Above the Ashen Clouds (Twisted Worlds #2)

1. Cat

Chapter one

Cat

I had seen enough transcripts to last a lifetime.

From within my sterile cubicle in the Political Science Department, I sorted through paper after paper looking for one single reference in all of these interviews to answer my question—were the angels inclined towards militarism in their culture? That is, did they value and promote their military? And if so, what would that mean for the United States’ international policy in the coming decades? Were they a threat that we had to consider, should they ever decide to leave their mountain? What would happen if they decided to ally with foreign powers with interests that were hostile to the United States? These were the burning questions I had to answer for my work at the Institute for the Study of Human-Otherworld Relations (ISHOR). Sure, my work had its moments, and learning about the angels was fascinating, but these interview transcripts were most-decidedly … not.

Interviewer: What did the angel say to you?

Witness 3: He said nothing with his mouth. But he didn’t have to. I heard it.

Interviewer: Heard it?

Witness 3: Yes. In my head. He told me to buy the ticket.

Interview: A ticket?

Witness 3: Yes. A lottery ticket. Told me to buy ’em all.

Sigh. Angels couldn’t communicate telepathically. That much we knew, based on what creatures from the other world had told us about them. Other than a few very carefully arranged communications, no one has had direct communications with the angels, yet. These last five years they had stayed on the mountain, isolated and stubbornly unwilling to have anything to do with us.

All of that was about to change. Hence, my research suddenly had enough importance to promote me from a lowly summer research assistant to a full-time research assistant to Doctor Cheblek, assisting her with her research as I pursued my PhD in political science. I had narrowly beaten Carolyn Zabinsky for the position—she had a superior academic record but suffered when it came to creativity. She had also been my archnemesis since undergrad, when she decided to take all my credit for a class exercise .

My work mattered. Carolyn did not. Carolyn could go intern at the local historical society and cosplay Revolutionary War civilians, as far as I cared.

The angels were my only concern. That, and getting my doctorate.

As of now, almost all our knowledge about the angels was second hand, imparted by creatures who were from the same world as them, the ones who had made an effort to integrate into our society. Unfortunately, with the religious connotations surrounding angels, they were a species prone to a lot more creative elaboration than, say, a unicorn. My dissertation, and the attendant research papers that came with my program, were to focus on that exact topic—how the fact that many religions have angels in a position as god’s messengers could affect their potential influence on the United States’ international policy, should they decide to exercise it. If these angels wanted to, they could dramatically influence international politics, merely because of what people believed them to be.

I had yet to read about anyone claiming that a telepathic unicorn told them to buy lottery tickets. Or told them to abandon their family in order to walk from one side of the country to the other. Or told them to stop eating anything “excreted” from another living creature, including plants, which apparently meant removing bananas, seeds, peas, and other such things from their diet .

In short, angels obviously had an influence that other creatures simply didn’t. And thus, they warranted special study and careful negotiations. The upcoming summit with the angels was the pinnacle of years of effort, and any future relations depended on its success.

“Still here, Cat?” a wiry male voice asked.

“Yes,” I answered, not looking up from the documents. The voice belonged to my colleague Dimitrius. Or as I called him, “Dimmy.” He was of a respectable height and had bold eyes, but there was no light behind them. The lights were on, but no one was home, as people say. He was a legacy student. I mean, so was I. But I took my education seriously.

“You know,” Dimmy said, “if you’re not working smart, you may as well not be working at all.”

Slowly, I raised my eyes to find Dimmy’s knowing smirk, which lurked under slicked-back hair that was days overdue for a wash. “ You’re still here.”

“Not for long. I’m going to Wawa.” Dimmy’s gaze roamed over my buttoned blue cardigan, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from snapping at my fellow assistant. Dr. Mulberry didn’t take kindly to his assistants being beaten with textbooks. Even ones who dressed like they were already tenured tweed-obsessed professors.

“Have fun with … that.” I turned my attention back to the riveting transcript.

“Do you want to come with me?” he asked.

“To Wawa? ”

“Yes.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “I have work to do.” And I’d rather get a colonoscopy. There was Wawa and its coffee and hoagies, and then there was Wawa with Dimmy. No.

“You know”?Dimitri leaned on the metal edge of the fabric cubicle dividers?“many say the twenties are the prime years of a woman’s life.”

“I’m sure they do.” I curled my toes, because that was the only body part I could curl without him seeing my budding anger. My hardcover copy of The Prince would look excellent soaring towards Dimmy’s head.

“And here you are,” Dimmy continued, “spending your prime years staying late in a building with no one to keep you company.”

“There are others here.” And there were. Academia never slept.

“You know, this isn’t going to make Dr. Mulberry choose you for the summit. Or should I say, why he didn’t choose you.” He scrunched his nose. “I’ve been working on our proposal for weeks—he’s not going to care that you’re, what, reading tabloid articles? Next thing I know you’ll be subscribing to Little Fairy Flavor .”

“Dr. Mulberry will choose who he thinks is best to accompany him,” I said, ignoring his implication that I followed fae social media personalities. Or any social media personalities. If Dr. Mulberry wanted to bring Dimmy of all people with him to meet the angels, then he was more than welcome to. Even if the idea made me want to grit my teeth. And even if Dr. Cheblek told me there was nothing she could do to influence his decision, but agreed privately that it was the wrong one.

“Have fun at Wawa,” I said. When and if I decided to spend my energy on a relationship, it would be when I was ready for one and all my criteria in a partner were met. And it was never going to be Dimmy.

Dimmy pushed himself up and prepared to leave, having finally seemed like he had gotten the hint, though we’ve already had similar versions of this conversation around, oh, thirty times? He would try to ask me out, I’d say no, he’d say something that just toed the edge of my reporting him to human resources, and then he’d spend the next day bragging about his accomplishments, both real and imagined. And then the cycle would repeat itself. Again.

“Cat?” a familiar voice asked from down the hall.

“I’m still here, Silv,” I called out after releasing a stilted breath.

Silv, short for Silvianus, was our department’s resident satyr—and my friend. He strode down the hall, wearing pants, special shoes designed to hide his hooves, and a dark brown canvas jacket. If one didn’t look too closely, he just seemed like a particularly hairy man. A hairy man with little horns.

“Would you like to take a walk with me?” he asked, eying Dimmy .

Silv had absolutely no interest in women other than as treasured friends. This was yet another of his endearing qualities. He knew what was going on instantly, having been working with us for over a year now. Silv often hinted that back in their old world, something would’ve eaten Dimmy by now.

“A walk?” I asked, already moving to shut down my work station.

“The trees are shifting with the season. I can practically taste it.”

He, like all the other creatures, had adopted the primary language of the part of the world they had appeared in. Thus, Silv spoke perfect English, though he retained something of a lyrical accent, and occasionally his word choice was … odd.

“Sure,” I said, closing my files and logging out of my computer. “I could use some air before I head home.”

Dimmy huffed and left. I would’ve felt bad, if it was anyone other than Dimmy.

“Come,” Silv said, politely offering me his arm once my computer was shut down. “This place is unnatural at the best of times. It’s no place to spend an evening.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” I chuckled.

Together we left the building, making office small talk while we strolled through the desolate campus. Silv was technically an intern, but he received lodging and a stipend in exchange for the valuable insight he gave us into his original world. Back home he had been a scholar, and he had seamlessly shifted into a similar role for us. I had a feeling he was studying us as much as we were studying him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a file under his bed with each of our names on it, ready and organized for if he ever had the chance to return home.

It was early fall, the hint of autumn already in the air. Now that I had left the ungodly chill of the office building, I unbuttoned my cardigan, letting my skin breathe for the first time in hours. The university buildings’ windows stared at me in silent judgment as we passed, the brilliant white frames standing out in the darkness.

With no one around other than Silv, I checked my phone. I’d have to remember to call my mom tomorrow. She lived in Quakertown, around an hour from here, and yet far too close. It had been a few days since we talked—she’d want to know how I was doing. And when I was coming home. And when I was going to graduate. And if I bothered to date someone recently. The world had changed, but mothers hadn’t changed one bit. The summit was only in two days, and I couldn’t tell her too much about my work until after it was made public, so our discussions always left her unsatisfied.

“I wanted to talk with you about the angels,” Silv said, stepping on the concrete with a distinctive swagger, his jacket still draped over his shoulders. “But I didn’t want that cretin to overhear.”

Silv was well-known enough here that he didn’t have to hide his identity, but it made things easier if he blended in. Many of the creatures from the other world had taken massive strides to fit into our society, but change never came easy. And it was probably tiring being stared at constantly.

“What about them? You told us everything already.” I adjusted my satchel. The weight strained my neck, and I stretched, getting a view of a nosy woman watching us from a window. I ignored her.

“I did,” Silv said with a nod. “But I wanted to ask you not to go to the summit.”

“What? Whatever for?”

“You don’t know what they’re like, Cat. You have no reason to know.”

“I’ve been studying them for years.”

“Yet you’ve never met one.”

I took a moment to think. I didn’t remind Silv about how much work I had done to prepare for this summit. He already knew. The angels and the government had agreed to a formal meeting that would occur in two days’ time, where they would give us translated manuscripts and trinkets for us to study, and we would provide them with food and other supplies. The hope was that this would establish a better relationship. Others, apparently, were not so optimistic. Like Silv.

On that fateful day over five years ago, the angels’ mountain suddenly appeared in place of a sprawling country club outside of Princeton. Suddenly this little city that was a picturesque suburbia littered with Revolutionary War sites became a place of angels. Not just angels—ashen angels.

In the daylight, I could see it even from campus—the towering mountain that lurked on the edges of the city, far higher and narrower than any mountain should be. Currently, it was estimated to be over ten thousand feet tall, a marvel of stone hovering over the world. There was no magic barrier protecting the mountain as there were guarding some parts of the invading world, yet humans were still unable to visit it—there was a cloud of some sort of ash or fine metal that whirled around the mountain in a torrent, making it impossible for any to enter without guidance. The angels could manage it, however, as their wings were coated in a fine silver metal. And they apparently had magic that made them immune.

“I appreciate that you worry about me,” I finally said. “But you’re going to have to tell me more than that to change my mind. You know what this means to me. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“You don’t know what they’re like.” Silv repeated and crossed his arms. “I never lived in their lands, but I heard the stories.”

“You told them all to us—we’re expecting anything. Including cannibalism.”

He let out a curt laugh. “That part probably isn’t true, but they’re cruel. The humans in their kingdom are not citizens to them—they’re tolerated, because they don’t bother anyone and they distract others who get too close to their cities. I can assure you that there are no humans inside that mountain. Not above ground, at any rate.”

My brow furrowed. “But you’ve said that humans are permitted to study at their universities. They allow many creatures.”

“That doesn’t mean they value them the same.”

Silv frowned as a car drove by, blasting some pained thudding music. “I’ll never understand why the humans here tolerate such assaults on the senses,” he said once the car passed.

“Anyway,” he continued, “only angels are allowed to use their magics. Only angels are allowed to go near their treasured libraries that dwell within the mountain.” Silv pointed to that mountain, which lurked over the horizon. “If you think that means they wouldn’t hesitate to destroy you if it suited them, you’re being painfully na?ve. Not to mention the rumors of what I heard occurs underneath.”

“I won’t be alone.”

His tone made a chill run down my spine. What were the rumors? Silv the Scholar wasn’t prone to exaggeration, and if he didn’t voice this rumor, that meant either he thought it was too extreme to mention, or he was worried about how it would negatively influence our interactions—in a way that could someday harm him. Or me. And since he told us about the cannibalism rumor …

“You aren’t listening to me,” he said. “You shouldn’t go near them. I have no idea what they might do to you if given the chance.” He played with a button on his jacket. “How about I come to your place instead, and we spend the day eating pizza and watching awful television and let the others contend with the summit? It’s your turn to host.”

I smiled, shaking my head. “If I don’t go, Dimmy will. I can’t let Dimmy have this. He won’t appreciate it.”

“Let him have the dangers,” Silv said. “I know you worked hard, and that this is important to you, but please—don’t go. There will be other opportunities for you to shine.”

Other opportunities? Did he not see what I had been through the last couple years? “After all of this,” I said, “you expect me to still rely on pictures? To write my dissertation on second-hand accounts?” All reports indicated that these angels were the celestial beings depicted by so many Renaissance painters, glorious and winged—with metal-glazed feathers. But all rumors said they were brutal creatures, little better than some eldritch horror. What was the truth?

“I expect you to stay alive.” Somehow, Silv’s expression turned even more solemn. “Stay back from the summit and find a young man to court, for once, if a day of lounging with me is not enticing enough for you.”

I cackled. “I’ll find someone when I’m done with my dissertation and not a moment earlier. It’s going to take a lot more than that to get me to be happy about staying behind. You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

“Sometimes mothers make valid points.” Silv shook his head in resignation. You’d think I had announced that I was going to be a mime on Times Square, and not possibly going to the summit that could decide my career. “Cat, you’ve been one of the nicest humans I’ve met since I came here. You helped me decorate my apartment. You taught me how to work the television and appliances. You even taught me yoga. I can’t lose you. Not to them .”

My heart wrenched, but I couldn’t waste my work, not even for Silv’s fear.

“Dr. Mulberry isn’t even choosing me,” I said, telling Silv the truth. “He hasn’t said anything to me, so it sounds like he isn’t. You’re likely warning me for nothing.”

“You want this that badly, and you never thought to ask the man responsible?”

“I … can’t.”

Silv let out a long breath. “Sometimes, Cat, you need to take action. You can’t wait for what you want to come to you.”

“Do you want me to go to this summit or not?”

“Absolutely not.” He gave me a concerned look. “It’s not just the summit. It’s … we’ll talk later.”

“We will. I promise.” I gave him a reassuring smile, one he half-heartedly returned. “And like I said and you pointed out—it very likely won’t be me.”

“I hope to whatever gods that walk this earth that that’s the case. ”

All of my work, and this prime opportunity was likely going to Dimmy. Dimmy, who wasn’t going to write his dissertation on angels. Dimmy, who likely only cared about this semester to the extent it bolstered his reputation. Dimmy, who bragged about how his great uncle was leaving him a used bookstore in his will.

The best things in life truly were wasted on the useless.