Angels of Darkness

sympathy—he had seemed to forget how irritating I was, but he was remembering pretty fast now. He came to his feet in one swift movement, and his wings swept behind him with a kind of grandeur.
    â€œI appreciate your insights,” he said in an acid voice. “Some other day, perhaps, we can discuss the tragedies you have survived.” He gestured toward the door; I was interested to note that he knew precisely where it was. That unwary step that had caused him to trip on the roof must have been a rarity. “But I’m tired. Please take all the trays with you as you go.”
    Just to annoy him, I stacked the dishes as noisily as possible. He’d left half his breakfast untouched, but he’d done a good job on the dinner; maybe a little argument was what he needed to stimulate his appetite. Pausing in the doorway, I said, “I’ll be back tomorrow night at about this time. Late. If you get hungry before then, can you make your way downstairs?”
    â€œYes,” he said shortly. Unsaid went the rest of the sentence. But I don’t expect to be hungry. I’m never hungry. I’m too sad to eat.
    â€œThen I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    I paused long enough to give him time to say I’d rather starve to death than spend another minute talking to you. But he didn’t. He merely stood there, obviously waiting for me to go. I was sure that, no matter how quietly I moved, he would be able to tell when I had left the room.
    Alma was sleeping when I checked on her, which made me realize she must be in even worse shape than I’d thought. Otherwise, she would have managed to stay awake long enough to give me a furious scold for spending so long in the angel’s room. There were medicinal herbs in the school’s infirmary; I would have to bring her some tomorrow night when I returned to take care of the angel.
    When I returned to take care of the angel.
    My plan had been to trick my way into his presence so I could prove to myself I had no reason to fear him. Instead it seemed I would be bringing him meals and employing edgy banter to prod him out of his melancholy. The situation was so preposterous that, if I hadn’t been worried about waking Alma, I would have laughed out loud. Instead, I washed the dishes as quietly as I could and made sure the fire in the oven was out before I finally left the house for the night.
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    I slept badly—so busy reviewing my conversation with the angel that I kept fending off sleep—and spent the next day sleepwalking through my chores. I managed a quick unobserved visit to the infirmary, where I secured a container of manna-root salve and a roll of bandages so I could rewrap Alma’s ankle. Finally I joined the others in the kitchen as they began cleaning up after the evening meal and scrubbed at the pots as I waited impatiently for all of them to go to bed.
    Again, it was close to midnight before I could slip outside and hurry up the hill to the Great House. Alma was waiting for me, seated at a kitchen worktable and facing the door. She was a determined one, I gave her credit for that, for she’d found a way to move around the kitchen well enough to put together a simple meal. There was bread cooling on the table and a covered pan warming on the stove.
    â€œHow’s your ankle today?” I asked as I stepped inside.
    She made a face. “Hurts even worse than yesterday, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
    â€œLet me look at it before I go upstairs,” I said. “I brought some salve and better bandages.”
    I could tell she didn’t like it, but she allowed me to examine her injury again. No wonder she was in so much pain. The great purple bruise had spread down toward her toes and up toward her knee, acquiring some interesting tints of red and yellow. But I didn’t think there was a broken bone. I turned it gently and prodded it in the likely spots, and she didn’t cry out.
    â€œIt’s going to be a while before you can put any weight on this,” I said. “But maybe the manna root will make you feel better.”
    It did, almost instantly, as it usually does. I’ve always thought that manna was the best of the god’s tangible gifts. She looked both relieved and grateful as the salve went to work, and I saw her surreptitiously flexing her toes. Hoping that the absence of pain was the same thing as healing. Of course, that’s never