Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel, Book One

by Aimee Agresti

  “I wanted power, influence, and a home, a place that was all mine that others wished to be on the inside of. People like us never have a true home,” she said, and I couldn’t quite be sure what she meant, but could only guess that she never had a Joan in her life. “I was tired of feeling my nose always pressed up against the glass looking at these perfect lives of those around me. I wanted others to be looking at me this way instead. I didn’t want to be invisible, as I imagine you don’t either.” I gave no reaction.

  Undeterred, she continued. “I didn’t fit in either. For one reason or another we all get sized up and sorted out and some of us get left behind. So I retreated into my world of art and music and history, my escapes. I dreamed that one day, rather than being mocked for my interests, I would be celebrated for my taste, my world would be the one everyone would wish to be part of. Boys can be heartless, yes, but girls can be truly cruel—when they either feel you are not like them or, worse, if they sense you’re actually somehow better than them. I suspect I don’t have to tell you that.” I looked away for just a moment. “And when presented with options by a tall, dark stranger, I decided I didn’t have it in me to take the time to reinvent myself—to go to college and hope things would turn out differently, hope to find people like me. I wanted change now. I haven’t looked back since . . .” She paused, then added, “Hardly at all. There are, of course, bumps in any road—” She took a breath, then began once more, slowly. “—and choices that require certain . . . people . . . to fade into the distance. But this is what life is.” Neil, that was it. So she was thinking about Neil.

  She leaned forward now, lowering her voice in a way that couldn’t help but get my attention. “But I was also . . . marked, if you understand what I mean.” I shuddered at this, even though her tone was more gentle than she’d ever been with me. “There is no easy path for us—that you need to know. There is no purely easy, clean, good path, none without casualties. So we just have to choose the one that will allow us to reach our full potential. There are pros and cons to everything.”

  I couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Some are greater than others though,” I said quietly, though just as gently. She looked away.

  “Of course. And my path was not perfect. But when you are someone who strives for everything, to have everything, you make sacrifices. In turn though, you reap such rewards. And we deserve these things.” She tapped the magazine. “You must know that.”

  “I suppose I can imagine.” I was completely thrown off. She had never been more compelling. It was impossible not to be affected by her letting down her walls, this rare glimpse into her past.

  “That said, I would like to extend an invitation to you to join the Outfit, Haven. And it is my great hope that you will accept.”

  I had no words. I could feel the troubled crinkle forming between my eyebrows. Finally she continued in the same sincere, softened tone, speaking to me like an equal. “You would be our youngest member, and in time, very little time, you will be our most powerful member. It is that simple.”

  Before I could attempt to speak, she rose quietly from her seat.

  “I won’t ask you to answer now. You may tell me the day before your prom. Kindly think it over.” She rose from her seat, smoothing her dress. She took a few steps to leave, but stopped just behind where I sat so still and puzzled. She leaned down to me, her hands on those precise spots where the scars burned on my back. “And, Haven,” she whispered, “please think very, very carefully.”

  As soon as she left, I shot up from the table and ran all the way to the gallery to find Lance in our little office. I told him every word.

  Every night I had begun diligently rereading the entries in the book in the time between finishing up our work and before beginning our nighttime adventures in the tunnels and the hotel walls. At our appointed time of ten o’clock, without fail, Lance would knock on the door. I would let him in, we would each have a Power Bar from our oft-replenished stash, and then we would start climbing either up or down.

  But the knock came so early tonight—it wasn’t yet nine—that it startled me enough that I looked out the peephole before answering. I was glad I did. It wasn’t Lance at all; it was Lucian. My whole body went numb. Standing there in his perfect suit, he looked back over his shoulder as though worried that someone might come up behind him. He tapped his foot and fidgeted with his hands. I held my breath, wondering if I could simply not answer, pretend I wasn’t there, have him go away. My morning with Aurelia played in my mind. Why was he here? Had he been sent to take care of me? I heard my name through the door, not in that usual seductive tone, but softer this time, almost a whisper: “Haven.” I said nothing. I just backed up slowly, trying not to make even the slightest sound. The door handle began to jiggle. That was all it took: my legs sped off, to the closet, flinging open the door and diving down into the passageway in the floor, climbing down into those depths so fast that I could hear my heart beating. But loud as that was echoing in my ears, it still wasn’t enough to drown out the lock clicking and the door creaking open upstairs and the unmistakable shuffle of foreign feet invading my room and then that voice softly calling my name again:

  “Haaaven?” It stopped me in my tracks, halfway down that ladder. A fever rose over me and I was paralyzed against it all. I couldn’t move. “If you’re in here, please don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to talk to you.”

  My mind flashed to the scene I’d left above. I remembered pulling the closet door behind me, but I hadn’t shut that door to the passageway. I tended to leave it open in general, out of fear that its tight hinges would stick and leave me trapped below every time I went exploring. Do I climb back up and try to shut it now? It seemed too risky. I couldn’t get myself to move up, but I slowly forced my legs to creep farther down, as quietly as possible.

  I could still hear his footsteps. I hoped he would give up and leave, but then they stopped. A streak of light sliced through the opaque passage. I gasped. “Haven, I know you’re down there. Will you listen to me for a minute?” In a flutter, my legs scrambled down farther, my footing sloppy, my fingers snagging at the boards. A crack and whoosh filled the air above me. I slowed enough to look up and Lucian was descending so fast, so agile, he seemed to barely be touching the boards at all. He was gaining on me. My feet hit the ground too hard, stumbling, and a stinging grip grabbed my upper arm like an iron shackle. My stomach dropped. Trapped. Another arm looped around my body and held me, my back to him, his hot breath in my ear.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Will you please trust me? I know you have no reason to, I know this. But please, please don’t run away.” I nodded, a nervous nod, and he loosened his grip. With that tiniest release, I wound up my right arm just enough and jabbed my elbow quickly into his chest.

  “OW!” he barked, hurling forward and letting me go in the process. I was free. I ran just a few steps, enough to make it to that open doorway, through which scraps of light from the few bare bulbs of the tunnel had penetrated enough to catch us in a murky glow. And I stopped. Because he had. I backed up against the crumbling brick wall beside the doorway and let my guard down just the slightest. Hands on his knees, he stood hunched over, wincing, and looked up at me. “Nice shot,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He straightened up, slowly, stretching. “And I deserved that.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, anxious to get on with it, even though I was terrified of the answer.

  “I just need to talk to you. I’m sorry for letting myself in . . .” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card that must’ve been the master key, then returned it to its place. “But I just didn’t think you’d let me in otherwise, and it’s vital that I get to see you tonight.” He squinted, it seemed, with concern. Eyes locked on mine, he took a few steps forward.

  “Why?” My words stopped him in his tracks. “What do you need to tell me that’s so important?”

  “I know about yo
ur talk with Aurelia today—” he started. “I know she wants you to join and I also know that you’re probably not going to.”

  “You’re not going to change my mind.”

  “I’ve known that for a while. That’s why I’ve been giving you . . . space.” He faded to a whisper. I could hear the catch in his voice, the sorrow. I could hear it, but I couldn’t believe it.

  “Then what do you want?” I almost hissed it. I wanted him to go away. I wanted to go back up to my room, alone. I didn’t like being trapped down here with him. And he made me angry now; all I could see before me was this beautiful thing that I had fallen for and that had manipulated me. The past couple of months I had tried to avoid him as best I could, pretending he didn’t exist, though that’s not the easiest thing to do. Even in a hotel this big, you’re bound to run into the person you least want to on a daily basis. It hurt me to look at him now because my heart still remembered every second of that kiss the night of the opening. That kiss had still been the most remarkable couple of minutes in my entire time here. It made me ill that it had been with him.

  “You have to listen to me,” he said slowly. “Believe me when I say this. They are going to try to kill you, Haven. As soon as you formally turn them down, they’re going to just come after you. Stall as long as you can. I don’t know exactly when, I just know they will kill you and you have to be careful,” he pleaded, his tone dripping with fear.

  “I know,” I said with as much fortitude as I could, wanting those two words to carry enough weight to prove I could handle whatever was going to be unleashed upon me.

  He looked at me, confused. Then his eyes scanned our mysterious surroundings, this dingy entry point to the underground labyrinth.

  “Yeah,” he said finally, hanging his head with guilt and shame. “I guess you’ve figured out a few things, haven’t you?” I nodded, coldly. “I have so much to tell you, Haven, so much.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “That’s a fair question. I don’t know that I have any answer that will convince you.”

  “If you’re the one who’s been sent to kill me then I’ll fight you. Don’t think I won’t. And if you win then it’ll be on your conscience.” I stopped for a minute. “I guess you don’t really have a conscience, do you?” I almost found that funny, almost. “Well, I feel sorry for you then.”

  “You’re right to be angry.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I am.”

  “I owe you an apology and a lot more.” He stepped forward again, farther into that dull glow, and stared off into the darkness, as though figuring out where to begin.

  I decided to put it all out there. I had nothing to lose. “Just in case it changes your mind about killing me—”

  “I’m not here to kill you.” His face scrunched up at this, truly hurt by it.

  “Well, I might as well tell you. I really fell for you.” I tried to say it as matter-of-factly and as emotionlessly as possible. I noticed my fingers starting to fidget. I picked at my cuticles with nervous energy, but couldn’t stop. His eyes found mine, but my eyes darted away, fixating to the side of him. It was just easier. “And it’s pretty embarrassing that I was just some sort of assignment to you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Whatever,” I snapped. “I don’t feel like listening to you lie to me some more.”

  “Okay, you may have been . . . at first . . . before you came here. That was the plan. I go after you. Etan, Raphaella, they had their targets. But whether you believe me or not, this is true: you . . . charmed me,” he spoke slowly now, struggling to find the right words. “I was—I am—enchanted by you.” He let it hang there in the stagnant air for a moment before going on.

  “I find that hard to believe. Considering what you’re surrounded with here.”

  “No, it’s true. You should see the way your eyes watch the world and everything around you, like it all has something it’s telling just you. There’s a spark there; when you look at any of us it makes us feel like there’s so much we don’t know and we want to know, like you’re taking us in and we’re the only one in the room. I’m not used to that, to someone being engaged like that. I mean, you’ve seen the Outfit. They may be beautiful but they’re essentially robots, most of them, drained of life. But you’re real, and I promise you that my feelings, no matter how this started, were real. You surprised me, Haven Terra.” Now his voice fell to a whisper, and his gray eyes got far away. “You made me regret everything, made me second-guess what I’m doing, what I’ve been doing. And that’s something I didn’t know I was capable of feeling anymore.” He shook his head. “But this is where we are now. And this is why you will trust me: since I can’t be with you, since you won’t have me, I will do everything I can to help you beat them, even if it kills me in the process.”

  28. I Want You to Win

  Lucian paused for a moment, probably to let that sink in with me. I turned it over in my mind: he knew that I couldn’t be swayed to join the Outfit and that it was possibly a suicidal decision I had to make, so now he was sacrificing himself to me. “This is how I will make it up to you, this is my gift to you, and please accept it with my gravest apology. Tell me you forgive me or I won’t let you go.” He had said that line to me before. Back then, he had said it almost flippantly. Nothing was really at stake. But now, lead laced his words giving them an ominous weight, and a thin, teary mist clouded his eyes, sinking my weary heart.

  “I forgive you. I do,” I said softly, but firmly.

  He breathed out a deep sigh of relief. “Can we start over?” He held out his hand for me to shake. I realized I’d had my arms folded, and I gave him one last is-this-a-trick? look. But he looked sincere. It occurred to me that my scars were silent. I placed my hand in his, giving him my strongest grip. “Thank you,” he said. I nodded. “So, if you want, if this is where you’re comfortable, in these glamorous surroundings you’ve led me to . . .” He checked my expression to see how his attempt at humor had gone over, but I held steady. “We’ll do this right here. Actually, this is probably a pretty good place to chat.” And with that, he began unbuttoning his suit jacket. “Aurelia hates it down here—and if she had known that your room connected to all this, she never would’ve put you in there, by the way.” He slipped off his jacket and spread it out on the ground beside where I stood. “And the others are only permitted down here on special assignments, so we ought to have it to ourselves.” He took a seat on the concrete floor, gesturing for me to sit on this makeshift lily pad he’d made for me. “Please.” Reluctantly, I took my place on his jacket on the hard floor, and there we sat, watching each other like we were strategizing in a presidential war room. “How should we do this?” he asked. “You probably have a lot of questions. I’ll tell you what little I know of the immediate danger and then you can fire away. Good?”

  “Okay.” I studied him, prepared to take in absolutely every word he said, to burn it into memory and extract from it every bit of knowledge that could possibly aid me.

  “It’s probably going to happen around your prom, even though you would think she would wait until all the proms are over because there’s much for her, for us, to gain from these events. But she’s impatient and sometimes she makes a decision based on emotion rather than strategy. That’s a great weakness. She’ll be offended and furious when you officially tell her you won’t join. She’s delusional and used to getting her way so she’s still holding out the hope that today might have swayed you. So she’ll act fast even if it isn’t smart for her. I believe you know about the photos, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “They changed because your powers are just beginning to form. It’s impossible for anyone other than you to know what your powers will be, but based on this, you’re already what we call a ‘soul illuminator.’ You can expose anyone’s true nature. What that means right now is, always trust your instincts because they’re right.”

  Something occurred to me and I cut in: “Did you take
my camera? The one I brought with me?”

  He looked away, all the answer I needed. “I’m sorry. Aurelia ordered one of the Outfit to do it, but I thought at least if I did it then it would somehow be less intrusive.”

  “Right, a kinder, gentler theft,” I said mostly to myself. “How’d she even know—”

  “Aurelia had your things searched the day you got here—”

  “Of course she did.” I sighed.

  “But that was even before she knew about your powers and all, so she didn’t know what she was looking for then. Well, she knew that you had extraordinary powers, but she didn’t know you’re a soul illuminator.” He looked pained. “But maybe I can make it up to you with more secrets?” he offered.

  “Sure.” I gave in. “Here’s a question: so, my picture is changing too. What’s the deal?”

  “It must be telling you something about yourself, about who you are.”

  “And your picture? I saw it and—”

  “It started to change back a little, right?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t understand.

  “I saw that too. I didn’t think it was possible. That’s your influence on me, if you can believe that. I haven’t taken a soul in weeks. You make me want to be better than I am. All of my regret shows in that picture now . . .” He sounded appreciative, as though I had done something. “The photos show the subjects’ true souls, that’s why they’re so disfigured. If you destroy their souls, you send them back to hell. So you need to slash those or burn them or do anything that will harm the photo itself and in turn harm the person pictured.”

  “I’ll go right now then. What am I waiting for?” I burst out. But I was scared.