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Finally, I’d reached my room. If I was lucky, Bifiel wouldn’t be here, and I’d get some true alone time in which I could take a long, long shower and scrub my body clean of all lingering unicorn poop. I sighed, already imagining how good it would feel to catch a break like this before my next shift.
As an angel, I didn’t really need to sleep, and I didn’t require rest as I once had when I’d been a human, which meant that, technically, I—as well as other angels—would be able to work nonstop. Given that we didn’t even have to eat or drink in order to stay healthy, seeing as we took our sustenance from Heaven itself, we wouldn’t need any breaks.
But as much as the angels in charge liked to make us lower-ranking staff toil for their benefit, not allowing us any leisure time would apparently go too far. I wondered if there had been a revolution at some point that had claimed that regulation as a victory, an uprising of the working-class angels against the tyranny of the elite, demanding labor rights like the twelve-hour workday and a day off once a month, or else high-ranking heads would roll.
Or maybe we had unions? I paused, scrunching up my brow. I should find out. I’d been here long enough; I should know about any potential organizations working for my rights.
But first, shower.
I pushed open the door to my room and froze at the sight of the angel perched on the edge of my bed, her innate power a hum in the air. Her auburn hair fell in loose waves around a face of light brown, and as I halted on the threshold, she raised her turquoise eyes to meet my gaze, a smile illuminating her fine features.
“Naamah,” I croaked.
CHAPTER 2
“Hello, Chaya.” Naamah inclined her head, then wrinkled her delicate nose. “Is that unicorn manure I smell on you?”
I cringed. Of course, on the day I got covered in shit, I’d get a visitor. Plenty of days went by without anyone coming to see me, but trust my luck to make sure I’d be as uncomfortable and unpleasant to behold as possible when a friend stopped by.
“Sorry,” I said with a grimace. “There was a shitcident.”
Naamah held one elegant finger under her nose, her eyes glittering. “Tabris, I presume?”
“He’s the worst,” I ground out.
She laughed, then coughed and scrunched up her face.
I shied back. “Ugh, sorry, I’ll just go hop under the shower and get rid of the stink.”
“Please do,” she pressed out, obviously caught between suppressing more laughter and trying not to breathe through her nose.
I hurried into the small bathroom. Spartan and functional, its walls were pristine white stone, the floor gray marble, and the amenities simple but sufficient—shower, toilet, sink. The shower stall wasn’t quite big enough to get in there with one’s wings out. Should one of us be unlucky enough to soil our feathers somehow, we’d have to get them hosed off outside in the courtyard.
I peeled myself out of my clothes and then stared at the foul-smelling heap with a sneer. I’d never get the odor out of it, would I? Might as well incinerate it all.
Damn it. I liked those pants. They were my best pair. And that was my tunic with the fewest holes in it. I stomped my foot, gritted my teeth, and then accepted my fate. With a deep breath, I called on the power running though my veins and brought it forth.
Lightning erupted from my fingertips, aimed straight at the pile of clothes.
Unfortunately, my aim was shit, much like those clothes now.
The flash I’d summoned bounced off the tile a foot to the left of the pile, cracking the floor in the process, streaked right at the wall, damaging the stone, and ricocheted off it toward the mirror on the opposite wall.
The mirror shattered into hundreds of shards that hit me like a volley of knifelike missiles.
I screamed and jumped, pain slicing through me in dozens of places. My bare feet stepped on the sharp pieces littering the floor, and I howled.
“For fuck’s sake!” Leaning against the wall, I held on to my right foot and gingerly extracted a mirror shard from my sole. The wound closed right before my eyes, but the pain sure lingered.
“Everything all right in there?” Naamah called out from the bedroom.
“Perfectly fine!” I hollered back.
With a sigh, I threw open the window, tossed the soiled clothes outside, and shut it again—though not before I heard a streak of curses. Biting my lip, I peered out through one of the tiny clear panels within the design of colorful frosted glass.
Oh, yikes. I’d thrown my shitty clothes right onto an unsuspecting angel outside.
Cringing, I ducked and turned away.
