Chapter 17 Feather
Feather
Over the past weeks, my life had assumed a sort of strange routine. Hours of agony spent in Mikhail’s workshop, interrupted only by meals, daily trips to the purification chambers, and late evenings alone in my room crafting while the rest of the Protectors partied at The Merge.
I was never alone, and not because Sunny didn’t trust me to stay put.
No. Righteous had made it clear he was looking for some sort of payback for my “attack.” I wasn’t sure if that was social, physical, or some other flavor of revenge, but Sunny had assured me he was incandescent with rage.
Apparently, he was taking twice daily purification baths, and still hadn’t managed to get clean enough to merge.
In fact, Sunny said he seemed to be getting worse. His Guide had pulled him out of Group and into solitary mediation practice to find out what was going wrong. Valor and Hope had taken over his duties as prefect, or whatever.
Since I was no longer welcome to eat in the cafeteria, Sunny and Mikhail were the only ones I ever spoke to. They both warned me to stay put. I wasn’t expressly forbidden to leave my room, but they’d made it clear there would be some sort of punishment if I was found deviating from my schedule.
Consequently, my room, which had seemed luxurious at first, now felt like a prison cell.
“It just seems a bit harsh,” I complained.
“Permanently grounded from the cafeteria—who does that? It was a one-time thing. Should have known Righteous couldn’t take a joke.
Stick up his butt for sure.” At first, I’d worried that he had a “spiritual wound” or something, but Sunny had assured me Ry was the strongest, purest resident of Sanctuary, aside from Gavriel and Mikhail. So why was he making such a fuss?
“You assaulted a senior Protector,” Sunny finally replied, fighting to keep her face solemn. “You damaged him.” She popped a grape in her mouth.
“Damaged?” I winced. “Guess I need more kissing practice.” I actually felt terrible about the kiss.
I hadn’t meant to hit his lips. I remembered from Earth what it felt like to be kissed when you didn’t want it, and it tore me up inside to think I’d been the one doing the “damaging,” as Sunny put it.
Somehow, I’d make it up to him. Maybe he’d like a t-shirt, like the new one I was working on for Mikhail.
I peeked over at the stack of shirts; I hadn’t had the courage to give them to Mikhail yet.
Some of them weren’t too risqué, like the one that spelled out Angel Daddy in hot pink sequins.
But the newest one said Ask Me About Knife Play, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.
I had developed an embarrassing crush on the grumpy artist. Watching him work on creating sculptures and mosaics for the walls of Sanctuary’s many Assembly Halls, sometimes even forming what would become new Novices from glowing spheres of pure energy, had been unexpectedly arousing.
He was so meticulous with those broad, rough hands, careful and precise, and focused his attention perfectly on each task he undertook.
I really, really wanted to be a task under those hands, if only once.
I flashed back to my dream the night before, where Mikhail and Gavriel had taken orders from Rumple, while Righteous and I were tied side by side with an intricate web of colored rope.
For some reason, Rumple had been the one in charge, not Gavriel or Mikhail.
And Dream Righteous had been just as mad at me as the real one.
“I could tie Righteous up, somehow,” I muttered. “I bet Mikhail has some ropes in his closet.”
“Righteous?” Sunny screeched.
I shook my daydream away. “I need to talk to him, Sunny. I can’t stand knowing he’s out there, hating me. Plotting to kill me.”
Sunny let out a huge sigh. “He’s not plotting to kill you.” But she didn’t sound one hundred percent certain. “He wants nothing to do with you.”
I knew that was probably closer to the truth.
That bothered me too, for some odd reason.
Righteous was a jerk, but at least my interactions with him had seemed genuine.
He genuinely hated me, and I genuinely enjoyed tormenting him.
With Sunny, I still wasn’t as sure. The fact that she was getting paid to be my friend stood between us like an invisible wall.
Sunny was growing less grubby by the day, even though she didn’t shy away from hugging me.
Heck, she even slept in my bed sometimes, since we’d fall asleep after crafting or playing cards late into the night.
Her hair was silky and glowing with health, and her eyes sparkled with what looked like tiny stars.
She shone almost as brightly as the others now, except for a few stains on her legs and feet.
I wished I looked as good as she did; maybe if I was presentable, I could go out to the sex club.
Or at least not be ashamed of everyone judging me for all the visible evil I wore.
Ugh, I was such a pitiful birch. “So, can you stay and play poker again tonight? Or we can do arts and crafts.” She didn’t answer, too busy picking glitter out of her curly hair.
My first stash of glitter had been confiscated after the senior Guides had found the shiny stuff in their wing of Sanctuary.
I had no idea how it had gotten there; I sure hadn’t been on their side, and no one but Sunny came in here.
When I’d cried to Mikhail that my craft project had been ruined by the repressive Guides, he’d snuck me another jar full of the stuff.
Well, he’d left it on the bench next to the Torture Table.
That was very close to giving it to me, I figured. Plausible? Meet Deniability.
Anyway, glitter was sort of like a virus—it found a way to thrive, even against impossible odds. “Hey, Sunny, what’s that creature they found in the Siberian permafrost, the one that can survive radiation, no oxygen, starvation, and acid baths?”
She rolled her eyes and gave up on grooming. “I told you, science is not my thing.”
I picked up a cheese cube and chewed it slowly, pretending it was really bad chocolate. “Rotifers!” I shouted with my mouth full. “They can survive 24,000 years. I wonder how long Growly Bear’s been alive.”
“Not that long,” Sunny said, pitching a napkin at me. “Why are we talking about immortal microbes again?”
“I was just thinking about glitter and how, long after I’ve been unmade, new Novices in Sanctuary will find tiny little specks of color wedged in all the cracks in every room, and think of me.
” I liked to believe that even if I was unmade someday soon, I’d leave an indelible, sparkly stamp on this place.
I pulled the kazoo out from under my pillow and played a mournful tune on it.
Well, I played “Baby Got Back” but super slowly and with a lot of emotion.
When I was done, I held it out to Sunny for her to try, but she turned me down again.
She said even touching it made her feel nervous.
She hadn’t been able to take it back to the storage closet since Righteous had changed the combination on the door lock, and the idea that she was a thief horrified her.
I thought the Protectors in general needed a little more moral flexibility.
Was it really stealing if no one was ever going to play it again?
I called it liberating an unjustly imprisoned instrument.
Then again, I had spiritual syphilis. Maybe my moral compass had been contaminated along with the rest of me.
Sunny grabbed the kazoo out of my mouth and pitched it back under the bed. “Don’t let anyone catch you with that. I’m serious, there’s been a lot of talk in the Assembly Halls. Don’t give anyone ammunition to use against you right now.”
“Ammunition?” My cheese cube turned to chalk in my mouth. “They’re talking about me?”
A tiny line appeared in between her eyebrows as she nodded. “Among other things. You… and the High Angeli, too. I’ve never heard such disrespect before. They think Mikhail should have unmade you already. I heard two Guides saying they thought you might be a spy from the Abyss.”
“What? Did Righteous start that rumor? I’ll shove a fistful of glitter up his—”
“Ha! The look on your face. No, but the origin of glitter is the deepest level of the Abyss, you know.” She ate another grape from the bedside tray, lost in thought.
“They sure act like glitter is a crime,” I muttered. “That gives me an idea!” I jumped up, grabbed my sketchbook, and began to draft a new shirt design.
Sunny peeked over my shoulder, reading the words aloud. “If Glitter Is A Crime, I’ll Do The Time. Catchy. I like it.”
“I’ll make you one tonight while you’re at the sex club.”
“I told you, The Merge is not a sex club.” She brightened, glad to change the subject. “And you know I’ve only watched.”
“Hey, everybody has their own kink. No shame.” For some reason, Sunny’s face was turning pink between the freckles. “Wait. Sunny, are you… Is this the night?” I jumped off the bed. “You’re going to merge?!”
Sunny nodded furiously, smiling so wide I was surprised her face didn’t crack.
“Yes! One of the other Protectors from my Novice cohort said she admired the way I’d been working on my smut issues in group.
She thinks I’m genuine and hard-working.
She’s only merged once before, so it’s probably not going to be, like, amazing… ”
“Hey, you never know.” I fought to keep my smile bright. “I bet you can make up for experience with enthusiasm.”
“I hope so,” she agreed cheerfully. “I really, really like this Protector, and I was so worried I wouldn’t get asked.
It’s the big quarterly merge, and everybody has partners.
” She took something out of the pocket on the side of her toga.
“And it’s my favorite—it’s The Masked Merge tonight.
” She held a gold and turquoise mask over her face.
“See? My smut freckles don’t even show!”