Seb nodded. “But then my angel saw I was going to die young if I kept on the way I was. So he was always—” He frowned in thought; reached over and pushed lightly at my arm a few times. “Like this, inside of me, day and night.”

“Nudging,” I said. “Yes. Yes, me too!” I was sitting straight up now; it felt like electricity was coursing through the room. “But Seb, what does that mean? Does it mean they’re separate from us? That they’re not us?”

He was shaking his head before I’d finished speaking. “No, they’re us. Definitely us. I think it’s like...sometimes you have two thoughts at the same time, you know? You might be thinking, I should do this thing, and at the same time you’re thinking, I’m hungry, or I don’t like this person – deep down, but both at the same time, do you see what I mean?”

I understood exactly. “So sometimes our angels have their own thoughts? Or they don’t agree with us about something, but they’re still just a part of us – like having mixed feelings about something?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Seb. “That’s how it is for me.” He was sitting with one knee up, his arms draped loosely around it.

I told him about my angel breaking free during target practice, and he looked like he was trying not to laugh – though in a friendly way that made my tension ease. “I think your angel must want you to notice her very badly,” he said mildly. “What’s she nudging you about?”

I tried to think. “I don’t know. This started a few weeks ago, when I felt this sort of...rush of energy.” I told Seb what had happened – about the river inside me that had trickled to nothing; how I hadn’t found anything when I’d gone searching. It was such a relief to finally be talking to someone about all of this that the words tripped over themselves.

Seb listened carefully, his eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t know what that was,” he said once I’d finished. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“Oh.” I looked down at the yellow sofa cushion. The disappointment wasn’t easy to bear. I’d been hoping he’d say, Oh, that. Yes, that happens all the time.

“But querida” – he caught himself with a grin – “Willow, whatever it was, your angel feels different about it than you. You need to listen to her, that’s all.”

I let out a breath. “She’s felt so separate from me lately,” I admitted. “Scary. I’ve thought...I don’t know what I thought. I guess that whatever it was had...set her off, somehow, so that she can’t be trusted now.”