It was the first time I ever saw your face, and then the fire came, and everything was so intense, I blacked out.”

“Oh,” he says a bit sheepishly.

“I didn’t figure things out, either, you know. So if you’re an idiot, I guess that makes two of us.”

He seems relieved to hear me say that. I guess idiots love company.

Then we both hammer the stakes, an awkward silence between us, until I blurt out, “What about the other signs?”

He smacks the last stake, sinking it into the ground, before resting back on his heels.

“Nothing much. The way you danced at prom,” he says. “The way you talked about your future that night out on your porch, when I came to apologize about prom.” He glances at me, then down at his bare feet, smiling. “Once I knew it was you, I sensed that I was supposed to do more than save you.”

I try to react casually, but my heart starts to pound anyway. Because, deep down, I knew it too. And it may be the thing that confuses me most out of this whole situation.

What do you see in a guy like Christian Prescott? Tucker had asked me when he brought me home from prom, and I’d said I didn’t know, because I couldn’t explain it to him. I still can’t explain it.

Tucker. I didn’t even tell him I was coming here. Some guardian I’m turning out to be.

Some girlfriend.

“Okay,” I say too loudly. “Uh, thank you, Christian, for setting up my tent.” I start collecting the tools we used, acting busy, brushing grass from my pants that isn’t really there.

“I’m sure Angela would thank you, too, but I think you’re going to be in her doghouse for a while. There are no secrets in Angel Club, remember?”

“I never agreed to that,” he protests. “Besides, it’s not like Angela’s such an open book herself.”

I wonder what he knows. But before I get a chance to ask him, someone calls his name, a man’s voice floating over to us from the center of the meadow. We both turn.

“We should go over there,” Christian says. “The fire’s started.” He jumps up, then holds out his hand to me.

“Come on,” he says. “You’ll like it.”

I only hesitate for a moment before I put my hand in his, let him haul me to my feet, then quickly pull away and start walking toward where I can see the smoke billowing up from a large campfire people are building in the center of the meadow.

“Okay, bring on the fire,” I say.

Christian jogs along next to me, grinning his slightly lopsided grin.

Don’t you dare admire his smile, I tell myself.

I can’t deny it, though. His hand in mine felt as familiar as my own.

Chapter 8

Summer Without Crickets

I’m crammed shoulder to shoulder between Mom and Angela in the circle by the fire, looking around at the faces lit by its glow. Billy is spinning this tale about one time back in the thirties when she and my mom literally bumped into a Black Wing at the Santa Anita racetrack.

“It was Asael,” Billy says. “In a three-piece dove-gray linen suit, if you can believe that.”

“What did you do?” someone asks in a hushed voice, like this big baddie might be able to hear us.

“We couldn’t exactly fly away, now could we?” Billy says with a wry smile. “There were so many people around. But then he couldn’t confront us, either, not the way he would have wanted to. So we went back to our seats with our lemonade, and he went back to his, and after the race he was gone.”

“We were lucky,” Mom says.

“Yes, we were,” agrees Billy. “Although I’ll never for the life of me figure out what he was doing there.”

“Betting on Seabiscuit, like everybody else,” Mom says.

A few people laugh.

Billy sighs. “What a race that was. You can’t find sport like that anymore. Things aren’t the same now.”

“You sound like little old ladies,” says Jeffrey good-naturedly, though not about to let anybody knock his beloved sports. Then he does his old lady impression: “Back before the war . . .”

Billy laughs and reaches to ruffle his hair. He blushes. “We are old ladies, kid. Don’t let our appearance fool you.” She slings an arm around my mom and squeezes. “We’re crones.”

“If you could have flown—I mean, if there hadn’t been so many other people around to see you—would it have made any difference?” pipes up Angela. “Can Black Wings fly?” Everybody gets quiet, sobering fast, the only noise the crackling of the fire.

“What?” asks Angela, looking around. “It was only a question.”

“No,” answers my mom finally. “Black Wings don’t fly.”

“Unless they turn into birds,” corrects Billy. “I’ve seen them do that.”

“Black Wings don’t have anywhere to go but down,” says a man with red hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard. Stephen, I think I heard my mom call him. He has a deep voice, like one of those movie-trailer voices. The voice of doom.

I officially have goose bumps.

“But not literally down, right?” says Angela. “Because hell is a dimension underneath our own, so it’s not some sort of bottomless fiery pit.”

“Right,” Mom says, which blows my mind. Why is she suddenly so free with information?

I remind myself that this is a good thing, although my brain is already starting to overload with so much new stuff to take in.

“Plus hell is typically chilly. Nothing fiery about it. Lots of cold days in hell,” says Billy.

“And how would you know that, Bill?” someone from across the fire teases.

“Mind your own business,” Billy retorts with a grin.

“In all seriousness, though,” says Stephen, since he’s a serious kind of guy. “None of us has ever been to hell, so it’s pure speculation about the temperature.” I dare a glance at Mom, who doesn’t meet my eyes. So she hasn’t told them about our fantastic trip to the underworld with Samjeeza, and if she hasn’t told them, I’m certainly not going to.

“Why?” Angela never did know when to shut up. “Why haven’t you been to hell?” You’d think the answer to that would be, Because we’re not evil, thank you very much, but instead Stephen says, “Because we can’t pass between dimensions on our own. We need the Intangere to help us, and no angel-blood who’s been taken to hell by a Black Wing has ever returned to tell us what it’s like there.”