Page 70 of Even Angels fall
I can’t hide my wings, which means I’ll be a disappointment to my father in any case, so I might as well go all in.
Softly, I shake Cassiopé’s shoulder from where she fell asleep, half on her chair, half on the desk.
“Angie, it’s too early,” she mumbles, not even bothering to open her eyes.
“I know, but I need something for the wedding,” I answer in a whisper.
I’m already dressed and ready to go, since there is no way I can work out today with the state of my body. The medicine did wonders, but I still feel the beating that those bullets imposed on my body.
“The wedding?”
Cassiopé’s body reacts as if it has been built on springs, with the speed with which she gets up from her sleeping position, suddenly wide awake.
“What do you need?” she asks, now boiling with impatience at the idea of doing something for me today.
We don’t have much time; the wedding is in about four hours, so I hurry to explain what I have in mind, and she nods a few times to show me she understands. By the time I’m done explaining, she’s smiling at me.
“I think I know the perfect place to find what you need,” she says with a cheshire cat’s smile.
And she does.
She doesn’t ask to go on her own. She doesn’t even ask anyone to leave Notre Dame. No, we just walk through the double doors leading to theparvisas if nothing is amiss, and I’m a bit shocked.
It’s one thing to know I’m not a prisoner, but it’s another to see it with my own eyes.
No one stops us, no one asks to accompany us, and I’m dumbfounded.
I’m shaking my head as we cross to the river laSeinedocks.
“What is wrong?” Cassiopé asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I’m just surprised you didn’t ask for us to have a guard or something like that, with the way Elhyor behaved and got all protective yesterday.”
Cassiopé looks at me with big eyes.
“You’re serious?” she asks, at a loss for words—not usual for her, for sure.
“Well, yes, he went all growly with his ‘she’s my wife, touch her and die’ rendition.” I try to mimic his voice as best I can, but it’s more comical than realistic.
Cassiopé burst into fits of laughter at my words.
“Angie, you’re amazing,” she manages to say when she’s back to normal. “But you’re also delusional. I’ve seen you fighting. Hell, everyone in ND has seen you fighting. You missed that, but once Elhyor went out, everyone stuck to the doors or went on the roof to watch. No one missed your fight yesterday. And girl, you can fight. I think half of ND is scared that Elhyor is going to let you fight with the warriors, and the other is hoping to learn something. So, no. No one felt the need to accompany us because between Elhyor’s threats and your demonstration on theparvis, everyone trusts that we’ll be alright.” She pauses before adding with a cheeky smile, “Worst-case scenario, I’ll play the damsel in distress and you’ll save me.”
It’s my turn to laugh at her antics. Somehow, her words relax something in me I didn’t know was making me tense since we left.
By reflex, I pat my last dagger at my side. I forgot to get the other two from Elhyor’s office before leaving, and I almost feel naked.
It’s very early in the morning, and the sun hasn’t completely risen, so we don’t see many people outside except for those who are still drunk from the night before, or those who run at dawn to avoid the heat, so other than a few side glances, not many people pay us any mind.
But it’s not like I can do anything about my wings. I don’t know how to get them back inside my own body, and I can’t fly, either. Like a body, they need training to work properly, and even if they did bring me to the ground in one piece yesterday, I wouldn’t call that flying. They just slowed my fall so I could land safely.
I feel the burn of that single “workout” on them since.
It’s only when we enter the shop, hidden in a small street south of Notre Dame, that my wings being out in the open truly makes its impact.
The girl behind the desk counter screams in fear at the sight of me, before retreating behind the curtain that delimits the back.
“Can’t be that bad,” an elderly woman’s voice tells the girl at the back of the store. She holds the curtain open and enters the front of the shop. She stops right where she is, and I don’t know what she sees in me, but her kneeling and bowing to the ground at my feet is definitely not what I expected my morning to start with.
