Is Paige really looking for Beliel? I close my eyes, feeling like I’ve been stabbed in the stomach.

I shut off the tracker. I badly want to take it and the sword with me but I don’t have a choice. As much as I want to hide the tracker, I want my mother to have it if I can’t keep it.

The world is littered with abandoned phones. The odds of people leaving the tracker alone are very good. I shut it off and put it back where I found it, forcing myself to turn away.

The sword, on the other hand, needs to be hidden. I got lucky that the looters were probably in a huge rush, otherwise, they would have noticed that the bear’s dress is too long. I can’t resist giving the bear a final caress before hiding it with the sword under a pile of wood and shingles that were once part of a shop.

I’m about to let go of the sword when my vision wavers and fades.

The sword wants to show me something.

I’M  IN the glass-and-marble hotel suite of the old aerie where Raffe and I spent a few hours together. This must be the time after visiting the speakeasy club and before his wing transplant.

The shower is running at the other end of the suite. It would be peaceful and posh here except for the panoramic view of San Francisco’s charred cityscape dominating the living room.

Raffe walks out of the bedroom, looking fantastic in his suit. With his dark hair, broad shoulders, and muscular build, he looks better than any movie star I’ve ever seen. He looks like a guy who belongs in a thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite. Every move, every gesture conveys elegance and power.

Something catches his eye and he walks to the window. A formation of angels flies past the moon. He leans toward the glass, almost pressing his face to it as he looks up at the angels. Every line of him tells me he longs to fly with them.

I suspect it’s more than just wanting his wings back. We once had exotic fish in a bowl that Paige and I had decorated with seashells. My dad told us that we always had to make sure there were at least two fish in the bowl because some species needed to belong to a group. If one of them was left alone long enough, it would die of loneliness.

I wonder if angels are like that.

When the angels disappear into the night sky beyond the moon, Raffe turns sideways and looks at his reflection in the window. The wings peeking through the slits in his suit jacket look like other wings I’ve seen on angels at the club downstairs, but they’re not. The severed wings are strapped under his clothes and arranged to look normal.