‘No, no, no . . .’
My head swirls with unwanted images: blurred figures storming the hall, grabbing Teacake’s wings, pulling Calum’s hair. She’s gone. She’s actually gone. Allie sees the feathers and freezes.
‘Shit. Shit.’ I can see her mind filling up with the same pictures that are spinning around mine. Her hands shake as she pulls her phone from her pocket. I hear the dial tone ring three, four, five times, then go to voicemail. She swears and throws her phone into her bag.
‘They must have taken them,’ she says, stammering a little on her words. ‘Someone must have followed them here.’
‘Who though?’ I ask.
Allie doesn’t answer. There are too many possibilities: the cults, researchers, any of the thousands of Wingdings milling around the city centre. If I hadn’t spent the whole day with him, I might even have counted Dad among the suspects.
A jolt of nerves flashes through me. The Standing Fallen – they know there’s a Being in Edinburgh, and according to Leah they have dozens of members looking for her. If we’re looking for suspects, they’re at the top of the list.
Before I can mention this to Allie, she gets to her feet, her knees shaking so much she has to put her arm on mine to steady herself. ‘Come on. We have to find them.’
She pulls me towards the door, not bothering to stop and lock up behind her. There’s nothing left to protect now, anyway. She leads me down the road to her car, a silver Renault parked outside the art school.
‘Where do we start?’ I ask, as I slide into the passenger seat.
‘I don’t know!’ Allie pushes the key into the ignition, her hands trembling. ‘I have no idea. Let’s just go.’
We couldn’t have picked a worse time to lose a boy and an angel in the middle of Edinburgh: the city centre is rammed full of traffic, and Allie keeps having to stop for pedestrians stumbling out into the road. I look out for pink feathers, hoping for a breadcrumb trail to lead us to Teacake, but the pavement is hidden beneath thousands of pairs of shoes. Just a week ago, we’d been racking our brains for even one spot to hide Teacake. Now this relatively small city has multiplied, a knotted labyrinth of endless nooks and crannies.
We drive past the stalls outside St Giles’ Cathedral, double back towards the university, crawl in and out of streets with names I don’t recognize. Eventually, we realize we’d be quicker going on foot and park the car around the back of the train station. We check closes and alleyways and hidden gardens; we glance in pubs and run into cafes, knowing that we won’t find them there, but too desperate to pass them by. All the while, images of the Standing Fallen bursting into McEwan Hall flit through my head. I see them grabbing Teacake, tying her up, stripping the feathers from her wings . . . Over and over again, so vivid they make me feel sick.
Something doesn’t quite fit though. Why would they take Calum too?
The adrenaline keeps Allie going for a while, but soon I can feel her starting to flag. By the time we end up back on the Royal Mile, an hour or so later, she’s wheezing and has started to cough again.
‘Let’s stop for a sec,’ I say. ‘Just till we get our breath back.’
I steer her on to Cockburn Street. We sit on the step of a bright red door, away from the torrent of tourists. Allie pulls an energy bar from her bag and offers me another. I shake my head. I feel too sick to eat, too nervous to sit still.
Now that the worst has happened, it seems ridiculous we ever thought we could keep Teacake safe. We should have found somewhere more secure. We should never have left her alone, not even for a few minutes. There are thousands of people after her, organizations with more money and power than we could even imagine – and we left her in a room with one measly padlock on the door.
Suddenly I realize how Dad felt coming home to see his months of failed research on the walls: it was never, ever, ever going to be enough.
Allie tries calling Calum again, and then her mum, but neither of them answers.
‘What if they’ve hurt them?’ She keeps turning the phone in her hands. ‘I know I moan about Calum, but I don’t know what I’d do if anything . . .’
Her voice wobbles. I take her hand and squeeze it tight. I’d be tearing my hair out if this was Rani. And for all of Dad’s faults, even after everything he’s put us through over the past eight months, I’d fall apart if anything were to happen to him.
It’s then that I remember the deal I made with my sister: that I’d ask Dad for help if anything went wrong. We’re just a couple of minutes from our flat. I could run up, tell him the truth . . . His anger would be a small price to pay if it helped us get Teacake back. And, if anyone knows who might have taken her, it’s Dad.
I swallow. I know Allie’s not going to like it, but it may be our only option.
‘Listen, I think we should—’
The sound of a siren drowns out my voice. I flinch, the way I always do when I hear their high-pitched squeal. That sound means accidents, blood, guilt.
And sometimes that sound means the Standing Fallen.
I spin around on the step, trying to pinpoint the noise. The sirens are getting louder. Closer.
‘Come on.’ I hold my hand out to Allie and pull her to her feet. ‘I know somewhere we can try.’
We cut through the Arcade and hurry down North Bridge towards Princes Street. As we draw closer, people begin climbing out of one of the top windows of the Balmoral Hotel. They scramble over the building’s domes and turrets, clutching at its chimneys: fifty, sixty, seventy of them, multiplying, like an infestation of ants.
The traffic is backed up to the end of North Bridge. Pedestrians spill into the road to take photos, ignoring the drivers furiously honking their horns. I drag Allie through the crowd and scan the building for Leah. As we turn the corner, I see her. She’s climbing through one of the windows high above the main entrance to the hotel, helped up by her mother and a very tall, bald man.
‘That’s her.’ My voice comes out as a croak. ‘That’s Leah. My ex.’
Allie stares at me, her eyes wide. I wait for a barrage of questions to come, but instead she just holds my hand a little tighter. We watch as a short, fat woman with lank black hair slowly climbs to the spire at the top of the building. Clutching the barrier, she fumbles with the button on the loudspeaker and begins to speak into it.
‘Sinners! For eight months now, angels have fallen from the skies. Not for two millennia has the Creator . . .’
Her voice shakes as she stumbles through the speech. I search the members on the roof: the young boy and girl I saw the night we arrived in Edinburgh are up there, but the bearded man who leads the chapter isn’t. I think back to the Standing Fallen displays that I’ve seen on TV. It’s always the same person who gives the speech, and it’s almost always a man. Today, for some reason, they’re using a standin.
Allie’s fingers press into the back of my hand. ‘Oh my god.’
I follow her gaze, towards the Duke of Wellington statue on the other side of the road. Standing beneath it, looking up at the Standing Fallen with his arms crossed tight over his chest, is Calum. He blinks and glances around, that way you do when you feel you’re being watched. His eyes meet his sister’s.
After that, I don’t need an explanation. The look on his face is enough to tell me what happened.
Allie drops my hand and pushes through the crowd. I run after her, shoving people out of the way, red spots of anger blurring my vision. Calum backs up against the wall, shaking his head. I could hit him. I actually want to punch him in the face, but Allie gets there first. She storms up to him and whacks him over the head with her satchel.
‘What the hell did you do?’ she screams. ‘Where is she? What did you do with her?’