“It is hallowed. Others of our kind are buried there,” Walter Prescott says.
Christian meets my eyes across the flickering flames.
“People, please.” Billy raises her hand, and amazingly everybody begins to quiet down.
She smiles with the confidence of a warrior princess. “This is
“I have children to think about,” says a woman stiffly. “I won’t put them in unnecessary danger.”
Billy sighs. I know she’s this close to rolling her eyes. “So don’t bring them, Julia.”
“And there could be more of them,” someone else announces loudly. “It’s dangerous.”
“It’s always dangerous,” rings out an authoritative voice. Walter Prescott, again. “Black Wings could come for any one of us at any time. Let’s not pretend otherwise.” Mom casts a knowing look at Walter.
“How long has it been?” asks Julia, the woman with the kids. “Since you’ve had contact with Samjeeza?”
“We’ve been over this. I hadn’t seen him in fifty years, until this past summer,” Mom says.
“When he happened upon your daughter at Static Peak,” someone else supplies. “And you defended yourself using glory.”
“That’s correct.”
So they all know about it. It’s like there’s an angel tabloid, and I’ve been on the front page. It makes me feel guilty, somehow, like if it hadn’t been for my purpose and my flying over the mountains that day, scouting for the fire, we wouldn’t all be caught up in this unpleasant conversation about fallen angels and where it’s safe for us to be.
“You told us that you didn’t think he’d be back anytime soon,” Julia accuses. “You said he was injured.”
So much for them all treating my mom with reverence, I think. But it makes sense now. It wasn’t reverence, before. It was pity. They all knew that she was going to die, and they treated her like she was delicate, breakable. They weren’t treating her like their leader. They were treating her like an elderly woman. Which now, since her death might turn out to be dangerous or inconvenient for them, is apparently yesterday’s news.
“He was,” Mom answers smoothly. “I was able to grab hold of him while I was in glory, and I took off his ear. I thought he was too vain to show himself until he was fully healed.” Again with her not wanting them to know the full story of what happened that day. It’s a bald-faced lie. I look at her sharply, but she doesn’t even glance in my direction.
“So he’s healed, then,” Julia says.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “What I do know is that Clara feels his presence in the cemetery.”
All eyes turn back to me.
“You’re sure,” Walter says, not really as a question. “You’re sure it was this Black Wing’s sorrow you felt and not simply grief over your. .”
“My mother’s death?” I finish for him, surprising myself with how calm I sound. “No. It was him.”
For a minute or two nobody says anything else.
“So tell us, Clara.” Walter again, his eyes that are so like Christian’s, deep pools of emerald, trained on me like he wants to pluck this information right out of my head. “What did you feel, in your dream, at the cemetery? What did he feel, exactly?”
“Sorrow,” I answer slowly. I don’t want to get Mom into trouble or embarrass her further, by telling them that Samjeeza is in love with her.
“Just tell them,” Mom says. “Don’t worry about me.”
Okay, then. I close my eyes, cast myself back to that moment in the dream, trying to recapture his feeling.
“I feel sorrow. Separation. Pain. And you’re right, I thought it was me at first. But then I started feeling his despair. He knows he’s never going to see my mom again. He can’t go where she has gone. He’s lost her, forever. He never got a chance to plead his case. To make amends.”
“He should have tried to make amends last summer, then,” Billy says hotly, “instead of trying to choke the life out of her.”
Mom looks at her with a mournful, pleading expression, and Billy quiets.
“The point is,” I continue, “he’s angry. At some of us, specifically.”
“Who?” Julia asks.
“Well, me, for starters. He thinks I’m an insolent child. I humiliated him. I said things that hurt him.” I shiver. “He wants to destroy me. I remind him of. .”
“Who else?” Mom prompts then. “Tell them who else.”
“Mr. Phibbs — I mean Corbett. For some reason he really hates you.”
“Glad to hear it,” says Mr. Phibbs gruffly.
“He’s not too fond of Billy either. Or you, Walter.”
