"This is intimate, yet… Our natural state is being part of one whole. Even as angels compete to ascend to the highest echelons of our hierarchy, we’re still connected to our rivals. It’s like… wings."
"Do we have those?" His feather still rested in my wallet, but he also told me we were beings of spirit.
"Yes, in what we’ve adopted as our default corporeal form. Max, think of wings.” Frost flew away, metaphorically, gaze turning far away. “Each feather is a facet of the larger wing, with distinct borders and qualities but nestled against the rest and together…"
"Together?" I asked.
"Together we take flight." He didn’t quite smile, sounding almost wistful. How long had he been away from other angels? What kept him away from Heaven?
Despite nerves, the curiosity was undeniable.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
I reached out for his hand. He put his in my own. Then he rolled his eyes and set my hand back on my lap.
I felt something inside… inside my head?Frost?I thought.
An awareness tugged at me. He wasn’t here, merely asking to come in. This time I reached out mentally in response, and instead of disconnecting us like with our hands, he beckoned me closer.
I wondered what he’d see, if he’d find blank spaces and nothing inside my spirit as he had before. I wondered if I’d fail somehow. Would he see my troubling dreams? Would he watch the explosion consume everything in its path?
Iknewit was more than a dream but I hadn’t shared it with him or Lysander or Aaron yet because they wouldn’t be able to do more with the fleeting memories than me. And him watching the event that weakened me and brought me here felt too intimate, showing him the secrets from my mind that hadn’t even fully revealed themselves tomeyet. Like he sensed my hesitation, everything shifted, and we were inside him instead.
The world fell away. A dizzying array of sound and color greeted me.
Colors moved closer, transforming into butterflies that tickled my skin. Their flapping wings created vibrating waves of sensation that rolled over me and then rushed away. What, where the hell, was this Frost’s mind?
The butterflies flew in loops and arcs, following some internal rhythm. The noise their wings created… As my ears became attuned, the pattern crystalized and came into focus. It was… a song?
Frost’s spirit existed as a song.
A steady drumbeat tapped out a stiff dirge about his time in heaven, the same notes over and over in a monotonous beat, never changing.
Then came the faint stirring of a vibrating note, a violin. Beautiful classical music grew louder, lovely and yet haunting and sad. The tempo picked up and then... the music exploded in all directions. More classical movement with the thunderous might of an orchestra, blaring rock music, a peppy pop song, all different parts of him that symbolized his time on Earth.
One moment I was there absorbed in his symphony and then we were separating. The song quieted, sounding more distant. As I came back to myself, a series of images flashed through my mind. They moved so fast I could barely focus. Stars… darkness… fire—the same from my dreams?—The empty restaurant and parking lot with graffiti…a person I didn’t recognize—who the hell—then we were back outside sitting under the tree at the rehab center.
"Was that,” I started. “I guess I shouldn’t bother asking…"
"Yes,” he said. “It’s all real."
I wasn’t so sure if the pictures I saw at the end meant anything, let alone if they were real. But the rest…
If I closed my eyes and listened carefully, the softest echoes of a song reached my ears. The notes echoed in my head, the melody running through my body and giving me strength. I felt stronger. A little of his song became part of me.Angels are beings of connection,he said. I understood that now. Even separate, we were still linked. Hopefully our connection would give me the strength I needed to heal.
Frost stayed the same outwardly, distant and cold. He always seemed so removed from the rest of the world. Yet all that existed inside of him, so much music.
I liked connecting with Frost because apparently that was how angels naturally communicated. The experience… wasn’t totally foreign. It felt right. Being an angel suddenly seemed much easier to imagine.
But connecting with him also made me think of Lysander and how I’d rather get closer to him instead of anyone else. If not by merging spiritually or sharing thoughts, then with words, with action, with bodies, any way possible. Frost was only my guide for this angel stuff. Lysander was… he was my Lysander.
"Can we do that with other people? Like humans or supernatural beings?" For example, with intelligent dark-haired detectives.
"No."
Suddenly sitting in the shade felt too cool. "That sucks."
"No," Frost said.
