Zeke shakes his head. “No. Turns out, having him keep this off the Guild radar is both a blessing and a curse. We keep the mole in the dark, but now we’re at Azrael’s mercy for information sharing.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to ask. You don’t find that’s at all suspicious?” Theo asks, and he has a point. Keeping everythingunofficialand not divulging any discoveries with the person who tipped him off is kind of sus.
“I don’t. Azrael is like a second father to me. If he’s keeping me in the dark, it’s only from some misguided attempt to protect me. Not for anything nefarious.”
Raphael looks like he wants to argue, but I cut him off. “If you trust him, Zeke, then so do we. But I still hope he can eventually tell you something that might help us.”
“I found a few journals locked away in a cabinet that reference gold wings,” Raph says, his voice filled with pride.
“You did?”
“I did. But don’t get too excited. My ancestor wasn’t really all there. I wasn’t able to finish reading them all, so I brought them back with me. There was even a passage about a golden-winged angel standing on top of blackened, scorched earth. I couldn’tremember if that’s how the ground looked near the well after that flash of light, so I asked Theo to check.”
“When I went to scope it out, the place had been recently dug up and redone with new seed. We might not have confirmation exactly, but there has to be a reason they tore up the ground, and it very well could be because the grass was burned.”
Dina shifts on the bed and looks out the window, even though she can’t see much of the campus from up here. “Yeah, it looks like they finished all the renovations over break. It’s like nothing ever happened.”
“If only that were true,” I say with a sigh.
Silence falls over the room as I’m lost in thought. There are so many threads of information, and it’s impossible for our little group to follow them all before they disappear. How are we supposed to get to the bottom of something like this?
“Look, I know things seem kind of shitty right now, but we’ve survived so many things. Attacks, interrogations, hell, even our own families. We need to let loose a little, and I have the perfect thing to help us do just that.”
“Go on,” I say, and notice Raphael and Theo leaning in closer.
“We’re all going to the anything-but-clothes party tonight.”
My eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. “The what?”
Instead of Dina, it’s Raphael who answers. “Power house is throwing an anything-but-clothes party. Everyone is invited. The only stipulation is that guests must wear something other than clothes.”
“And I’ve already got the perfect idea for our outfits,” Dina adds with a satisfied smile. She turns to Zeke, eyebrow raised. “Wipe that look off your face, Ezekiel. When I say we’re all going, that means you too.”
He rolls his eyes, but I can tell it’s all for show. He might have hated the Pures when we first met, but I think his hardshell exterior is beginning to crack.
Striding away from the wall, he heads toward my door, and disappointment settles over me like a cloud.
As if he can read my mind, Theo asks, “Where are you going?”
“Apparently, I have an outfit to make.” Zeke throws me one more look before he exits my room.
Dina jumps up from my bed, throwing her fist in the air. “Yes! Alright, you guys go figure out what you’re wearing. Hayliel and I have some crafting to do.”
22
The room is quiet as I sit in Professor Uriel’s classroom on Monday afternoon, waiting for him to arrive.
I put the meeting off for as long as possible, choosing to spend time doing literally anything else, like daydreaming about how much fun I had at the anything-but-clothes party. If it were up to me, I’d put this entire thing off indefinitely, but unfortunately that’s not an option. Principal Cael messaged me while I was away and asked that I meet with my Wingology professor once I was back and settled. Apparently, he’s to be my new point of contact instead of the school counselor that everyone else uses. It’s bullshit.
What’s even more strange is the fact that this whole thing was Professor Uriel’s idea, or at least that’s what it sounded like in the email. But he fucking hates me, so what’s his angle? Last time I tried to get anything useful out of him turned out to bea waste of time, and I don’t doubt that today will be the same. He’s already six minutes late. Maybe I should force him to do something uncomfortable in front of a bunch of strangers and see how he likes it.
Just then, he barges through the door in a cloud of cologne. And not the good kind. The acrid scent settles in my throat, making me cough. I eye the door he just shut, wishing he’d left it open so I could get at least a little untainted air.It’s going to be a long day.
“Right on time, Miss Hayliel,” he says, like he hasn’t kept me waiting. Asshole.
“Principal Cael said you thought it best to take over the school counselor’s duties?” I pose it like a question, wondering — more like hoping — I’d just read the email wrong.
He nods once. “Well, I thought if anyone could help you through such a tremendous change, it would be me, a wing expert. Don’t you agree?”
