Going to the nail salon had been worth it on so many levels, but perhaps the biggest benefit had been pissing off Athalar.

“I don’t see why you can’t let the angel in,” moped Lehabah, perched atop an old pillar candle. “He’s so handsome.”

In the bowels of the gallery library, client paperwork spread on the table before her, Bryce cast a sidelong glare at the female-shaped flame. “Do not drip wax on these documents, Lele.”

The fire sprite grumbled, and plopped her ass on the candle’s wick anyway. Wax dribbled down the sides, her tangle of yellow hair floating above her head—as if she were indeed a flame given a plump female shape. “He’s just sitting on the roof in the dreary weather. Let him rest on the couch down here. Syrinx says the angel can brush his coat if he needs something to do.”

Bryce sighed at the painted ceiling—the night sky rendered in loving care. The giant gold chandelier that hung down the center of the space was fashioned after an exploding sun, with all the other dangling lights in perfect alignment of the seven planets. “The angel,” she said, frowning toward Syrinx’s slumbering form on the green velvet couch, “is not allowed in here.”

Lehabah let out a sad little noise. “One day, the boss will trade my services to some lecherous old creep, and you’ll regret ever denying me anything.”

“One day, that lecherous old creep will actually make you do your job and guard his books, and you’ll regret spending all these hours of relative freedom moping.”

Wax sizzled on the table. Bryce whipped her head up.

Lehabah was sprawled belly-down on the candle, an idle hand hanging off the side. Dangerously near the documents Bryce had spent the past three hours poring over.

“Do not.”

Lehabah rotated her arm so that the tattoo inked amid the simmering flesh was visible. It had been stamped on her arm within moments of her birth, Lehabah had said. SPQM. It was inked on the flesh of every sprite—fire or water or earth, it didn’t matter. Punishment for joining the angels’ rebellion two hundred years ago, when the sprites had dared protest their status as peregrini. As Lowers. The Asteri had gone even further than their enslavement and torture of the angels. They’d decreed after the rebellion that every sprite—not only the ones who’d joined Shahar and her legion—would be enslaved, and cast from the House of Sky and Breath. All of their descendants would be wanderers and slaves, too. Forever.

It was one of the more spectacularly fucked episodes of the Republic’s history.

Lehabah sighed. “Buy my freedom from Jesiba. Then I can go live at your apartment and keep your baths and all your food warm.”