Chapter 1 #2
Predictably, Luc offered no reply; he kept his eyes on the ball in his hand, on the tiny details he was adding to it. A set of wings. A mouth. Two eyes.
“Is that supposed to be an angel?” Lila giggled. If it was, it had no neck and no head, only a body.
Luc remained silent; he added another set of wings to the strange creature, one wing on top of its body and one on the bottom. He formed one final, larger wing where she imagined the creature’s legs and feet should be. Finally, he hung the creature in the sky.
“It’s not an angel,” he answered but offered no further information.
“Um, okay…What’s it called, then?”
Luc shrugged.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t it look awesome, though?” He looked at her for the first time, demanding confirmation.
Lila nodded. She thought everything Luc made looked awesome, but she didn’t think he needed her to tell him that. Besides, she was far too shy.
Most everyone in their class found Luc annoying because he complained when they didn’t catch onto skills fast enough to advance their lessons at the pace he wanted, but none of that took away the fact that he was brilliant.
And that if he noticed you at all, it meant he thought you were special. If he spoke to you, well…
“I want to make one too,” Lila said, plucking a fluffy wisp of cloud from above their heads.
It took no time at all for her to form the rounded body, eyes on each side, and a pointed mouth.
The five wings—or whatever they were—gave her more trouble.
Each wing was a different width and length, and they all had raised lines for embellishments, which were difficult to form with clouds.
Their light texture made them easy to shape and easier to disperse.
While everyone’s laughter rang out behind them, Lila worked side by side with Luc, and he made five creatures to her one. But finally, Lila hung her…being…up in the sky next to Luc’s.
“Like this?” Lila asked.
Luc turned, and his eyes widened in surprise, as though he’d forgotten she was there. He glanced at her work, giving no expression, but after a moment of studying it, he pointed at the cloud and said, “That’s perfect.”
He returned to his work, probably forgetting she was there again, but Lila smiled and bit the inside of her mouth.
Luc never complimented anyone.
“Lila! There you are!”
An out-of-breath Eva rushed up and tugged on Lila’s arm, forcing her to twist around and scramble to her feet.
“We’re starting a new game!” Eva shouted, pulling Lila along. “Come on, we’re gonna win this one!”
On bare feet, Lila stumbled after her best friend; they swerved around their classmates who were chasing each other and crossed through the middle of the play set to the opposite side of the oval where the Crescent Arch rose above them like a glittering stairway to whatever hid in the Void above Heaven.
Lila glanced back once, but Luc was bent over his work, as if he’d noticed her leave as little as he’d noticed her appear.
Eva’s voice had been an assault to Luc’s senses. She was always loud when she didn’t need to be—especially when she didn’t need to be—but her appearance had annoyed Luc more than usual.
He was used to being alone, but Lila’s presence had been unexpectedly pleasant.
Unlike most of his classmates, she didn’t ask annoying questions, and she actually paid attention to what he said.
She’d copied his new, nameless creature precisely, and it hung in the aether above him, indistinguishable from his own handiwork.
Glancing behind him, Luc thought he spotted her when an angel with Lila’s dark, reddish brown complexion and a single dark braid skipped past, but it wasn’t her.
The angel in question had gold and silver flowers pinned throughout her braid, and Lila never wore adornments in her hair.
Unlike Eva, who pinned her strawberry blonde hair with every metal and jewel available so that it was impossible not to identify her by the back of her head.
Luc shook his head. It didn’t matter.
He was used to being alone, and he needed to focus if he was going to figure out why he’d been created.
The masters wouldn’t tell him anything except that he had a great purpose, whatever that meant.
He’d been chosen—a vision had been seen upon his creation—to undertake an outstanding task, but no one would reveal the nature of it to him.
He’d been told he needed to figure it out for himself in order for his purpose to unfold naturally.
Did his purpose have something to do with the cloud creatures he’d just designed?
Luc frowned. He didn’t know.
Dispersing the creatures with a wave of his hand, he slipped off the ledge and floated down, down until he reached the backside of the dormitories.
He wasn’t supposed to wander off by himself—chosen angel or not, he often got chastised for it—but no one would notice he was gone as long as he made it back by mealtime.
The construction site of the Great Hall was located on the opposite side of the Library from the dormitories, and Luc snuck around the back of the Library to get there.
At the site, stacks of abandoned building materials, mainly creamy yellow limestone, surrounded a beige marble foundation inscribed with the master architect’s blueprints.
In lessons, Luc and the other students had viewed a wooden model of the Great Hall, but it was overwhelming to see the scale of it up close.
To see how far the base of the structure extended from one corner to the other.
The adult artisans hadn’t even begun to construct the walls yet, though that seemed imminent, judging by the volume of materials present.
Luc wondered how much stone a building of this size required. He chewed his lip, trying to decipher the coded markings on the floor from what he’d read about blueprints in the Library.
“This site is off-limits to students,” a stern voice reprimanded him.
Luc spun and saw Master Michael, the warrior on Heaven’s highest Council, perched on the foundation’s edge.
Dark curls spilled boyishly about his tan face, but this did nothing for his severe countenance.
The humorless slant to his mouth. The rigid set of his broad shoulders.
Those deep-set brown eyes that always seemed to be noticing something he didn’t like.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, straight as a sentry.
Luc had never spoken to him, and he hadn’t heard him approach, absorbed as he’d been in studying the building plans.
“In fact,” Michael continued, “it is off-limits to everyone until its completion.” He inclined his head toward Luc and sharpened his gaze, as if to say he knew who Luc was and didn’t care in the slightest. Michael was ancient, one of the original eighty-four angels, formed aeons ago and placed on the Council by the Creator Himself.
Luc puffed himself up to show he wasn’t intimidated.
“I was just studying it. For lessons. I’ll be taking advanced courses soon.”
“Is that so?” Michael raised a derisive eyebrow.
“Well, I’ll give you an advanced lesson right now.
” He padded across the stone, silent as the aether and solid as the marble under their feet.
“Proper construction means that everything is put in its place. Didn’t the masters tell you that details are important?
One careless mistake, and the entire structure loses its integrity.
We can’t afford to have students running amok among building materials and disturbing the construction process.
Now off with you before I tell your masters to keep you in the most remedial courses possible. ”
Michael uttered this last sentence with complete distaste for Luc’s person, and Luc cried, “You can’t do that!”
“Can’t I?”
“My instructors won’t let you.” Luc lifted his chin. He was beloved by all the instructors; he always impressed them with his work, and some of them gave him extra lessons and access to materials the other students couldn’t dream of possessing.
“Your instructors?” Michael’s mouth twitched. “And who do you think determines whether your instructors stay in their current positions? I doubt they will help you much once they’ve been reassigned to other tasks.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I’m on the Council of Twelve, boy. Or did you not learn what that means in your studies?”
Of course, he knew the Council of Twelve. The highest Council in Heaven, they presided over the twelve lower, guild-specific councils and included a member from each of the twelve artisan guilds.
Luc wanted to be on the Council; once there, the purpose of his existence would have to come to light. They even met with the Creator Himself!
“Of course, I know what it means,” he assured Michael. “I’m going to be on the Council when I grow up.”
“It’s interesting that you say that.” Michael smiled, and Luc had never seen him smile. He realized he’d made a serious error. “You do realize,” Michael continued, “that you need to be unanimously appointed by the current members?”
The meaning behind his words was evident. Luc should not make an enemy of Michael.
Luc scowled. Michael didn’t know who he was threatening, but he’d be sorry. Luc was going to be the brightest angel who ever existed. He was going to invent things that Michael would never understand.
He should be telling Michael not to make an enemy of him.
Only the faint fear that he might actually lose his current privileges made him bite his tongue and shuffle toward the entrance of the construction site under Michael’s watchful eyes.
At the edge of the foundation, he paused and might have let his irritation bubble over anyway, but Michael snatched him up by his collar and sent him tumbling forward.
“And don’t come back here. Remember what I said.”