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  “It’s not mind-numbing,” Nora said gruffly. “It’s interesting.” She turned to Jim. “Right now, we’re analyzing the frequency of tornadoes in Pearlton. We think that one of Slag’s planewalkers is trying to break through the Field and come here.”

  “Slag?” Jim asked, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “Planewalker?” He remembered his dad mentioning Slag, but that already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Sydney laughed. “I know, it’s probably a lot to take in.”

  You don’t even know the half of it, Jim thought. He was still trying to process the fact that she and her friends didn’t hate him anymore.

  “Here, you might want to sit down,” Sydney said. She swatted Leo’s feet from the futon. Leo grumbled, shifting into a sitting position.

  Jim sat down on the couch and Sydney squeezed next to him, their knees touching. He tried not to seem uncomfortable. Across from them, Nora and Miles dropped back onto the couch. Nora took out her cell phone and furrowed her eyebrows as she scrolled through something on the screen.

  “Slag is where demons are from,” Sydney said, “and Glisten is where angels are from. Some angels, like us, are Guardians. They come to the Field to keep the demons from finding the Portals to Glisten. That’s our job, too. To protect the Portals.”

  “Portals?” Jim asked.

  “Right. Thousands of years ago, there was only Glisten and the Field. But some angels saw that the early humans were, well, killing each other and stuff. They argued that humans were too selfish and weak to have free will.” Sydney took a breath. “Those were the demons. They only saw the bad parts of human nature. So they kept coming down to the Field to try and manipulate history and humanity.”

  “These demons, though they were still angels at the time, wanted to control humans to make them stop killing one another. But they disagreed about what society was best, and what kingdom should rule.” She sighed. “Dealing with all that corruption and killing destroyed those fallen angels, and warped their world view. They think humans are inherently evil and a world like that needs chaos and selfishness to keep anybody from gaining too much power. Even though, at the same time, they’re always trying to control all of the Field.”

  Leo grinned. “We got the better of them though. While they were screwing around in the Field, we disabled the seven Portals to Glisten, turned them into one-way entrances. They couldn’t get back home. That’s when they lost their celestial powers, and became demons.”

  “Right,” Sydney said. “The bravest angel soldiers, the Guardians, volunteered to go to the Field to make sure the demons never got back through the Portals. As the human history unfolded, the angels and demons battled. All the angel and demon blood, though, it created a lot of disturbances in the Field. Earthquakes, avalanches, volcanoes, tsunamis, you name it. That’s how Slag was formed, during the Battle of Atlantis.”

  Jim choked a little. “Atlantis?”

  Miles grinned. “Oh, it was real. But it didn’t just sink underwater, man. One of the Portals to Glisten was there, but all that angel and demon blood caused some kind of huge earthquake . . . and maybe the Tribunal of Glisten screwed around with the Portal or something. Whatever happened, all the demons that had built this huge kingdom on Atlantis sunk underneath the sea, entering another plane. That’s how they all got trapped in Slag. And the most violent demons can still get banished there by the Tribunal.”

  Sydney took over again. “That’s how the Pacts started. There have been a few over the past centuries, where demons and angels say they’ll stop killing each other. Because, really, if the battles destroy the Field, then it’s pointless for the demons to bother taking it over.” She shrugged. “My mom says that the demons today are mostly Brokers, who are wheelers and dealers in information and money, trying to bring out the worst in humans. They try to cause chaos and gain power without direct violence. Most of the Predators—those are the violent ones—get banished to Slag.”

  Jim let out a long breath. He thought of Claire. What was she?

  “But humans don’t see any of this going on?” he asked.

  Sydney shook her head. “They can’t see beyond their idea of what ‘normal’ is during each day. You can’t see the wings unless you’ve got a pair. The Portals are a little different. Think about the Seven Wonders of the World. Humans can tell when there’s something that’s beyond their world, they just can’t grasp what it is. The Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, Atlantis, those used to be the locations of Portals. But we have to hide them from the demons now. If they ever get back to Glisten, they’ll gain all the powers they lost. They can still fly, of course—”

  “Of course,” Jim said drily.

  “But there are some things they can’t do, that we can,” Sydney finished, smiling.

  “I think my head might explode,” Jim said after a pause.

  They laughed, and Jim smiled a little. He wanted to ask them about Claire, but he didn’t dare. Based on the way Sydney’s face had clouded at the mention of her name, he had a feeling they would just say she was an evil demon. But she hadn’t seemed evil to him . . .

  A light rapping on the door caught Jim’s attention. Without waiting for the group to answer, a woman opened the door. The Pearlton High School principal, Catherine Lumen. Out of habit, Jim sat up a little straighter at the sight of Sydney’s mom. She was already dressed up in her stiff blue suit. Behind her, he could see a huge pair of white wings glowing in the hall. And, for the first time, he noticed there was a white bracelet dangling on her wrist, glittering with sapphires that caught the sunlight.

  “How’d the scouting go?” she asked, her eyes skipping from Jim to Sydney.

  “Two new demons joined last night,” Nora said, putting her phone into her pocket.

  “Mom,” Sydney interrupted, her voice strained. “This is Jim. He’s one of us now.”

  Principal Lumen’s eyes seemed to refocus on Jim. He shrank under the intensity of her gaze. “Jim Blest?” She clucked her tongue. “It’s a shame about your father. He was one of the best Guardians we had. And Evelyn . . .” She paused. Her eyes glimmered. “Glad to see you made the right choice,” she said quickly. Her sharp gaze fell back to Nora. “And the tornadoes?”

  “They’re happening more frequently, in little bursts, and then they disappear,” Nora said.

  “He’s coming,” Principal Lumen said under her breath. “Good work today. Nice to meet you, Jim.”

  “Uh, nice to—” Jim started. But Principal Lumen was already out the door, thudding down the steps beyond.

  Sydney put her hand on his shoulder. “Ignore her. She’s . . . always distracted.”

  “Sydney’s mom is a big deal, dude,” Leo said in awe. “Principal Lumen is one of the top generals in Glisten’s Guardian ranks.”

  “Yeah,” Sydney said uncertainly, rubbing her arm. “Top general, crappy mom.”

  “Don’t say things like that about her.” Nora bristled. “She’s a hero!” She looked at Jim. “You know the War of the Broken Wall? The last war we had? General Lumen commanded all the Guardians in the entire country.”

  Sydney made a noise. She stood up, not looking at Nora. “Okay, Jim. You’re an angel. Try unfolding your wings.”

  Jim felt his wings tense underneath his shirt. He remembered how Claire had spread hers. He didn’t remember her shirt tearing. He definitely would have remembered that.

  “Don’t worry, the actual wings have a little bit of Glisten in them. They go right past the human-made world, that’s why humans can’t see them. Humans can’t see anything from Glisten.” She flapped her wings gently, sending a breeze in his direction, and turned in a circle. Jim saw that her shirt was still in one piece, but her wings poked out of it nonetheless.

  “Um, okay, if you say so.” He stood and reached his wings out uncertainly. It felt like stretching a muscle that he had never stretched before
, something that had been tense his whole life. His whole body filled with relief as his wings spread behind him.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Sydney asked.

  “It’s awesome,” Jim agreed. Something occurred to him. “So this means I can fly, right?”

  “Sorry, man. Angels can’t fly,” Miles said. “The wings are for decoration. Like ostrich wings.”

  Jim’s face fell. “Oh,” he said.

  Miles burst into laughter. Leo guffawed. Even Nora grinned. Jim got defensive at first, just by instinct. But then he realized he should be laughing, too. They weren’t laughing at him—they were laughing with him, the way friends did.

  Sydney smiled. “Yes, you’ll be able to fly,” she reassured him. “With enough practice.” Her face changed when her green eyes caught sight of something behind him. “Wait. What’s that?”

  Jim followed her eyes to the tip of his left wing. All of the feathers were glowing and white—except for one. It was red. He had an idea of what it was, or at least how it had happened, but he only mumbled, “I’m . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Is that a red feather?” In a few seconds, Nora charged across the room and took Jim’s feathers in her hand. Miles followed. Even Leo tumbled off the couch to join the group.

  “It’s . . . yeah, that’s red,” Leo reported in his rumbling voice.

  “Do a lot of angels have a little red in their wings?” Jim asked hopefully.

  “No,” Nora said curtly. “Never, in the entire history of angels. This is really, really interesting.” She rubbed the feather between her finger and thumb, sending a strange tingling through Jim’s back. He jerked away.

  Miles chuckled. “Watch out, dude. She’ll want to dissect you if you’re not careful.”

  “I can ask my mom about it,” Sydney offered. “I know this is all a lot to take in right now.”

  “Thanks,” Jim said. A silence fell over the room.

  “I mean . . . demons have red wings,” Leo finally said.

  “Leo!” Nora scolded.

  Jim scratched his arm nervously. It had to be because of Claire, because they had exchanged blood before they changed—but for some reason he didn’t want to tell the others. He didn’t want them to know about Claire. He wasn’t ready to share her with them, not yet, at least.

  “I, uh, I have to go,” he said. “You know, angel or not . . . I still can’t be late for school.”

  “Wait!” Sydney said as he turned to the door. “We really should get my mom to—”

  Jim didn’t wait to hear the rest. He barreled down the staircase, skidded through an unfamiliar kitchen, and ran out of Sydney’s house.

  By the time Jim’s house came into view, the overcast sky had peeled away into layers of soft pinks. Jim was exhausted, but he almost felt too tired to sleep. His mind was strangely empty, like someone had set a forest fire there, leaving nothing but ash behind. It had only been hours since he got his wings, but he felt like a different person.

  Jim’s dad was hunched on the front step of the house, his head in his hands. When Jim walked across their overgrown yard to the front door, Michael looked up. “Jim,” he said.

  “Hi, Dad,” Jim said. Michael squinted, as if he was staring at Jim against a bright light.

  “You let them grow in.” His voice wasn’t angry. He sounded disappointed, almost defeated. He stood up. “We can go to Mr. Webb today, okay? We’ll get this fixed and everything will go back to normal. You won’t have to worry about angels or demons or anything. It’ll go back to normal, it will.”

  “Dad,” Jim said, “what’s normal to you? Me going back to being hated in school while you get drunk every day? You think that kind of ‘normal’ makes me happy?” His voice lowered. “If you had told me about this, then I wouldn’t be so confused now. If you had just bothered to mention it, I wouldn’t have thought that the other kids all hated me for my sake. I would have known they hated me because of you.”

  Michael winced, and Jim pushed aside his guilt, letting his anger flare up. He wasn’t going to feel guilty, especially not for this. He finally had friends. He finally had a purpose. He had been told the truth about everything and his dad still wanted to keep him in the dark. “This is my choice,” Jim said, shoving his way past his dad into the house. “And I’m not sorry I made it.”

  “You will be, Jim,” his dad said brokenly. “You will be.”

  Jim tried not to listen. He slammed the door to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed. This is what I want, he told himself. He just hoped that Claire was happy, too. Whatever she was going through, wherever she was. Whoever she was going to be.

  8

  Claire stared out the window as the sun rose over the lake. She could just see the top of her house, poking out between the leafy green trees around it. Behind her, she could hear the chattering of everyone else in Shane’s house. Gunner was telling the story of when he had hid alarm clocks all around the classroom in Boston Prep. People were laughing at his ingenuity. Shane’s laugh made him sound like a wild dog.

  She absently scratched at the wings poking out of her back. Just feeling them made her uneasy. She still couldn’t forget Jim’s face as Shane tried to shove the knife into her hands. Jim hadn’t known whether she was going to do it or not. At least Sydney and the other angels had showed up to stop it. The first thing Claire had learned was that the truce between angels and demons was shaky at best. And Shane seemed to think the entire truce was pointless and stupid.

  “You could have killed him,” he had told her as he led her to his house. “We shouldn’t have to be afraid of those angels.”

  Claire hadn’t said anything. Luckily, Shane thought she was still too dazed by her new wings to react. And then everyone else had flooded around Claire and Gunner, congratulating them—Maria, Ben, Julia, Erik. All of Shane’s friends were demons, and they seemed pretty proud of it. Shane kept saying how they could “really do some damage” now that there were more of them in the Scale, which was what they called their clique or something. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a demon, not if it meant hating Jim just because he was something else. It all seemed so random. Why should she hate Jim and like Shane based on wing color?

  A hand wrapped around her shoulder. “Hey,” Gunner said. “What are you doing over here?”

  “Watching the sun rise,” Claire mumbled. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re thinking about Jim,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Who happens to be an angel.”

  Claire gave her brother a look. His brown eyes burned with an expression she couldn’t identify.

  “This is our family,” Gunner said. “Claire, we finally have a family.”

  Claire looked back at the group, who had shuffled from the living room into the kitchen. Ben ripped open a pantry door and asked if there was any “fucking food” here. Shane told him to shut up and pulled Maria toward him, one arm wrapped around her shoulder.

  “Yes, they’re lovely,” she said.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Gunner insisted. “Jim is part of the problem. All of the angels are trying to destroy us, just because we think differently than them.” He stood. “You better get yourself together before Carlos shows up.”

  “Who’s Carlos?” Claire asked, a little too loudly.

  Shane’s neck twisted as he looked in her direction. “You clearly weren’t listening,” he said angrily. “As I already told everyone, Carlos is in charge of us all. He’s coming to Pearlton to do some very serious business, and he’s going to need our help.” Shane narrowed his eyes at Claire. “And when he gets here, you better hope you’re listening to everything he says. He doesn’t tolerate mistakes very well.”

  Claire swallowed audibly. She looked at Gunner for support, but he just looked away, his eyes cold. She curled up on the couch and stared at the blank television scree
n in front of her, watching her reflection swim in the dark screen, as if she were deep underwater and trying desperately to break to the surface.

  • • •

  The walk back with Gunner was awkward for a while. Claire could almost feel a new kind of energy radiating from him. He stalked down Shane’s neatly paved driveway, his shoulders swaying and his fists clenched. The wind was bitter, slicing through the trees and sending goose bumps across Claire’s skin. The dark jeans and rose-colored cardigan she had thrown on yesterday morning—a lifetime ago—weren’t enough in this predawn chill.

  Gunner stayed a few feet ahead of her as they marched along the empty road. When she couldn’t stand the silence anymore, she skipped to catch up with him.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “What?” he asked, not looking at her.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked, stopping in the middle of the road and crossing her arms. “We just find out we’re freaking demons, that we have wings and we have to randomly hate people, and you want to pretend like you’re taking it all in stride?”

  Gunner whipped around, his brows knitting together. “What am I supposed to do? Freak out? You’re doing that well enough for both of us.”

  “I think a little freaking out is perfectly normal, given the circumstances,” Claire said.

  Gunner huffed and started walking again.

  She caught up to him. “What’s going on, Gunner?”

  “Look,” he said impatiently. “The way I see it is that we don’t have a choice. This is who we were meant to be, so why fight it? This is just like getting yanked out of one school and dumped into another, but now this change is permanent. Finally.”

  “Finally? You’re really happy about this?”

  He fumbled for words for a second, his hands twisting in the air as he walked. “I’m happy that there are other people in our lives, yeah. And I’m pissed that Mom was trying to take all that away.”