Behind him, Teacake is still sobbing quietly. I reach for her hand and realize I’m shaking all over. The sirens are growing louder beyond the rooftops; their screams swell in my head, pushing out all thoughts but Leah. She’s in the Standing Fallen, and she’s here. She’s in Edinburgh, and so am I. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.
Calum finally finds the right key. He pulls the padlock off and gently shoves Teacake through the door. We pile in after her – I almost trip over a toolbox that’s been left on the floor – and slip under the network of scaffolding lining the back wall. The door clicks shut and Calum deflates, the tension seeping out of him.
‘Nice one, Calzone,’ Allie says, patting his shoulder. ‘You can breathe now.’
Perry tugs the leads out of my hand and goes racing into the hall. As we follow her into the space, Teacake’s sobbing trails off. Her head falls back, and she stares around the room. She’s seeing the absence of Shona’s low ceiling and narrow walls. She’s seeing the golden afternoon sun pouring in from the skylight, the domed roof above her and the wide space beneath it.
‘What do you think, Tea?’ Allie says softly. ‘Better, right?’
Outside, the sirens are getting louder. I can still hear the Standing Fallen leader ranting into his loudspeaker, his voice now muffled to a murmur behind the thick walls of the hall. Anxiety is crawling all over my skin. I take a step towards the door, holding up my phone.
‘I just need to make a call—’
As I turn to leave, Teacake beats her wings together, so quickly the gust sends Calum and me stumbling back into the wall. Before we can stop her, she bounds across the tiles, beats her wings, takes a huge leap up –
And stays up.
For a few seconds, all other worries slip right out of my mind. Teacake soars towards the organ, her back arching as she sweeps upwards. Scraps of tinfoil fall to the floor, like winter leaves falling from their tree. She’s a little shaky, but she’s doing it. She’s flying.
But when she beats her wings a third time, the right one refuses to move properly. All three of us rush forward as she starts to quiver, holding our arms out to catch her. She beats them again and veers to the right at an awkward angle, wobbling towards one of the stone pillars. She swings her legs up and pushes off with her feet, but instead nosedives into an unused scaffolding tower, leaving it rattling from top to bottom.
None of us moves. It’s like playing Jenga – that slow, drawn-out moment when you don’t know if the tower is going to fall or not. But the structure stays standing, and Teacake pushes herself to her feet. She staggers a little, then gives us a huge lopsided grin.
‘And at the end of that round, it’s fourteen points to Team A,’ she quotes, ‘and sixteen points to Team B!’
The others burst into applause. I’m too overwhelmed with excitement, relief and worry that someone outside has heard the commotion to join them. The chapter leader’s shouting has stopped, and the sirens have cut out, but Leah has crash-landed back into my head.
‘Now for round two: Medieval History,’ Teacake says.
Calum laughs and pulls another long strip of tin foil from her wings. ‘Maybe take a break first, Tea,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to overdo it.’
Allie gives a dry laugh. ‘Where have I heard that before?’
Unsurprisingly, Teacake doesn’t listen. She takes a short run-up, makes a wobbly take-off and turns in jerky circles around the skylight. Calum takes the stairs to the first set of wooden seats to get a better view of her flight, and Allie holds out her hand to me.
‘Coming?’
My stomach flips. Allie knows about Leah – I mentioned something about a sort-of ex-girlfriend while we were hanging out at Shona’s one afternoon – but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to tell her that she’s here, outside, standing on the roof of the next building. Not until I know what’s going on.
‘I’ve got a missed call from my dad,’ I say. ‘Be two secs.’
I sneak through the exit, making sure no one spots me, and run to the courtyard outside. The cult has vanished: the roof is empty; there are no broken bodies on the ground. I hurry across the square and towards the road, hoping to spot one of the vans. No sign of them either. The only clue that anything unusual happened is the police officer taking a statement from a middle-aged couple in matching Canada Roots jumpers. I consider asking the policewoman what happened, then decide against it. Given that I’ve just done a bit of breaking and entering, drawing attention to myself probably isn’t a good idea.
Instead, I try to call Leah. It goes straight to voicemail, just as it has the past thousand times I’ve phoned her. I try again, just to listen to her voice on the recording. Hearing it makes my eyes sting. With everything that’s been going on, I’d forgotten how much I’ve missed her.
‘Are you OK?’ Allie asks when I come back inside. ‘You look a bit shell-shocked.’
‘I’m fine. Just glad we got Teacake here OK. That was a bit stressful.’ I force a smile. ‘Are you OK?’
It’s only once I’ve asked that I see how ill she looks: her skin has a sickly yellow tinge to it, her eyes are bloodshot and there are beads of sweat on her forehead. Another flush of guilt creeps over me. She should really be in bed, not trekking across Edinburgh on angel-hiding escapades.
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I probably just need some stronger meds. I’ve got an appointment at the hospital tomorrow, so I’ll speak to my doctor about it then.’
We lapse into silence, watching Teacake make short flights around the room. Her movements are shaky, like a bottle tossed on the waves, and she can’t stay up for more than a few seconds. Still, it’s kind of breathtaking to watch. Perry races after her, enchanted by the giant sparkly bird sweeping overhead.
‘I have to admit, this place was a good call,’ Calum says, calmer now he’s realized their dad isn’t going to burst in and catch us trespassing. ‘She seems so much happier here.’
Looking around, I finally notice how incredible the building is. The front wall is decorated with colourful Italian-style frescoes bending into a wide arch below the roof, with a huge wooden organ taking centre stage. The ceiling is a vast dome split into thin strips, each one decorated with a figure representing a different subject: a woman with a small lute for Music; a man holding a scale for Medicine. It’s almost like a church, but, instead of biblical figures, the characters on the walls represent research and knowledge.
‘Our cousin did her exams in here last year,’ Allie says when I sit down beside her. ‘I don’t know how she managed to concentrate. Beautiful, isn’t it?’
She shuffles in her seat towards me. Her little finger is just a millimetre from mine. A few hours ago, I might have slid my hand into hers, if I’d been feeling bold enough. But now I can’t concentrate on anything except the memory of Leah standing on the rooftop outside. It was just a few seconds, barely a glimpse of her – but that’s all it takes for everything, once again, to change.
By five o’clock, Allie is starting to wilt: her cough sounds horribly painful, and she’s so tired she needs help walking down the stairs. Nonetheless, she still manages to get things organized (‘boss us around’, as her brother puts it) before she heads home. She gets Calum to set up a living area for Teacake with some pillows, blankets, biscuits and a radio she’s taken from home, while she splits our days into shifts: tomorrow morning, she and I will keep working on Teacake’s wing; then Calum will join her to look after Teacake in the afternoon.
‘I think it’ll be easier if we do it in twos, or on our own,’ she says. ‘We won’t draw as much attention to ourselves that way.’
I nod as she reads out the rest of the week’s rota, but I still can’t focus. I try calling Leah again on the way home, though I know she won’t pick up. There are a few small articles about the Standing Fallen’s appearance online, but nobody seems to have noticed that there were members from other chapters there too. The thought makes me nervous. It feels like they’re planning something.