Theo dunks the towel in the water, picking up my head so he can clean the black sludge off my neck and chin. His fingers trace my jaw. “Good. Sister Kipling says it’s all over. I swear, it looked like one of Dad’s old zombie movies. Did you know he used to be a horror buff before all this? I think it’s why he likes the Graces so much.” He squeezes the towel, and gross water splatters onto the floor. “I think I’m starting to see the appeal.”

He stretches out one of my wings. He has to step back a few paces to get its full length, huffing a little under its weight. Once it’s laid along the floor, he starts working through the feathers: smoothing them out, picking at pieces of skin trapped between them, preening. The wings are white like everything else in the room, but the color doesn’t make up for how ugly they are, like the rest of the white things I’ve ever known. There is nothing smooth or beautiful about them, the way angel’s wings are in paintings. They’re fleshy and twisted, the kind of wings a human body would make if forced to build them out of materials it wasn’t meant to have. Six of them, giant and sickly and useless, only good for being tucked up against my sides.

And for being a symbol. From Mom’s letter to the faithful: For when Seraph spreads its six wings and screams, it strikes the fear of God into the hearts of all who witness.

“You look tired,” he says. I am. “But if it means anything, I’m proud of you.”

He leans down to my face. He’s so small now. I used to be a few inches shorter than him but even down here, curled up on the floor, I am menacingly large.

He kisses my forehead anyway.

“And your mom is too,” he says. “Even if she’s not good at showing it.”

I rasp, having to force every word. “I don’t want to hear it from her.”

Theo sighs. “I know. I’m sorry.”

I reach for his bandaged hand, my claws enveloping his entirely. He undoes the strips of gauze for me, letting them dangle to the floor.

It’s still recognizable as a hand. Five fingers, a palm, a wrist. But it looks like it was run through a wood chipper and sewn back together. Pieces of bones jut out—some breaking the skin, some just pressing up against it like they’re straining to escape—with muscle and discolored flesh holding it together.

I did that?

Me?

The spark inside him burns, an ember of Seraph’s fire inside us both. So many little fires, scattered past these walls, past everything.