“We won’t. I promise. You need to go upstairs and lie down,” Angela says.

Anna nods, and Angela puts an arm around her shoulders and practically drags her out of the theater. We listen to their footsteps on the stairs leading to their apartment, Anna still talking, Angela trying to soothe her. The creak of the door. Then silence.

Christian and I glance at each other, then away.

“Well, it worked,” I say, just to say something. “We did it.”

“Yes, we did,” Christian says. He wipes at the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“You were going to tell me something,” I say.

He frowns. “Now who’s reading minds?”

“It was my empathy. I could feel what you felt. You wanted to tell me something.”

This totally freaks him out, for some reason. He jumps down to the floor, goes to the table where he left his homework, and starts to gather it up. I follow him and put my hand on his shoulder. He stiffens. I feel like I should apologize for something, for reading him the way I did, or for bringing it up when Angela is so close and might hear.

“Christian, I . . .”

Angela bursts back into the room, her face wild with excitement.

“Holy awesome! I can’t believe how bright it was, I mean, wow. Did you see my mom? She, like, dropped. Her face was all pasty. I’ve never seen her like that. She’s okay now, though. I gave her some water, and she just, like, shook it off. She’s fine.”

“Glory terrifies humans,” I remind her, trying to remain serious, but it’s hard not to get swept up by her enthusiasm. It was awesome. And it’s like the magic’s still in the air, floating around with the motes of dust and absorbed by the velvet curtains. I don’t want to let it go.

“Yeah, I think we’ve learned that’s true, haven’t we? Let’s do it again. Try it with me, this time,” Angela insists to Christian.

“I don’t think I could.”

“Come on, I want to learn. Pretty please!” she begs.

He drops his head, sighs, giving in. “All right. We can try.”

This ought to be good. I sit in Angela’s chair as the two of them march back up to the stage, take hands, concentrate.

“Be in the present,” Christian says again. “That’s the key. Not the present, like what you’re thinking about now, but apart from your thoughts. This is going to be hard for you, because you overthink everything. Just remember that you are not your thoughts.”

“Okay, Sensei, let’s go,” she cracks.

They both close their eyes. I lean forward, watching, waiting for the glow to start, trying to contain my envy that it’s Angela up there and not me. But nothing happens. They just stand there like they’re suspended in time.

“None of that in here!” comes a voice from the lobby. Anna must be afraid to come in.

Angela and Christian drop hands, open their eyes. For a minute Angela looks disappointed, but then a mischievous smile spreads across her face.

“That was so hot,” she says. She turns to look at me with one eyebrow arched. “Right, Clara?”

“Uh—”

“I think you wanted to tell me something, too,” she purrs to Christian, totally faking and he knows it. I remember how she told me once that she and Christian played spin the bottle in ninth grade and she thought kissing him was like kissing a brother.

“Oh yes,” he replies without inflection, “that was pretty hot, Ange. You’re like my dream girl. I always wanted to tell you that.”

“None of that in here!” Anna Zerbino calls again.

We all bust up laughing.

A loud noise wakes me in the middle of the night. For a minute I lie in bed, listening, not sure what’s happening. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a bad dream. I glance at the alarm clock. It’s four in the morning. The house is absolutely quiet. I close my eyes.

Something crashes. I sit up in bed. The best weapon I can come up with this time is a can of hair spray, like that will do any good if Samjeeza’s here.

Note to self: buy some nunchucks or something.

Another crash reverberates through the house, then a loud curse, the sound of breaking glass.

The noise is coming from Jeffrey’s room.

I throw on my robe and hurry down the hall. There’s another loud bang. He’s going to wake Mom up if he hasn’t already. I open his door.

“What are you doing?” I call into the dark, irritated.

I flip on the light.

Jeffrey is standing in the middle of the room with his wings out, dressed in just his jeans. He yells in surprise as the light goes on, then swings around with his hand in front of his eyes like I’ve blinded him. His wings catch a stack of books on his desk, which crash to the floor. He’s soaking wet, his hair clinging to his face, a pool forming under him on the hardwood. And he’s laughing.

“I can’t remember how to retract my wings,” he says, which he obviously finds hilarious.

I look beyond him to the open window, where the blinds are all twisted up and dangling from one side.

“Did you just get home?” I ask.

“No,” he says, grinning. “I went to bed early. I’ve been here all night.”

He takes a step toward me and stumbles. I catch him by the arm to steady him. That’s when he laughs into my face and I get the full, nasty brunt of his breath.

“You’re drunk,” I whisper in amazement.

“At least I didn’t drive,” he says.

This is bad.

I stand there for a minute, hanging on to him, trying to get my brain to function at four in the morning. I could go get Mom, assuming she isn’t already on her way up the stairs to find out what the racket is about. If she still has the strength to make it up the stairs. I don’t even know what she’ll do or, worse, what this might do to her. This is way beyond any kind of punishment she’s ever had to dole out. This is like grounded-for-a-year kind of behavior.

He’s still laughing like he finds this whole situation incredibly funny. I grab him by the ear. He yelps, but he can’t really fight me off. I drag him over to his bed and push him down on it, face-first. Then I tackle his wings, trying to fold them, press them down to rest against his back. I wish there was some magic word in Angelic that would instantly retract them—fold yourself! comes to mind—but at least if I can get them to fold up he won’t do any more damage.

Jeffrey says something into the pillow.

“I can’t hear you, moron,” I reply.

He turns his head. “Leave me alone.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, still trying to get his wings lined up. “Where’s your shirt? And how did you get all wet?”

That’s when I notice his gray feathers. The wings are lighter than when I saw them the night of the fire. Then they were a dark gray, I hoped from soot. My wings were covered that night too, but it washed off, mostly. Jeffrey’s wings are still gray. Dove gray, I would call it. And there are a couple of feathers on the back of one wing that are the color of tar.

“Your feathers . . .” I lean in closer to look at them.

He chooses that moment to remember how to retract his wings. I fall on him clumsily, then scramble off. He laughs.

“You are in such deep trouble,” I say furiously.

He rolls over on his back and looks at me with an expression that’s so mean it literally sends shivers down my spine. It’s like he hates me.

“What, you’re going to tell Mom?”

“I should,” I stammer.

“Go ahead,” he snarls. “It’s not like you never sneak out. Tell Mom. I dare you. See what happens.”

He sits up. He’s still glaring like any minute he’s going to lunge at me. I take a few steps back.

“All you ever do is think about yourself,” he says. “Your vision. Your dumb dreams. Your stupid boyfriend.”

“That’s not true,” I say shakily.

“You’re not the only one who’s important here, you know. You’re not the only one with a purpose.”

“I know—”

“Just leave me alone.” He smiles, a hard, ironic baring of his teeth. “Leave me the hell alone.”