It was hard to hover, so Iofiel circled. Once, twice, more than that. After this morning, after these last two days, maybe it was good to remember she was an angel. She had been born recently, as living things go, naked in a field and covered in dew. A flock of Ophanim had been perched in the trees above, cooing and shifting. They were like balls of everything, speaking every human and inhuman tongue in turn, blinking their beautiful wide eyes and nothing else— they lacked a body besides a series of turning, fleshy rings. And of course, wings.
One of them, Amriel, had descended to wake her. And then Iofiel was. She knew her name, she knew what she was. She understood emotions she had never felt— and had yet to. She saw things in her mind which she might never see for real. The trees in Eden grow in every which size, and she clothed herself in leaves. Seemingly ironic, but, of course, it was humans who had never been meant to know suffering and shame, not angels.
Her life was a duty, and she’d been created knowing precisely what that meant.
She landed with stuttering steps on the inner lawn. Not far away, leaning against a window outside, two of her classmates from Rituals were speaking. She didn’t pay them any mind, but she wondered if they had noticed, if this really mattered to them. Did it to her?
End of the day, she still wanted someone to redo her halo and wing hiding spells for tomorrow morning’s Magic class, and there was only one person she could think of.
Her wings tight against her back— like it made any difference— Iofiel trudged through the cold stone halls to Adramelek’s office. She knocked once, but after a few impatient seconds, went in.
He was out, but Iofiel had nearly forgotten the space was not all his. Amariah was resting on her perch, body strewn out like a puddle of pale gold feathers. Upon Iofiel’s arrival, she perked up, and gently flew onto the desk. A single piece of paper was disturbed by this, flying off the table, but it wafted still in the air for a moment before returning to where it had come from.
She was so small and unassuming, but she was magic too, far more powerful than near anything. “Come to change majors?” Amariah asked. Her high-pitched voice was a tad more suited to the angelic language, and she sounded slightly more alive than when she attempted English. Still, it was hard to read her voice, and of course she lacked a face which Iofiel could gauge. Any sort of sarcasm, exasperation, concern, or irritation was impossible to decipher.
“N-No. I need help hiding my wings for when I’m in demon classes. Sorry, that does sound ridiculous, doesn’t it?” Iofiel felt like there had to be some sort of proper angelic code for talking to higher spheres of angels. Even though she knew there wasn’t one, she still made care to enunciate each of her words very carefully, and sit as politely as she could before the Seraph.
Amariah said nothing.
“Do you think this is a bad idea?”
Amariah remained quiet.
“It’s probably stupid to be doing this. But I’m still a loyal angel. I just... I guess I was too impulsive, and too weak for trying to help a demon. But he’s not really a demon, so maybe I thought it wouldn’t count. And now this is my reality, light treason and assured dishonor. Do you think they’ll kill me, Miss Amariah? Do you think They will?” Iofiel’s voice grew progressively quieter. “Believe me—I am nothing more than good, and bright... just. Ugh. An idiot.”
“It’ll be fine,” Amariah said, and Iofiel believed her instantly, because what else was she to do?
“Will I get in trouble?”
“It will be okay.” The difference between ‘it’ and ‘you’ had never been more frustrating. “Iofiel, of beauty— you will live today.”
“Today?” Iofiel sighed under her breath, and then caught herself, fixing her posture and bowing slightly. “Well, thank you, Miss. Will you be... helping me, or not?”
Amariah did not respond. Iofiel stood up, and she turned her ever-shifting body to watch as she went out the door. Her heart was still pounding as she closed it behind her, resting against the wall to catch her breath. Though she hadn’t been aware of it at the time, her palms were sweaty.
She wiped them on her skirt. So, wings out, no more worries. Except being told that things are fine was not quite the same as things being fine. Oh well. She needed to take care of her body before wallowing in any further angst— her stomach was growling, her hair was oily, and she probably could’ve used a glass of water. Being stuck in the material plane still took some getting used to.
The cafeteria was nearby, maybe two turns to the left from the Headmasters’ cramped office. It was around noon, so the large room was rapidly filling up with students, shuffling through the same routine. A few growled complaints about the quality of the meals, but Iofiel, who had never known anything else, didn’t really understand.
She knew some of the older students made plans to eat out in human restaurants, but who knew where they got the currency for it? The official cover story the University used was that they were a private, exclusive academy up on the hilltop. Technically, they accepted applications from humans— but all of them were rejected. Word on the street was that the local city folk thought every student at that strange castle-like University was the child of a millionaire or celebrity, whoever those were. Iofiel liked gathering gossip— it was her secondary introduction to human culture, in fact, since her classes on the subject tended to be rather slow going— but she still had a hard time following most of it.
She had macaroni and cheese for lunch, a golden and very warm food she was quite fond of. Then came the second part of the ordeal: figuring out where to sit. For the last few days, she’d been sitting with the other angels, Maalik or not.
Archie was in his usual spot, half hidden in the back of the room. Iofiel briskly walked over and sat next to him, placing her dishes down with a loud clink. “Hey!”
He leaned back, away from her. “Why are your wings out?”
“Santiago said that almost everyone who sees us together knows I’m an angel anyway— what’s the point? Plus, my roomie’s away and I don’t know the spell.”
“Still, having it out in the open... it feels a bit reckless.”
“Everything about this is super reckless! And stupid. Archie? We are stupid. Let’s just accept it.” Ioiel smiled brightly, and then began to stuff her face with her meal. “Plus, Amariah said it was fine, and she seems like the type to know these things.”
Archie watched with disdain, but after a nervous shift in his seat, leaned back forward. There was still a gap between them, but not much. “That’s very vague.”
“I know, but I think I want to be an optimist.”
“You already are. All of what you’re doing is… well, I’d call it optimistic.” Archie leaned over, his hands on his chin, shuffling his book aside with an elbow. “I wish I knew how.”
“That’s very dramatic,” Iofiel laughed. “It’s a choice, and without it I think I’d be curled up sobbing with fear. I’m surprised you’re so stoic!” Iofiel jabbed in his direction with her spoon, and he flinched like he was taken aback by the motion. Then again, perhaps they were just rather close, and Iofiel had come near to poking his cheek with it.
Archie blushed and shifted back. Then he paused, watching something behind Iofiel with rapt attention. She twisted around and looked— there was a demon staring at them, in the middle of the room, a milkshake in hand with the straw in the corner of his mouth. He was pink skinned— literally, not the peachy shade Iofiel wore— with pale green hair and small nubby horns.
He was staring at them like a bird that had caught sight of its reflection, and when Iofiel turned he immediately began to walk towards them, but even this he did in sudden, jerky motions. He spread his leathery wings slowly, and though Iofiel knew it was rude, she couldn’t stop thinking of him as an animal ready to duel.
“‘Ey Imp,” Despite the distance, the demon was a bit cautious, and he kept his voice fairly low. Unfortunately, everything about his stance gathered attention. It didn’t help that they we
re in the literal center of the room either. “Not enough of a demon, so you’re sitting with an angel?”
“Maybe I’m not enough of an angel.” Iofiel stood up. Archie was quivering, noticeably, and Iofiel briefly brushed her hand over his shoulder.
The magenta-winged demon looked at her like she was lost in the woods, and he wanted to sincerely help. “No, no, you see— he’s not a demon. He’s a meat puppet on a whole lower tier. You’re just a shit angel to be spending any time with him.” He studied her. “Actually, haven’t I seen... Aren’t you in my class?”
A nearby angel, keeping their distance but still utterly part of the crowd, gave the demon a curt nod. “I think she was in all of my classes, but she stopped going.”
“Yeah, to go to my classes!” Both the angel and demon were sharing a mixed look of shock and joy, but still kept a solid three and a half feet between them. “What kind of angel are you?”
“A nice one,” Archie said as he stood up, and Iofiel flashed him a look of please please don’t you dare. Sacrificing yourself for someone else was a very angelic thing to do. Archie didn’t need that sort of thing on his reputation.
“Wait, are you, or are you not, an angel majoring in soul sales? Have I missed something? What the fuck is going on?” The pink-skinned demon gestured to Archie, “And what the hell is this? Are you two allies in being awful, or there something insidious going on? Or, not like I care as much, but...?” He gave a knowing look to the nearest angel, a sort of raised-eyebrow stare of ‘hey, this can’t be right with your lot either, can it?’
That’s how Iofiel interpreted it, but the angel seemed to take it about the same way, her face twitching. Her hand, partially hidden, was slowly going through the motions of spell casting— not aggressively, but just in case.
“This is all a bit of a misunderstanding.” Iofiel stepped forward, waving her hands slowly as to try and calm the spectators down.
“What am I understanding wrong?” The demon asked.
Archie bound to Iofiel’s side, sticking an arm out in front of her, “Leave her alone!” It was all very heroic, but a terrible idea; Iofiel immediately threw her arm in front of him. With a quick jerk of her head, she hoped she’d communicated for him to sit back down.
“I’m trying to figure out which one of you is the traitor,” the demon pointed between the two of them, and then returned to the other angel for support— she nodded once. All things considered, they were being quite friendly too, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t quite about intolerance of each other— most angels and demons got on swimmingly at the University, united with a simple code of ‘don’t bother’ when it came to the other. Archie was an imp, and now he was getting too close to an angel— an angel who, for whatever reason, was now trying to be a demon.
The green haired demon took a sudden, swagger-filled step forward, Iofiel didn’t have time to think as he swiped at her. She winced, stumbling back and touching at her cheek: there was blood there, just a small dab.
The pain took a moment to settle in. The shock took longer. Her head was buzzing, and a drop of blood slowly spilled from her cheeks to her lips. She opened her eyes, and watched a droplet fall to the floor. Then she stuck her tongue out and tasted the wholly new flavor of the next one, finding it like nothing she’d ever tasted before: dirty and metallic. It was unpleasant, but only because she knew it was supposed to be.
Though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, Iofiel was caught in a tumble of thoughts: pain and shock and horror. She’d been hurt, she was bleeding, it was bad enough the demon had vocally insulted her and Archie, but now he’d attacked her. Archie stepped up to Iofiel’s side, staring in shock at whatever wound now decorated her face. The pain wasn’t as bad as Iofiel thought it’d be, though the demon seemed satisfied by what he’d wrought.
He was looking about, absolutely smarmy, hands on his hips. “We won’t have trouble keeping track of who you are now! Of course, it doesn’t quite solve the mystery of why you’ve been pretending to be a demon, but I suppose I ought to leave that problem to your superiors to ‘take care of’.”
“Shut up!” Archie barked. He had his arms hovering roughly around Iofiel’s mid arms.
“Aw, poor imp! I’ll take care of you soon, I promise.” He laughed, and then refocused on Iofiel. “Do’ya think it makes me a traitor for making it so easy for them to find you? Your Prince is going to descend from above, and he’ll only need two seconds to find the one angel with a nasty-ass scar on her face. If you beg, maybe I’ll help you hide by cutting your win—”
Archie stepped forward and punched the other demon in the face. He had to jump a little to pull it off properly, landing his punch right in the middle of his cheek. The crowd around them— very much passive, though some of the angels had taken to glaring when the pink demon had begun his threats— jumped a little. The demon stumbled back onto the ground, his cheek newly marked with a deep, bloody X cut into his skin. It smoked a little, for a few seconds, and the skin that wasn’t coated in blood was a chalky black.
Iofiel had jumped too at this, again finding herself frozen in a moment she felt she should have participated in. However, even in her stiff caution she was vaguely proud he’d pulled off the spell.
Archie moved to stomp on the fallen demon’s chest, but the demon grabbed his leg and pulled him onto the floor, face first. Something part of Archie cracked— his nose, again, most likely.
Blood coated the ground and Iofiel’s clothes. She took a careful step forward, going onto her knees to lean over Archie, intending to pull him up, but someone grabbed her by the collar. She scanned the crowd, but she was facing the demon half of the room, and all she made out was the cold face of Damien, moving forward. She nodded, and Iofiel hoped it meant that she would take care of Archie.
Otherwise, she fell back.
“Salem!” Was the last thing she heard from the crowd before she felt a firm hand in hers, and was pulled away towards the other side of the cafeteria. Evidently this was the pink-skinned demon’s name, as he was sitting up slowly, taking a moment to spit out a sharp tooth.
Iofiel was nearly carried to the furthest corner of the hall, where she was sat at the same table she usually did, surrounded quickly by some of the other angels. Shamsiel and Tzaphkiel were among them, the former being the one to quickly heal her. She half wished he wasn’t so prompt, so that she might at least see what her face looked like ruined. With a couple of whispered incantations and nimble fingers, the golden angel looked calmer than she’d ever seen him, straight faced and serious. It only took a moment before he leaned back, her face slightly numb and very much buzzing. Oddly hot.
“Sorry?” she said.
Tzaphkiel leaned forward, holding their head in their hands and with a look of utter displeasure evident on their face. “This is not what I meant when I told you none of us are perfect.” Some of the angels obviously had no idea what the Archangel meant by this, but the grimness in their tone carried the message clearly: You are a disappointment, Iofiel.
“Neither Amariah and Adramelek stopped me. Amariah said I’d be fine, even. I’m not a traitor, I promise.” Iofiel’s cheek was still numb and warm, and she was quite light-headed. When she spoke she swayed a little, and an angel she didn’t know had their hands on her shoulders, keeping her upright.
“I don’t think you are,” Shamsiel said. “I don’t think any of us think you are. But that doesn’t prevent it from being bad. Amariah is a Seraph, and, while we all respect her seniority and grace, she works on orders beyond common sense.”
Iofiel gently traced her fingers across her face, which was slowly regaining sensitivity. “What are you going to do about me?” she asked.
The angels were quiet.
“Iofiel,” Tzaphkiel said, “If you were allowed to do this ludicrous thing, there’s a chance it may be... what Our Creator wants. And since normally it is an awful thing, with Her blessing, it suddenly becomes a terrible one. It changes from a mistake
to a threat.”
“D-Do...” Iofiel stopped.
“I don’t want the world to end,” Shamsiel said, but his grave tone suggested that maybe this was about to be the case.
“I’m loyal,” Iofiel insisted. “This isn’t some second Rebellion, it’s... I just wanted to help someone who needed it, right? That imp, he—”
“Do what you have already done,” Tzaphkiel bit their lip. Mulling something over. “We’ll never hurt you— as long as your wings have color, you are one of us, to every end. But please. Accept what you’ve done.”
“I-I don’t really know what I’ve done.”
“A bad, bad thing.”
10: Mints And Affection And Other Such Sins
IT WAS SUNDAY morning, and Iofiel’s eyes hurt. The previous night she’d rushed back to her room and cried miserably. Another new experience in a very busy day. Pain, blood, tears, and shame— interesting, sure, but emotions not befitting an angel.
She’d tried another shower, too, spending an hour under the hot water. At least she had run out of tears, but even the vaguely pine scented soap she’d found failed to cheer her in the slightest, and she emerged sore skinned, sulking through the halls, avoidant of anything alive.
Her eyes still felt red, and though her face was barely still flush from her healed wound, the lingering feelings of pain still haunted her. How did soldiers do it? Did the newborns in training for combat understand what they were going to go through?
Maalik didn’t look any different from his brief stint in the human world. Iofiel probably didn’t look different either, but she felt it. It was now eleven thirty or so by her best guess, and she’d been awake in bed since six. She sat up after listening to Maalik unpack for a few minutes, and caught his eye. It occurred to her too late that she probably looked dead eyed and utterly not herself, and that maybe a falsified bit of enthusiasm would have delayed the inevitable a little more.
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