A tall man carries Aurelia towards the medical wing.She’s wailing, her face streaked in blood and tears.She clutches her… oh my gods.I blink a few times, trying to register what I’m seeing.
Her hand is missing.
My tongue sours at the sight of so much liquid spilling down the nub.I should feel sorry for her, but I can’t muster anything other than recognition for the fact that her life will change forever.Magic at Finis is hard enough to wield with two hands, I have no idea how she will manage with one.
I try to edge towards the medical wing door, but my body is failing me, my limbs refusing to move.The moths swarm and surge above me.
There is nothing I hate more than bloody moths.
“What are you doing…” I ask, my skin crawling at the sight of so many of the little bastards.They seethe and undulate in the air.
“It’s time I show this city the lies they’ve been told.You remember the bridge?”
“Interitus pushed you?”
She nods.“I am not the villain I’ve been made out to be, and unless the city realises that, Interitus will end us all.”
Moths explode out in a thunderous, surging swarm and charge towards the city.Millions and millions of them.Enough to touch every mortal in the entire city.
The air rumbles.A new rip appears into the underworld.Architecti glances at the moths pouring into the city and to the gap.
“I need to go after her, do you have enough strength to seal this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She slides into the underworld, and I pull a thread from the medical building and haphazardly seal the cut.Which is how I fail to notice a moth landing on my neck.
“Mother f?—”
But its proboscis plunges into me and I black out.
5
Architecti
It’s been weeks.
And all I’ve learnt is that the mortal world is odd.The air is heavier than in the Celestial Realm but cooler than in the underworld.It sticks to you sometimes, wet and dewy.And sometimes it clouds and mists, appearing thick and billowy when really it’s wispy and thin.The days are short and the nights long.Such a strange place this mortal realm.
There are rumours that a monster is dwelling in the dark recesses of parks.Which is why I find myself alone on a large green.It’s safer in open spaces, too.There’s more time for me to clock any danger and disappear.I lost Interitus shortly after I chased after her through the tear in the Veil to the mortal realm.
Ora City seems to be aware of our presence.Like we’re thorns in clothes or static in the walls.Angels were always welcome in this realm, but not like this—not fallen.
Sometimes I think I find her.A shadow at the edge of a street or her wings in my periphery.
I struggle to go out in the day as I haven’t quite mastered control of hiding my wings.She must have to be so undetectable.Either she has found a way to retract them for longer periods than I can, or she’s used a glamour the way the fae do to change their faces.
I keep to the night and only go out on the evenings when I convince my wings to hide themselves.It’s uncomfortable and I dislike it.Makes my spine itch and a wriggling sensation thrive like maggots in my veins.
“What are you?”a soft voice says from behind me.
I startle.And it makes my wings pop out.“Shit.”
She gasps her hand covering her mouth.“You’re an angel.”
“I was.I fell.”
She winces and says, “You still look like one to me.”
