Lila raised an eyebrow; she didn’t know that Beni wasn’t sucking up to her now, but she didn’t care. She’d rather put as much space between herself and Castor as possible. She’d been partnered with him during pottery lessons earlier—she wasalwayspartnered with him—and now he was gnawing on her last thread of patience.
She eyed the next to the last tile, diagonal from the one she was standingon. It would be harder to leap to it with Eva taking up space on her current tile, but she had no choice, and she thought she could manage it.
Eva moved aside, and she got as much of a running start as she could. One, two steps, and she pushed off the edge of the tile, launching into the air. She landed on her target, but her foot slid back, and she nearly lost her balance.
Righting herself, Lila flinched. Her wings had peeked out at the last second when she’d thought she was about to fall. Had Beni noticed?
His smug grin told her he had.
“Aaaand, Lila, you’re out!”
“Oh, come on, Lila! We were supposed to win this thing!” Castor complained, but Lila waved him off. Responsibility or not, he had no claim on her during playtime. She knew that much.
Leaving her friends to finish up their game, she fluttered down to the general play area where the other angel children were playing games like Angel on Your Shoulder. She skirted the perimeter of the marble oval dotted with tiny wooden houses, steel climbing bars, and wooden bridges. At this height, only white clouds and golden aether surrounded the oval, but if Lila peered over the edge, she would see the domed student dormitories—officially named the Enclave, though no one called them that—and the pillared Lessons Hall far below.
Technically, the Crescent Arch wasn’t part of the play area, but none of the masters enforced that rule. Skip Aether wasn’t a real game either—Eva and Adrianna had invented it with their renowned collective brainpower—but that made it more special, in Lila’s opinion. No one outside their group knew how to play.
Including Luc, for all his smarts. Lila spotted the golden angel child sitting on the edge of the oval, alone, his feet dangling in the aether. He didn’t notice her approach, concentrated as he was on the cloud figure he was forming. She couldn’t tell its shape at her current distance.
Curious, Lila crept closer and closer until she stood right behind him. He made no sign of having heard her, but that wasn’t surprising. Luc was always lost in his own world. When Lila sat down next to him, he stayed hunched over the ball of cloud, his unruly whitish blond hair spilling over a pale forehead creased in concentration.
“What are you making?” Lila ventured.
Predictably, Luc offered no reply; he kept his eyes on the ball in his hand, on the tiny details he was adding to it. A set of wings. A mouth. Two eyes.
“Is that supposed to be an angel?” Lila giggled. If it was, it had no neck and no head, only a body.
Luc remained silent; he added another set of wings to the strange creature, one wing on top of its body and one on the bottom. He formed one final, larger wing where she imagined the creature’s legs and feet should be. Finally, he hung the creature in the sky.
“It’s not an angel,” he answered but offered no further information.
“Um, okay…What’s it called, then?”
Luc shrugged.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t it look awesome, though?” He looked at her for the first time, demanding confirmation.
Lila nodded. She thought everything Luc made looked awesome, but she didn’t think he needed her to tell him that. Besides, she was far too shy.
Most everyone in their class found Luc annoying because he complained when they didn’t catch onto skills fast enough to advance their lessons at the pace he wanted, but none of that took away the fact that he was brilliant. And that if he noticed you at all, it meant he thought you were special. If hespoketo you, well…
“I want to make one too,” Lila said, plucking a fluffy wisp of cloud from above their heads.
It took no time at all for her to form the rounded body, eyes on each side, and a pointed mouth. The five wings—or whatever they were—gave her more trouble. Each wing was a different width and length, and they all had raised lines for embellishments, which were difficult to form with clouds. Their light texture made them easy to shape and easier to disperse.
While everyone’s laughter rang out behind them, Lila worked side by side with Luc, and he made five creatures to her one. But finally, Lila hung her…being…up in the sky next to Luc’s.
“Like this?” Lila asked.
Luc turned, and his eyes widened in surprise, as though he’d forgotten she was there. He glanced at her work, giving no expression, but after a moment of studying it, he pointed at the cloud and said, “That’s perfect.”
He returned to his work, probably forgetting she was there again, but Lila smiled and bit the inside of her mouth.
Lucnevercomplimented anyone.
“Lila! There you are!”
An out-of-breath Eva rushed up and tugged on Lila’s arm, forcing her to twist around and scramble to her feet.
