“You never loved me,” I said to Bastien, pulling up my sleeves to the elbow. “Admit it. Every kiss was a lie planted across my lips.”
Bastien softened at that, his golden eyes melting to pools of honey as he stepped closer, his arms falling to his side.
Vengeance watched us with muddled curiosity, arms folded across their chest.
“That’s the worst part of all this, Cirian,” Bastien replied, droplets of moisture forming at the edges of his thick lashes. “I loved you too deeply. And now there’s no way to carve it out. I’ll have to carry it with me the rest of my days.”
The words evaporated from my tongue, stolen by this beautiful man before me. I wondered if there was any truth in what he said, or if this was all another layer of ruse. What if I replied in kind? Would he be able to see that there wasn’t an ounce of falsehood in my eyes when I told him I loved him?
The bottle in my pocket began to vibrate.
Without time for another word, I revealed the shaking glass vessel, the outside hot to the touch. Glancing over Bastien’s shoulder, I hurled it as hard as I could at the wall behind him. Vengeance shouted something to the guards, but it was drowned out as an explosion rocked the room, the blast force knocking me off my feet in a flash of light.
Debris rained down from the ceiling as I tried to regain my bearings. Something seized the back of my shirt, hoisting me to my feet. Bastien yelled something I could hear over the ringingin my ears, a flash of emerald light colliding with two disoriented guards, knocking them out of the way. The wall where the bottle had struck was gone, and an opening into the library’s central atrium was revealed through shattered stone.
Scrambling over bodies and rubble, we ran for our lives, pausing only as we reached the opening and looked down at the chasm-like space below. We were near the center of the library, and there were still countless floors that spiraled downward into the earth. Scanning in either direction, I quickly realized that we were too far from the railings to jump. Even if we could make it, the guards would be on us in seconds, as we’d only be outside the lab.
“I meant the other wall!” Bastien shouted over the chaos.
I laughed, finding no other alternative.
We’d played a good game, but our escape attempt was short-lived. From behind, I could hear the roar of Vengeance and the sounds of shifting rubble. They’d be on us at any moment, their patience worn thin. Looking ahead, I stared down into the darkness, weighing the feasibility of surviving a fall from this height.
A swell of familiar heat in my chest.
“Do not be afraid. You will not fall.”
That was delightfully vague. But our alternatives were exhausted.
I turned to Bastien, reaching for his hand. His fingers wrapped around mine without hesitation. His face was covered in dust, bits of plaster clinging to his locs, yet I couldn’t recall a time he looked more beautiful.
“I love you, too.”
His brow furrowed, mouth falling open to question my intent, but I gave him no other chance. Pulling him closer, I scooped his legs out from under him, backed up a few steps, then charged toward oblivion at full speed.
“Cirian!”
Heat scorched through my veins as we plummeted down, layers of the library flashing past too quickly to comprehend. Bastien clung to me, his head tucked into the crook of my neck. The Source’s blessing gathered, centering along my back and focused around my shoulder blades. With a surge of searing pain, I felt the flesh of my back erupt, almost as though two hooks had found purchase within.
I cried out as these hooks pulled taut, our descent slowing abruptly, and the sound of buffeting air went quiet in my ears. Again, that pulling sensation, and we stopped falling completely, suspended in the air by whatever machination the Source had inflicted upon my body. Bastien pulled away from me, his eyes wide as he looked upward, something large and bright reflected in his eyes.
“How?” he breathed.
Another buffet of wind, and we bounced in the air, those hooks tugging at me once more. I followed Bastien’s gaze, seeing the edges of two cerulean-hued wings as they flapped overhead.
“The blessings continue,” I muttered, my mind overflowing with the implications. But then shouting came from above, and we needed to move. Allowing myself to accept the alien sensation of the wings that sprouted from my back, I pulled down swiftly, propelling us upward at an alarming speed. By the time we’d reached the laboratory level once more, the pain of my wings had dulled, an exhilaration replacing the panic as we continued to climb towards the roof of glass that waited overhead.
“You’re not going to?—”
“Cover your face.”
Exploding through a maelstrom of glass and metal, we emerged over Paradise, quickly ducking into the shadows of the night as we landed on a nearby rooftop.
I set Bastien down, shaking the remnants of window panes from my hair, and marveling at the odd sensation of my wings folding along my back.
“I can’t believe we’re alive,” Bastien said through a laugh, running a hand through his locs.
“Did you mean what you said back there?” I asked, because now that we were away from immediate danger, that was all my mind could focus on—even over the two new appendages sprouting from my back.
