my hand, got to her feet, and turned her eyes up at the ceiling. Though weak, she drew upon her own Light, adding her strength to my own. As she did that, cracks started to form in the ceiling, in the walls. I could hear them, the sickening sound echoing through the dark chamber.
The floor started to give and part and fall away to dark nothingness. As the ceiling itself began to open, shards of light filtered into the cave, streaks of illumination racing to touch our faces. Tensing the muscles in my legs, I leapt into the air with Isla in tow. Her wings started beating as soon as mine did, and together we moved toward the ever-expanding light.
A booming horn erupted all around me as I reached the patch of gloriously warm sunlight. Only it wasn’t sunlight at all, but a thick membrane of hot, stinking gunk and slime that I tumbled through. I opened my eyes again, but I all I could see was yellow and green.
I was floating in liquid—not just floating in it but tossing around inside of it. The sound of the horn had become muffled, and muted; more like a loud rumble than an actual sound. I tried to catch my bearings, but there was no use. I couldn’t tell whether I was upside down or right side up, the world around me was in full, stuttered motion.
The liquid goop I was in suddenly jerked, and then I was falling. My stomach turned, and my ears were ringing, but I could tell I was falling. The slime started sloughing off my body. I scooped it out of my eyes, away from my mouth, and when I could see again, I saw clouds, and filtered sunlight—and beneath me, the cold, hard earth raced up as if in greeting.
My eyes widened. I rolled my shoulders, trying to get my muscles to work, but my entire body was stiff and sore. Struggling with my own wings, which were covered in slime, I managed to get them stretched out to full extension, but the mucus enveloping them made it difficult to catch the wind.
I was falling, tumbling again, plummeting toward certain doom.
Then my wings caught, jerking me aloft. My head was spinning from the motion, but I was no longer falling, so there was that. Quickly spinning around, I could no longer see the Wretched that had just spat me out, but I heard its horn, blasting through the clouds high above me.
Then I saw something else—little more than a dot, a tiny impression against the backdrop of the sky.
It was falling rapidly.
“Isla…” I said, and I raced through the air toward her, my wings beating, my heart pounding.
More of that slime was starting to fall off my skin, but some of it was starting to harden, making it difficult to move as fast, or as swiftly as I wanted to. Beneath me was all rolling mountains and trees, deep and green. A river bubbled through the area, I was already so close to the ground I could see a couple of deer drinking from its banks.
There’s not enough time.
Isla was falling too fast, and we were too far apart. I swooped lower, trying to give myself every advantage I could. I was barely grazing the tops of trees, trying my best to keep from hitting anything, but I knew even this wasn’t low enough. I would need to dive deeper and go through the branches and brambles if I was going to have any chance at saving her life.
But if I hit anything at the speed I was going, pieces of my body would end up splattered halfway across the forest.
I could see her more clearly, now. She was unconscious, her wings and limbs fluttering wildly, trails of slime and goop following her as she plunged into the forest below. Spotting something of a path opening up beneath me, I dipped lower, already feeling the sting of leaves and brambles as I raced through them, clipping and tearing them as I went.
Whatever I was covered in had continued to harden and stiffen in places, making it difficult to maneuver among the tall branches and peaks. I didn’t have a choice. I had to plunge head on and race against time, against hope, if I had any chance of saving this angel from certain death.
As the moments passed, trees zipping by me in a blur, more of my memories started returning. It was as if the Wretched