Angels of Darkness

helped from the wagon? If everyone knows that there’s an angel living in the Great House, and that he’s broken?”
    I used the word deliberately, but he barely flinched. “No.”
    â€œCorban, are you sure? It’s no trouble to come back for you after sundown.”
    â€œI’m sure,” he said, and slumped back against the side of the wagon. He didn’t speak another word for the rest of the drive.
    I stopped again at the front of the Great House and let Alma help him up the shallow stairs. I kept my hands lax on the reins and most of my attention on the school grounds, where an afternoon break meant dozens of students and ten or twelve teachers were milling around outside, playing games, enjoying the spring sunshine, and watching the angel stumble into the house. Most of them looked from me to the angel and back at me.
    I sighed and tsked at the horses, guiding them downhill toward the stable. I didn’t feel up to the exclamations and the demands for information and the repeated protestations of amazement. Despite the fact that I was unspeakably relieved that Corban’s adventure had been no worse than it was, I felt as listless and exhausted as the angel himself.
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    I didn’t see Corban for four more days. I did try. I took supplies up to the Great House once a day, paused to speak briefly to Alma, then headed up the stairs to knock on the angel’s door. Then I kept knocking, sometimes for ten minutes or more, until he called, “Go away!” By that, and the fact that he continued to swap the breakfast and dinner trays Alma left on a table outside his door, I knew he was still alive.
    I had managed to give the thinnest possible explanation to Deborah and my fellow cooks. I knew there was a sick man in the house, but I didn’t know it was an angel. Yes, I suppose he must have been there for weeks. No, I don’t know what’s wrong with him. No, I don’t know what happened when he tried to fly. Yes, it certainly is a tragedy.
    They kept asking questions, but I never volunteered more information. Besides, I didn’t see the other workers too often, because I was back on the solitary overnight shift. Most of the staff and students had recovered from the first wave of the stomach sickness, but now the disease was making the rounds for a second time, and Rhesa was among those who succumbed. I didn’t mind resuming the night duties while she lay on her bed, fevered and miserable. The schedule suited me well enough—and afforded me the greatest freedom.
    On that fourth night, all my chores done and the bread prematurely mixed and kneaded, I took off my apron, crept out of the school, climbed the hill, and quietly let myself into the Great House. The door to Alma’s room was closed, though I wouldn’t have put it past her to be lying awake, listening for my footsteps. You should come back some night, she had said just the day before. Make him talk to you. She hadn’t gone so far as to say she would leave the door unlocked, but she had left the chain off. It had been simple to get inside.
    The harder task would be making it through the door at the top of the stairs. I knocked for a few minutes, not expecting an answer, and I didn’t get one. So I set the lamp on the table and picked the lock, which yielded without a fight. Then I retrieved the lamp and stepped into the room.
    Corban stood in the center, his body tense, his wings quivering behind him in visible indignation. He looked wretched—his clothes disarrayed, his hair unkempt, even his face unshaven. The room was a mess, with clothes littered across the floor, a few plates stacked on a corner table, the cello on its side as if it had been kicked over. All that was missing was the smell of alcohol and vomit, and he would have been entirely dissolute.
    It was clear he was not going to speak first. I took a moment to survey the room. “Well,” I drawled finally, “I see you managed to control your frustration with your usual genteel restrain.”
    His hands balled into fists and he took a step forward. “Yes, your mockery is all that’s been missing during my week of agony.”
    â€œIt hasn’t been a week,” I said. “It’s been four days. Have you lost your sense of time along with your pride?”
    The anger on his face deepened. I could see he was fighting the urge to respond. My guess was he had promised himself he