Quatrain by Sharon Shinn Page B

message for her. It’s very important.”
    The other girl shrugged. “She sleeps in the room down the hall. The door with the big bare spot in the paint.”
    I felt my heart beat a little faster. “Is she there now?”
    A hunch of the shoulders. “I don’t know.”
    “Thank you.”
    But she wasn’t in the room, which was so small it might originally have been designed for storage. A quick look through the possessions strewn around and I knew I was in the right place, for I recognized Sheba’s shoes and jewelry.
    But if she was not here, and she was not in any of the common areas, she was no doubt in bed with some angel.
    Even I did not have the courage to stalk through these hallways and burst into angels’ bedrooms at night, when most of them were probably engaged in some kind of sexual activity. With a sigh, I made room for my own suitcase on the floor next to Sheba’s, and I lay down on the bed. Not expecting to be able to close my eyes, I fell asleep within minutes. Even the wind could not keep me awake for long.

    When I opened my eyes, Sheba was standing against the wall, staring at me. I made a little sound and scrambled to my feet, pushing my tangled hair back behind my ears. I wasn’t sure what time it was—there were no windows in this room—but by the heavy, exhausted way I felt, I guessed it to be an hour or two past midnight.
    “Sheba,” I said.
    I don’t know what I expected her to say when she first laid eyes on me. I had been so focused on getting here, on finding her, on wresting her out of Raphael’s cruel hands, that I had not bothered to wonder whether or not Sheba wanted to be rescued. Certainly if any of my fond relatives had come to Windy Point twenty years ago to try to convince me to leave, I would have laughed in their faces.
    But Sheba was not laughing. Her face was so set that I could not read it, but she did not look horrified or contemptuous or angry or amused. She watched me a moment in utter silence, and then she said, “I knew you would come for me.”
    “I know you think the life of an angel-seeker is glamorous and exciting,” I said, wishing I had given more thought to what I would say in this particular speech, “but it’s not. It’s degrading and ugly and powerless and short. I want you to come home with me.”
    “I want to come home,” she said, still in that careful, neutral voice. “But Raphael won’t let me.”
    I felt a clutch of fear. “You asked him already? You told him you wanted to leave?”
    She nodded. “After my very first night with him. He was—” She paused, shook her head, and went on. “I wasn’t a virgin, of course; I’m sure you knew that. But he—I found that I did not enjoy his company.” She shrugged, conveying a wealth of information, from a deep sense of revulsion to a lack of self-pity. “That did not seem to trouble him.”
    “Raphael is a very depraved man.”
    “So I told him I wanted to go home. And he laughed. And he said someday an angel might have time to carry me down from the hold, but it wouldn’t be any day soon.”
    “We’ll leave tomorrow,” I promised.
    She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And I knew you would come for me, but I also knew it wouldn’t do any good. Raphael likes having people in his power. He will like having you in his power as well.”
    “I can deal with Raphael,” I said. “Get some sleep now, and pack your things in the morning. We’ll leave as soon as I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
    Now some of her unnatural calm began to crack. I saw her eyes shine with tears, and her hands clench together, though she tried to hold on to her composed expression. “I wish that was true,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. “But—”
    In a single step, I was close enough to gather her into an embrace. She rested her head against my shoulder and began sobbing in my arms, something she had not done since she was eleven or twelve years old. “Don’t worry, baby. Don’t