waiting around for their souls to get collected by a malakim and carried through a channel.
As Emmy jiggled her key into the lock, she gazed over at where I stood with my arms firmly crossed. “You still have belongings in the apartment, Adam, or did you bring everything to mine?”
I willed the latch to click, so I could get in and out, but the ancient vermeil thing was more temperamental than Dov when we requested his help. Even though guarding had been his idea, the male didn’t get his hands dirty.
“The lock can be finnicky,” Emmy explained before adding proudly, “It’s vintage.”
Considering the direction of Naya’s eyes—aimed at me—she didn’t seem overly preoccupied by the faulty contraption.
The latch finally clacked. I shoved away from the column and pressed the door open, holding it for the ladies.
“Adam?” Emmy’s ponytail flopped over her shoulder.
“What?” My harsh tone had her eyes springing wider. “Sorry. What?” I kept my tone downright placid this time around. I was many things, but not a dick to women. At least, not usually. Why Naya’s presence was turning me into one was beyond me.
“I asked if you had any stuff left in the apartment Naya’s subletting.” Emmy played with the end of her brown ponytail. A nervous tic of hers.
I was about to tell her the apartment was vacant, had been forever, since I’d only used it as a pretext to get close to her, but changed my mind. “I better go check. Don’t want Naya Moreau stumbling across anything that’ll make her blush.”
“No need to abuse my last name, Adam. Naya’s just fine.”
I smirked.
“I’ll go get the key.” Emmy scampered up the stairs to the first-floor landing.
When the hinges squeaked, I tilted my head to the side and observed the blonde fletching more thoroughly in the yellow light of the stairwell. I remembered hearing some of my guild-mates discussing her figure, after meeting her during an inter-guild dance I’d failed to attend. I’d thought they were exaggerating how shapely she was—after all, most female fletchings were sacks of bones—but Naya was all toned curves and sharp indents.