Lucie

Caprice, thankfully, didn't lollygag. She appeared at Cian's window around ten minutes after I'd called her, dressed in skinny jeans and a rather edgy leather jacket that fit her in a way that made me want to own it myself. Her makeup job was immaculate, cherry-red lips and lengthy eyelashes as dark as coal. As I opened the window to let her in (the fact she was entering this way and not through a door should have been stranger to me, but I was beginning to realize angels were weird like that), I couldn't help thinking that she was closer to what came to mind at the word angel: graceful and striking, seemingly with no flaws.

She even pulled off a cropped haircut, which not every woman could do.

Caprice slid herself over Cian's desk and landed on the rug before his bed, eyes narrowing at his limp figure tangled in the sheets. They were pulled up over his head; now he looked like a wrinkled blob of linen.

"Thanks again," I said to her, observing her carefully as her eyes roved over the writhing Cian.

She gave me a brief once-over, and I did my best not to squirm. "You're the one, huh? No wonder he's into you. You're pretty—at least for a human."

I didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or not, thanks to the last line. So I just grunted and accompanied her to the bedside. As I softly tried to pry the sheets off Cian, who was groaning audibly in protest, Caprice asked, "Where's his brother? The ghost. I imagine he must be around here somewhere. His type are always clingy."

Vinny appeared on the other side of the bed, his hands fists at his sides. He gnawed at his lip, eyebrow risen. "You're not here for me," he replied forcibly. "You're here for Cian. So do what you came to do."

Caprice paused for a moment to shoot Vinny a withering look, which he returned, and then I cleared my throat, hoping to clear the sour air. With more effort, I was able to tear the sheets back, as Cian wasn't strong enough to fight me at the moment. He winced, shoving his face down into the pillow and whining.

Caprice's dark eyes went wide; she brushed an astray hair behind her ear and gritted her teeth. "Geez, little one," she murmured, "what type of demon were you meddling with?"

"Is it bad?" I asked, as we both looked at the rash spreading over Cian's back, black and bleeding. I was trying to stay calm, but on the inside, I felt like I was imploding. This is your fault. If you'd been paying attention...

Cian breathed out and rolled, ignoring me and Vinny's audible protests. He kept his eyes clinched shut as he maneuvered himself to his side, muttering under his breath and biting back a scream. "Caprice?" he asked, and blinked, opening his eyes. Caprice cursed, pressing a hand to her mouth. I made eye contact with Vinny. What if we were putting too much of our trust in her? Could she do any more than we could?

"Funny this is how we meet again," Cian said, with a laugh that briskly turned into a cough.

"You're right," Caprice decided, glancing at me. "He is dying. And I know why."

Cian grunted. "I'm not dying—"

"Shut up," said the three others in the room in unison.

Vinny sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair and casting an almost paternal glance in his brother's direction. Their relationship, to me, was strange to observe; Vinny was nothing if not fiercely protective of Cian, even though he was the younger of the two. I supposed, though, that's the kind of thing that happened when your brother was as reckless as Cian. "What do you mean you know why? It's not just the demon venom?"

Caprice chuckled, tugging the sheets further back. She pointed to distinguish the pulsing rash on Cian's back, swatting his hand away when he reached to itch it. "Hands off," she said, then, to Vinny and me: "It looks like he was hit in his wings. Am I wrong?"

"No," we both said.

"Yeah. That's what I thought. He made the dumb mistake of retracting them, which brought the venom deeper into his system," Caprice said. Her tone was surprisingly matter-of-fact. "An angel's wings are their power source. They're pumping the toxin through his veins. That's why it's spreading so fast."

Cian wheezed against his pillow. One, plaintive, word: "No."

Vinny was markedly more faint, as if he were trying to blend into the background behind him, hide from this painful reality. I, too, felt like fading, everything inside of me sinking lower and lower. "Caprice," Vinny began warily, and his eyes were level on hers, "are you saying what I think you're saying?"

She gave a curt nod in response. "The only way he's going to live through this is if his wings are removed."

Cian shot up with a scream, scrambling in Caprice's direction. It was such a sudden movement that it sent me jolting back with a yelp, my eyes widening. Cian's hand gripped Caprice's wrist, his bare chest trembling, inky eyes blazing. His teeth were bared. "I know what you're going to do," he hissed at Caprice.

Vinny said gingerly, "Cian..."

Cian acted as if he hadn't heard him, his attention riveted on the person whose arm he held. I stepped forward, offering to clear the issue up, but Caprice held up a hand, so I stopped in place. "Don't you dare call them, Caprice," Cian went on, twisting her wrist further in his fingers. "I'll kill you."

"No," she said coolly, "you'll kill yourself. And I don't know what it is, Cian, but something tells me you're not as happy with that as you think you are. Now let go of me."

Cian yelled again and rattled Caprice's arm. "You can't let them do this to me—ugh. I..." He let her go, although reluctant, and fisted his hand against his chest, falling back down to his bed with a wince. His eyes fluttered shut again, and I could breathe again. His head lolled to the side, body going boneless. "I...I'm nothing without my wings...nothing..."

For a moment, the room was silent save for the whirring ceiling fan and Cian's whimpering.

Caprice's expression was cement, firm and nondescript. When she looked from me to Vinny and back to me again, however, I caught just a glimpse of pity in her eyes. Something pulsed in my throat. "Can I talk to you both outside?"

"Both?" Vinny inquired.

"Both," Caprice clarified, then preceded us beyond Cian's bedroom door. Vinny and I exchanged an uneasy glance before following her out into the hall.

Caprice was leaned against the wall opposite us, beside a glass trophy case showcasing awards won in areas from baseball and soccer to chess club. From here, the framed pictures behind the shining bronze, silver, and gold were unclear and ambiguous. The angel stood there like a sentry, slim-toned arms folded across her chest, eyes narrow.

Vinny cast his gaze downwards. "How much time does he have left?"

"If his wings aren't removed," Caprice replied promptly, "he won't survive past the evening. The poison in him is too strong, considering it's already climbed to his eyes. In other words, I've got to do this and I've got to do this now. At this point, it's not about what Cian wants, but if either of you have objections..."

"Without his wings, what is he?" I blurted. I bit at the nail of my index finger, trying to fight the apprehension that was building in my throat, threatening to strangle me. "Is what he was saying true? Is he really nothing?"

"This rarely happens," Caprice said, clicking her tongue, "so I'm honestly not sure. He'll still be able to see his brother, as nothing can reverse being Split, but as for being able to direct souls? He'll likely lose that ability."

Vinny cursed under his breath, and louder, added: "But if his wings are removed, he won't be in pain anymore?"

Caprice said, "Well, not precisely, but his recovery will be quick."

I looked at Vinny, and he looked back at me, and with that glance came a tacit agreement that there was no going back now. To Caprice, I said, "Then we don't have a choice, really. I say do it. Watching him deteriorate is not an option. Right, Vinny?"

Vinny didn't hesitate to reply, but his tone wavered. "Right."

Caprice surveyed the two of us once more, then nodded and started for the door. I brushed her arm, however, and she stopped, looking down at me. The sympathy in her eyes flowered like a spring bloom, and it was so unlike the woman I'd imagined her to be that it caught me off guard.

Caprice raised her eyebrows. "Is something the matter?"

"Why are you doing this?" I asked her, and saw her cemented expression crack, just a little. Her eyes were momentarily on the floor. "It's not like you've ever done Cian any favors before. Isn't he just a mortal to you?"

"Lucie," Vinny warned.

"No," Caprice said with an audible sigh, gripping the doorknob to Cian's room. "She has a right to ask."

"Then answer me," I demanded.

"He may be a mortal, Lucie, but in the end, he's still an angel," she told me, and there was a new resolve in her voice, foreign to both me and to herself, it seemed. "We take care of each other. Now, if you'll excuse me."

"Whoa," Vinny interjected. "You're not saying we're not coming with you, are you? As if I'm leaving my brother alone with you!"

"Ha," scoffed Caprice, a smile splitting her red lips. She revealed teeth that were both a luminescent white and cleanly straight, and with that came my jealousy. She was effortlessly beautiful in the way angels always seemed to be. "Look at you. The baby looking out for his big brother. How cute."

Caprice exhaled, whisking herself halfway in the door of the bedroom. "This is angel business and angel business only, my ghost friend. Why don't you and the human run along, and I'll get back to you? It's safer that way."

Vinny growled, "Caprice!"

"Toodles," she replied, then shut the door behind her, leaving the both of us alone in the ill-lit hallway.

Beyond the window, the world was still slowly waking up, birds singing their morning songs and car engines revving their exhaust into the thin air. I could hear warbled voices outside, the tree limbs quivering in the wind. Heaving a breath as I tried to forget what I'd seen—the rash, Cian's black eyes, his teeth grinding against one another as he spat angrily at Caprice—I wandered to the trophy case.

A young Cian smiled back at me, hair close-cropped and neatly out of his eyes, holding up a shining chess trophy. To my surprise, he was clothed in something bright, a starched salmon-colored polo shirt and khakis. It was so uncharacteristic of him that I almost wanted to laugh, and I would have, had I not been so worried that leaving Caprice alone with him was a terrible mistake.

I also had admittedly thought Cian was more of the baseball and soccer type.

Into the silence, Vinny said, "What are you thinking right now?"

The question should have been stranger to me. Instead, I just pressed my hand to the trophy case and hung my head. I exhaled, watched the glass fog up before me, hiding my reflection. Over my shoulder, I said, "That I don't want to stand outside in this hallway forever. Whatever they're doing to Cian...I...I don't want to—"

Behind the door, there was loud coughing and vomiting. I winced.

"I don't want to hear it," I finished. I turned around, offering a sheepish smile. "Would you take me somewhere, Vinny?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "Where?"

I looked back at the grinning Cian in the trophy case, no older than twelve or thirteen. Chess? I couldn't help wondering. Of all things the dark and mysterious Cian Horne would be interested in, he was a chess master? I sighed.

"Anywhere," I answered softly. "Anywhere but here."