36. Angélique
36
Angélique
M y brain doesn’t want to compute what Elhyor has just said, and yet I’m running after him.
“What can I do?” I ask. I don’t know where this is coming from because I don’t think it would be smart to help if they’re going to attack Notre Dame, because it could actually help the plan I’m supposed to be following.
But then I think about Cassiopé, who I must admit became my friend in such a short time and the books she loves so much that probably are going to get destroyed in this attack, and then I think about Elhyor, who doesn’t really want to marry me, and yet doesn’t want to hand me to the Libération.
Because there is no doubt what this is. He refused to comply with their demands, and now he’s preparing his men for the impending battle that is coming.
It takes a few minutes before he finally seems to register that I asked a question. That’s when he pulls Brice after him and motions me to move with them into his office.
I’m not surprised to see that Cassiopé is following, too.
“You both need to go downstairs to the bunker,” he starts in Cassiopé’s and my direction.
There is a bunker under Notre Dame???
I had no idea. Not that I’ve seen any of the ground plans, but I would have seen a reinforced door, right?
I didn’t see the laundry room at first, so maybe not.
But that’s a cool thing to know.
“Why in the bunker?” Brice cuts him before he can say anything else. “They have torches, Elhyor.”
Why would that change a thing? We would still be protected, so I don’t see the point.
“There’s enough food in there to last at least a couple of years,” Elhyor answers his right-hand, as if he should know better.
“Yes, but what do you think they will do when they realize she isn’t amongst the corpses?”
Oh, god, this feels so wrong.
They’re discussing their own deaths as if they don’t matter, and the only important people are us. Or, well, me.
I don’t like it at all.
If they knew the little worth I actually had, maybe they wouldn’t be so adamant to protect me.
Maybe they’d let me fight, though.
“Can we fly away?” Cassiopé asks in a small voice.
Wait. Did Elhyor not tell anyone that I can’t shift?
“Can you carry someone?” he asks as he turns in Brice’s direction.
The dumb look on Brice’s face is answer enough.
“Depends on the someone,” he answers, tactfully avoiding looking at me. He might not have known, but the answer was easy to find.
“Is there a crash course on how to shift?” I ask, surprising everyone in the room, maybe even myself.
But I can’t forget that even though I haven’t shifted in eight years, it’s not because my body refuses to, no, I couldn’t shift because it was forbidden.
“I thought you said you can’t shift,” Elhyor asks with a pointed look. Is that hurt I can see on his face?
It can’t be true. Instead, I focus on his question.
I’m not going to let them burn centuries of history because they want me. The daughter of an archangel.
I’m a symbol to them.
A symbol of Elhyor fraternizing with the enemy it seems.
“I was never taught how to shift,” I say as I hold my head high. I won’t feel guilty about kinda lying to him.
“But have you ever shifted?” Elhyor asks softly. For a second, I’m surprised by that softness, but then I remember that we’re about to get attacked.
“Once.”
“Then we can do it the regular way,” Cassiopé says with a bright smile, seemingly oblivious to the fact the men in the room are now wondering why on earth I’ve never shifted other than that one time.
She turns to me and grabs my shoulders to look at me. Then she turns her head to either side before moving me to the middle of the room, away from anything that could be hit by… wings.
“Okay, we’re going to do this together,” she starts, as if we’re the only two in the room. “First, I want you to close your eyes.”
Half-heartedly, I comply, and let her voice slowly tell me the steps to let my wings out.
“Now, you need to focus on your animal. Feel it inside of you. It’s like a fluttering against your ribcage. It should get louder and louder the more you focus on it.”
”Mmm.” I don’t know what that noise I made is supposed to mean, but I can’t feel anything. It’s like my chest cave is hollow and no animal lives inside. I know there used to be one. My little crow. But it feels like it’s long gone.
My bird has deserted me.
“Do you feel your dove?” Cassiopé asks.
I don’t correct her assumption that I’m a dove like my father. Instead, I breathe heavily in the hope that, if I get more air out, there will be more room for my bird or that it will be easier to find it.
I know it’s silly, but following Cassiopé’s words doesn’t seem to be working, and I’m grasping at straws.
I’m really trying. Really. But nothing is happening.
I open one eye, and Cassiopé looks so hopeful that it’s hard to tell her that I’m not feeling anything, so instead, I just shake my head.
The way her chin droops with defeat is heartbreaking, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. Or more like, I don’t know what to do, other than try to focus on her words.
“Let’s try something a bit different. Close your eyes,” she says as she smiles again.
I comply and try to empty my mind.
“I want you to try to focus on your back, where your wings will poke out when they are released. I want you to feel how your skin is pulled taut over your bones. Feel the skin moving over the bones of your wings, as if your wings are trying to stretch it to the point of making you uncomfortable. I want you to seek that pain and bathe in it.”
Shit. I didn’t realize that it might really be painful to shift. I’ve heard of it, of course, but when I asked earlier, I didn’t think about it at all.
“Now, I want you to focus on the pain that will sear you when the wings finally tear your skin out.”
It’s hard to focus on that kind of thing, but I do as I’m asked, imagining the kind of pain I went through when my father whipped me.
But nothing works.
I’m panting from the mere idea of those ten last lashes, and yet my skin doesn’t move, doesn’t tear, or anything of that kind.
“We don’t have all day,” Brice says.
“Well, I’m trying,” I snap back. “You said this was the regular way.” I pause as I look at Cassiopé again. “What is the other way?”
“Someone pushes you off a high ground,” Elhyor says, and he at least has the decency to look mildly sorry to announce it.
“That’s it. I’ll jump from Notre Dame’s roof.”
I’m aware that they’re all looking at me like I’ve grown a second head, but I don’t care.
“What?” I ask them as I walk to the door.
Brice is shaking his head, and Cassiopé has face-palmed herself and is now looking through her fingers. But Elhyor—Elhyor looks like he’s proud of my answer, and I don’t know what to think of it.
What I know, though, is that I need a change of clothes.