Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel, Book One

by Aimee Agresti

  “Us? Not much,” I joked.

  “Yeah,” Lance seconded. “Pretty boring stuff.”

  Since Dante seemed up to it, we told him everything. Everything. The three of us stayed there until Ruthie came home and dusk fell. Lance and I took turns relating this shared history of ours, each of us filling in the gaps in the other’s tales, jumping in with forgotten details. It’s a funny thing—the more time you spend with someone, the more they can change in your eyes. You find yourself studying everything about them, the shape of their face and the way their lips curl when they say certain words, their tics. The smallest things like that can become fascinating. And then it can catch you off-guard when you realize how much you’ve learned from the countless hours with this person—hours that ticked by without your even noticing—and all of a sudden you know them as well as your closest friends. You know when he’s going to adjust his glasses and when he’s going to put his hands in his pockets or when he’s going to still be watching you when you’ve looked away.

  When Lance and I got back to the hotel that night we had to keep up the illusion that Dante was still ailing, even though he hated sending us back. “I feel like I should be with you guys! I can’t let you sit there with these targets on your back. I need to help you,” he had pleaded.

  It all fell on deaf ears. “No, Dan,” I’d told him. “It’s just not safe for you.” So Lance and I returned and ran our drills like usual, but with an extra spring in our step thanks to our afternoon with Dante.

  By the time I got into bed, I was both bone-tired and emotionally spent. I snuggled into the covers but before I could let sleep take me, I pulled out that book. It had this to tell me:

  Fear nothing. And, above all else, never fear failure. Don‘t let that feeling hold you back from anything. Attack the possibility of it head-on so that you know you have done everything in your power to stave it off. Proceed as though it is not an option, trust in yourself no matter the odds. Trust in those dearest to you. Trust in your instincts and don‘t second-guess yourself. Be comforted by the knowledge that you have come a long way and if you keep looking ahead, you will keep moving ahead, no matter what stands in your way.

  I didn’t appreciate reading that f-word, failure, when the day I’d been bracing for was so close at hand, but I tried to ex-tract what I could from the entry. No sooner had I tucked it back in my night table, than I felt myself begin to drift, at last, to sleep.

  ***

  It was so real. So achingly, bloodcurdlingly real. As always, I had opened the door to the thump and shush of it and found them all there, marching down that hallway, coming for me, the entire Outfit, new recruits and old. All decaying as they went, like dead animals in the desert sun awaiting vultures. Limbs, heads, all dropping to the ground, littering their path. This time though, Aurelia led them all, reaching out with brittle hands, those chalky tentacles, specifically for me. “Why won’t you join us?” she wooed me, so sweetly as she made her way down the hallway.

  This time, the dream didn’t stop outside my door. I ran to my bed and they followed, hovering around it as this grotesque Aurelia leaned toward me, her eye now running down her cheek watching me on its tether cord. “If you don’t join us, we will fight you,” that sweet voice said. “And you will perish. Make no mistake. You will perish.” She reached out, yanking at my arms with those spindly fingers like fiery spikes against my skin. As the others cheered, I thrashed harder against her grip.

  Aurelia’s scorching claw reached down, clutching my necklace, pulling my whole body up with it. Though she tugged and tugged, the chain refused to be snapped off. It felt like a noose wearing away at my neck. She held up one hand, pointed her index finger straight up, and a flame appeared above it, like it was a candle. The fire danced and focused into a sharp thin line. With that narrow beam, she held my necklace away from my body and sliced straight through it. It radiated such fierce heat I thought she had slit my throat in the process.

  “I’m clipping your wings,” she hissed, handing the necklace to Etan beside her. “Among other things.” Then she grabbed a clump of my long hair with such force I thought the hair would rip right out of my head, and she sliced with that fiery beam as I thrashed against her, screaming at the top of my lungs. She took one more fistful and did it again and then let me go with an extra shove, so I landed in a heap on my bed.

  Then it was over. The nightmare was over. Everyone in the Outfit was gone; she was gone. And I was panting, sweating. I flipped the light on in my room, and my eyes then adjusted to it. I caught my breath, slowing it as best I could and when I finally had it in control, I wiped the sweat from my face and ran my fingers through my hair.

  It was gone.

  I grabbed at it with both hands but all that was left of my hair were jagged chunks. A shriek, long and piercing, tore from my chest. I couldn’t make it stop. I flew up from my bed, tossed the chair from the closet door, and opened up to the mirror. My hair had been hacked to uneven bits. My door burst open and Lance ran in ready to pounce but stopped short when he saw my reflection. He didn’t say a word. I turned slowly. My face was sweaty and hot, my eyes teary.

  “I thought it was a dream,” I said, still dazed. “But it wasn’t. All this time. That wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.”

  He stepped slowly toward me and put his hand in my hair, inspecting the mangled layers then looking me in the eyes.

  “We’ll be okay,” he said. “We’ll be okay.” And after a pause, trying to lighten his voice, he said, “You know who’ll fix this?” He held up a piece of my hair. “Dante. This strikes me as just the sort of thing he could do in his sleep.” I tried to smile, but couldn’t quite. Even Dante wouldn’t be able to fix what worried me the most: this had just been the warning, the flare that went up announcing something was coming for me.

  “She got my necklace too,” I said flatly. “Cut it right off.” I looked at his cuff; he did too. He folded his arms across his chest, thinking, thinking.

  “Stay here. They won’t come back,” he said, determined. “There’s a chance they’re in Aurelia’s office now. Maybe I can find something out.” He was already climbing up the ladder.

  “Wait,” I said. He stopped. “You know what—that’s a good idea. I’m coming with you.” It was the last thing I wanted to do, to be honest. I didn’t want to be anywhere near any of them. I had only just stopped shaking.

  Lance looked me up and down. “No!” he said, with surprising force. “I mean, I don’t think you should.”

  “I’m going with you,” I said again, this time right behind him, one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.

  He let out a sigh. “I’m guessing there’ll be no convincing you otherwise?”

  “Good guess.”

  He gave in. “Let’s go.”

  I followed Lance up, crawling single file through the narrow passage until we were able to stand. We crept along through the darkness until we found our usual lookout perch. No one was in Aurelia’s office, but the light was on, and a lit candle flickered. I noticed the bookcases against the back wall—that sliver had been left open.

  “She’s in there,” I mouthed to him. “We just have to wait.”

  And we did, standing there for minutes upon minutes. It had to have been at least half an hour when the office door opened and Lucian walked in, closing it with a bang behind him. He wandered over to her desk and scanned it side to side, touching some of the piles, peeking at the papers. His eyes brushed across the wall behind which we stood and I wondered if there was any chance he knew we were watching. At last he spoke up.

  “Your vanity has become a problem,” he projected out, in his bored tone, in the direction of the bookcase. “We don’t have time for this, Aurelia.”

  At that, she slithered out so gracefully from that slim opening. She was again the beautiful Aurelia, not the one who had attacked me. With a turn of the pentagram key in that panel along the wall, she sealed up the space.

  “I’m not sure I care
for how you’re speaking to me,” she said, settling into her desk chair. “But I know how you’ll make it up to me.” She stopped for a moment. “But then, you called this meeting, didn’t you? So perhaps you should go first.”

  Lucian seemed uninterested in spending any more time there than he needed to. He cut right to the chase. “You may want to rethink launching the plan this weekend. Perhaps wait until the last of the five dances to seize your target. It would make more sense. That way we will have already done so much recruiting. If we do this now, and something does not go according to plan, then we’ll jeopardize the entire project.”

  “Too bad. Is that all?”

  He sighed. “Yes, that’s all, Aurelia.”

  “Now have a seat, you make me nervous,” she barked. “Obviously this will have to be done quietly, preferably toward the end of the evening so we’ve had ample opportunity to recruit. The kitchen staff will be concocting particularly potent formulas to assist with our efforts and we’ll have the old guard, our finest of the Outfit, there at the dance. Dispatch the new members to the Vault instead. We don’t want any amateurs.”

  He nodded.

  “I hear that there’s a chance we may still be able to convert Etan’s boy,” she continued. “My spies tell me his memory is still failing but if Etan’s toxin worked properly then he should be returning for the prom, with the coding in effect. And I’m still of the belief that Haven and Lance will come to their senses when they see the clock ticking and accept our generous offer.”

  I felt Lance’s posture become more rigid. Still plenty rattled from what had just happened in my room, I involuntarily grabbed his firm upper arm at this news, gripping him so tight, he turned to me and mouthed, “Ow.” I mouthed back. “Sorry,” and let go.

  “But now for my brilliant idea,” Aurelia said to Lucian, looking pleased with herself. “Our dear, foolish Haven. If she doesn’t join, she’s going to be so sorry that she’s made things so difficult for herself. Since you have failed stunningly in your mission, it falls to you to correct the situation.”

  “What are you saying, Aurelia?” he asked her, his face marble.

  “You will destroy her,” she said slowly and simply, with that smirk. She picked up a letter opener and caressed its sharp edge as she paced. “And you will be monitored. If you fail, someone else will be waiting in the wings and you will be made to watch as one of our more blithely heartless henchmen takes care of her, and you will be left to the Prince himself.”

  His face fell. My hands rose to my mouth to stifle a gasp, but I was too loud. Lance put his hand over my mouth too and we froze.

  Aurelia’s head snapped in our direction. I said a silent prayer hoping she thought that sound had simply come from Lucian.

  Lucian piped up now. “I thought the plan was for me to oversee, to help pair up the others for recruiting purposes, and to take care of Lance,” he said in a hostile tone he seemed unable to fully control.

  She held up her index finger and closed her eyes, like a beast sniffing out prey. She opened them, staring at him now, and said very calmly, “Plans change. I strongly advise you to adapt.” In one swift motion she flung the letter opener at her flat screen monitor—essentially at us and just to the side of Lucian’s head. It sparked and smoked like it might explode, and we took off through the passageway. When we got to the point where we had to crawl, we moved so fast I could feel my palms tearing from the coarse floorboards. We were panting by the time we made it down the ladder and hit the floor of my room.

  So it would be Lucian, then. My mind raced trying to process this new twist. Could he really kill me? But he would have no choice; if it wasn’t him it would be someone else.

  “We’ll figure this out,” Lance said finally. We were seated on my bed, trying to sort out what we’d heard. “We have all day.” It was just after six in the morning. We had heard all the plotting we could hope to hear. Now the onus was on us to determine how to use all of this to our advantage, to save our lives. It was a tall order. “Supposing,” he started, “that we did bring Dante back. How could we get him in safely?”

  “Are you serious? I don’t want him here. I’m scared of what they’ll do to him.”

  “I know, but hypothetically. Are there ways we could get him in here to help us without getting him . . .”—he was searching for the right word, anything other than killed—“ . . . caught, as soon as he sets foot back here?”

  “Well, I mean, we can’t walk him in past the front desk Outfit girls. He’s obviously a major target, and short of putting him in a Trojan horse, like something out of AP English, I don’t really know what can be done.”

  “Trojan horse. Greek mythology, gift left for the people of Troy after battle but filled with Greek warriors ready to jump out and destroy the city,” he said, thinking aloud. “You might be on to something.”

  31. Time for a Change

  About an hour later, I had just finished getting into my uniform, and was shaking a towel through my wet—and horrible—hair, when a knock came at the door. It was Lance, already in his uniform and bearing a bag of chocolate boxes and a list of those few places to hit. “They left us this list in the gallery, only a couple places. I’m sure we’ll be tailed,” he said, walking right into my room. “I talked to Dante. I’ll do the deliveries, you’re going there. He’ll fix that hair. And give him this.” He handed me another bag with a chocolate box. “Everything he needs is in there. I’ll fill you in on Operation Trojan Horse. Or, rather, Cow.”

  Dante was waiting for me, scissors out and ready to go the minute I arrived at his place. I had tied and pinned back my choppy mess of a hairstyle and stuck it all under a hat, and as I let it loose now, he did his best to hide his shock. “This is going to be just fine,” he said, touching my head delicately, as he ushered me into the desk chair he’d positioned before the mirror in his room. “We’ll get her for doing this. Taking souls is one thing, but botching up a haircut is inexcusable.” He tried to be light, but I could hear the quake in his voice. Raking his fingers through, he shook out the hacked-up layers. “I can totally do something with this,” he said. “I promise you.”

  “I owe you one.” I was starting to feel better already.

  “Um, you kind of helped save my life, so I think we’re good, honey.” He took a comb out of his back pocket and pulled it through my locks. We were silent for a few long minutes as he studied me before he began clipping.

  When I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I spoke tentatively. “Dan, I feel like I failed you as a friend. I did, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.” I had wanted to say this for a while now but needed to wait until he was feeling better. But now that he was, I wasn’t sure I was up to hearing the answer. He stopped cutting for a moment and his face turned serious. He spoke to my reflection in the mirror.

  “It wasn’t you, Hav.” He shook his head. “I got swept up, you know? He understood me, Etan did.”

  “I understand you,” I offered.

  “No, sweetie, you’re nice, but do you understand what it’s like to be sixteen and gay and out, like, way out, not figuring it out like most everyone else at school? I mean, are you a gay guy who likes to cook?”

  “I guess not,” I said, disappointed in myself.

  “This is stupid,” he said, smiling to himself now. “But I just really want to be in love, you know what I mean?” He had a vibrant spark in his eyes that I had missed these past months.

  “You’ve always been a romantic. You like chick flicks more than I do.” He gave me a playful smack on the shoulder, then started cutting again.

  “There’s just never anyone to be in love with. I feel like it’s just me on this island, waiting for hot guys to join me, but no one knows who they are yet or how to get there yet.”

  “They will though, and they won’t be like Etan.”

  “Yeah, I mean, I know he played me.”

  “It’s okay, we all got played.”

  “But he had this whole spiritual thing too, sayin
g I could be young and beautiful and successful instantly and, like, forever. It seemed like he, and everyone there, had everything figured out, you know? Like they were leading these perfect lives.”

  “I know, believe me. Hey,” I said, ready to move on to more important business, “Aurelia seems to think you might still be able to be converted to their side.”

  “Oh, they’re not taking me without a fight. I’ve got plans for them. You can’t keep me away.” He stopped cutting. “Don’t you have something for me? From Lance? I was told there would be a top-secret file for me. I’m ready to go!”

  “Are you sure though, about coming back? Because I really don’t want you to feel like you have to. It’s totally okay; you’ve been through enough already—”

  He cut me off. “Hand it over.” I hopped off the chair, rifled through my things, and dug out the chocolate box Lance had sent along, which I knew would be completely devoid of any candy. Dante tossed the lid on the floor and found inside a slip of paper with an address, where he was to meet Lance at six o’clock that evening, and his chef’s coat.

  “Excellent.” He left the box and its contents on his bed and snapped his fingers, motioning for me to get back in the chair. “I’m going shopping later.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ve got a little list of all the plants and spices and things I’m going to take from that garden. I’m going to mess with their recipes at prom tomorrow night.”

  “So you’re officially coming back?”

  He plugged in the hair dryer. “If for no other reason than to avenge the slaughter of your hair.”

  I had to smile, worried as I was. “That’s very chivalrous,” I said. “But we’ve still got some matters to discuss: do you know about this business of ‘coding’?”