AZA      

When Aza returned to her bedroom, Lucis's wing was already wrapped against his side with a splint holding it steady.  She hadn't heard a sound from this side of the mirror.  It was pretty trippy to the whole Alice and Wonderland magic stuff.  Evabelle had told her about it when she had visited Kayne and how Averno used it to talk to Evabelle without being there.  But actually being ghostly transported was so much better than hearing about it.  Granted, Calandra had been pissed since apparently her home was filled with too many people she didn't like, but it was still awesome.

Matt stood arched over Lucis holding a measuring tape above his wings, measuring the distance between them. Aza cleared her throat, and the rumpled man straightened up, quickly retracting the ruler.

"Aza, you're back!" Matt spun around, trying for an innocent smile.

Aza rolled her eyes and approached them. She glanced down and saw more tightly casted bandages around Lucis's upper arm. "Did you give him the stitches?" Aza asked, walking over to him.

Matt shook his head, looking back down at Lucis. "No, you called for another Anahalian to come, right? Well, they'll be able to do more than I will. Those ones weren't as serious as the wing. Not even what I did will be enough. It's just temporary."

Aza nodded, feeling a strange mixture of emotions. She tentatively put a hand on her uncle's arm. "Thank you," She whispered.

His body stiffened under her touch, and he turned his head, his eyes, normally a vacant fog obscuring an already dark tunnel, had a faint light shining at the end. "Aza, I—"

"The cab driver!" Aza remembered.

Matt blinked, the soft glimmer, withdrawing. "What?"

Aza briefly explained how they'd gotten a ride and their meter was still running.

Matt slowly nodded. "Right," He pushed himself to his feet and left the room.

After she heard the door shut, Aza pulled over a chair from the corner of the room and sat next to Lucis, who's eyes were now closed. The small blonde let out a sigh and pushed her grimy hair out of her face, tensing as she rubbed the other bump she'd gotten from running into the streetlamp. She was always in for the high-class adventure, but... Aza glanced up at Lucis's form, which to her relief seemed to be breathing easier. He didn't look quite as pale. If one could just take out the whole injury part, that'd be great. However, taking away that would remove the danger, which was ninety percent of the fun.

Aza actually chuckled, and for a moment she understood why Del constantly referred to her as an idiot.

"Looks like you're feeling better,"

Aza jumped and stared at Lucis, who had opened an eye and was giving a wan smile. "What the heck?!" Aza put a hand over her heart. "I thought you were asleep. You should be asleep."

Lucis took a few deep breaths before speaking. "The head injury says otherwise. Once Del gets here and heals me, then I can sleep."

Aza peered over Lucis's scalp and saw that a lot of the blood had been cleaned out, but there was still another pool rising to the surface of the abrasion. Glancing down, Aza saw the bucket of cool water by the bed. There were a few rags around it that had gone from a normal cream color to stark crimson. There were two that had yet to be touched, and Aza grabbed one and dipped it in the water before dabbing at the source of the bleed.

"I must confess, I never saw you as motherly," Lucis murmured.

"I'm not." Aza smirked. "I'm the totally awesome five-year-old, constantly getting in trouble and being reprimanded by the mother, which I see more as Calandra. You should have heard her going off at me through the mirror call a few minutes ago."

"Are we playing house now?" Lucis asked with a laugh.

Aza paused. "Maybe it's less house and more... home."

Lucis twitched his head to look up at her a bit more directly. "What do you mean?"

For some dumb reason Aza's eyes started to sting. "Well, the saying goes: 'Home is where the heart is.' And the heart is the people you love, right? And the people you love the most are your family, so..."

Lucis didn't say anything, he just watched her.

"What? You think I don't care about you guys?" Aza's voice quavered slightly, and it came out a little louder than she meant it to. "Seeing you like this, finding you back in the alley, I..." She shook her head and ducked down. "My home was never a place. It was always people that got taken away from me. Well, I wasn't going to let it happen again, so I went with Evabelle, and I found more people that were so good and somehow managed to shove their way in," She put her free hand over her heart that felt swollen and tight as she tried to swallow down the burning in her eyes and throat. "And it terrifies me. It terrifies me because now I have so much more to lose." Her whole body trembled and she pulled her hand away from Lucis's hair.

Aza paused, but before Lucis could get a word in, her head snapped back up, sending another trill of pain down it, but that didn't matter. "I'm not the only one that thinks of us all like a family!" Her voice rose. "Back when Etheldreda captured us all the first time and me and Kai were in the same cell. He spoke of us as a family, and I know he's back with the elves now, but he's not gone from us for good. I won't let him do that. And Calandra, herself even said she'd protect her family when she rescued me from Etheldreda the second time—" She cut off short as Lucis's hand clamped over hers.

"I love you, Aza."

Aza's eyes widened as she looked into the calm soothing blue. Her body relaxed and she hunched forward. "We're a family," She whispered.

"Yes," Lucis whispered the final confirmation. "I would not be alive if it wasn't for you. I need you. We all need you."

Aza smiled. "Well, I wouldn't be alive tonight if it wasn't for you, either."

Lucis lifted and eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"You talked about trust earlier tonight. You asked me if I trusted you, and I didn't respond." Aza let out a breath. "Well, I'm telling you now, that I trusted you to not kill me when you dropped me. Doesn't that say something?"

Lucis's smile grew. "Not a thing. You just trusted yourself to fiercely survive as the crazy immortal daredevil that you are."

Aza snorted and squeezed Lucis's hand, but then the angel's grin fell. "Wait a second, when did Etheldreda get you a second time?"

Aza's mouth snapped shut. She hadn't told anyone what had happened to her. Only Calandra, Faux and that big werewolf guy knew. She hadn't even told Evabelle. The whole thing had just been too fresh with her mind being hijacked by her memories of Hell.

But she had just been the one to call them family and the one to bring up trust. Aza glanced back down at Lucis's gaze and saw the severity there, lighting up the previously dulled blue. She took a deep breath and briefly went over what happened, skipping the cold dark nightmare bit.

"Aza, why didn't you tell us about this?" Lucis squeezed her hand.

Aza shook her head. "It just didn't seem important. Kai's coronation and our infiltration kind of got in the way."

Lucis looked away from her, his mind reeling through the new information. Personally, Aza didn't get it. "Nothing major happened besides a bunch of taunting." Aza shrugged.

Lucis closed his eyes. "They wouldn't let you get away that easily unless they had something else planned. They said you were a messenger. They want to goad Evabelle with something," His eyes flashed open again. "Something they must have told you."

Aza thought back. "They didn't tell me anything, I swear."

"Maybe they did do something more to you besides knock you out."

Nervousness sparked trails in her skin. "No, nothing that would leave lasting damage. They said they wanted to break Evabelle by breaking her heart or something like that, but that I wasn't the one. Etheldreda says she wanted to do it to me, but I wasn't the right one."

"They could have been lying. It just seems too easy." Lucis murmured softly. "They had you,"

Aza leaned her aching head back over the chair. "Thank you, you're making me feel so much better."

"Maybe not. But then maybe the message coming from you would make it worse somehow." Lucis tried another approach.

"I'm telling you there wasn't really a message, or at least there wasn't one that made any sense to me." Her eyes started to close.

The sound of the front door smashing in stopped her drained brain from slipping away and made Aza jolt up in her seat.

Matt's cry as the sound of something falling and shattering brought Aza springing to her feet. Her and Lucis shared a quick glance with identical expressions of 'oh crap' before she dashed out of the room.

A tall pale man, with a murderous violet glare and enormous black shadow wings that filled the entire space of the living room stood over the crumpled heap of Matthew Kendall. Aza's uncle cowered, hugging his retrieved notebook to his chest as the dark angel tilted a cabinet filled with old artifacts that the old man had collected over the years, above the bespectacled man. His leg was partially caught under it, preventing him from getting away.

"Where is he?" The winged man hissed, deathly soft.

"Del!" Aza shouted. "Stop it!" She rushed forward and pressed her body against the other side of the dresser.

Del looked up and his narrowed eyes widened.

"Lucis is fine," Aza gasped as she tried to push the furniture upright, but Del's grip was iron. "He's in there." She jerked her head behind her toward her bedroom.

Without another word, Del released the cabinet and raced around Aza and Matt into the room. Aza clenched her jaw as the full weight of the oak dropped against her back. She struggled against it just enough for Matt to remove his leg. Then he jumped up and helped her replace it against the wall. Her uncle gave her an excited twinkle. "I'll actually get to see a healing spell!" Then scooped up his notes and skipped around his niece, going back into her former bedroom.

Aza sighed and bent over, placing her hands on her knees, breathing deeply. "You're welcome," she muttered.

Eventually, she followed the crowd back to the doorway of her room where she slumped against the frame again. She saw the last remnants of Del's purple healing spell, shift to white then fade against the bound wing. Matt stood just a few feet away, staring in awe, his notebook forgotten at his side.

The darker brother pulled out a second munera and repeated the spell, and Aza watched Del's face screwed up in concentration as it appeared to be pushing more and more into the words. She wondered if he could give more strength through only his will.

After that one was completed, Del reached back for another, but Lucis's hand shot out and caught his wrist. "That's enough, Del."

"Is it?" Del snapped. "Is it enough? Will it ever be enough? How many times is this going to happen, Lucis?"

"Del," Lucis's voice was gentle and warm.

Del shook his head. "No, this isn't nothing, Lucis. It's never been nothing with you."

Lucis was quiet, and slowly he let his hand fall.

"Astounding," Matt murmured. "Truly incredible." He drunkenly paced forward and reached out a hand to where the glowing feather had vanished, but before the tips of his fingers could grace Lucis's wing, a pale, slender hand shot out and caught his wrist, yanking him back.

Matt blanched under flashing purple storms as Del's voice fired coolly like a blade of ice. "No. You don't get to touch."

            Shakily Matt nodded, and Del released him.  Aza shook her head as the man swiftly recovered and tentatively advanced again toward Del, his spiral notebook on the rise.  "To send one's energy to another is truly amazing," The flyaway man began delicately.  "I've only heard about it.  You truly have only seven munera that hold that concentrated power then?  And if you use too many at once, it can weaken you extensively, so you never would never waste them."

            Del glowered at Matt as though he were a big fat hairy cockroach that had come up to him and asked him to sing him a song.           

            Aza might have laughed, but she'd been fighting her exhaustion for too long that night.  She contemplated just collapsing right there because at least then she'd be asleep, but her bruised, aching muscles screamed that her consequences would end up being more pain, if she was willing to take that risk.

            The small girl sighed and pushed off of the door and dragged herself back into the living room, finally letting her knees buckle and her body to blissfully tumble into the familiar cushy armchair where she immediately, closed her eyes and leaned her head back, distantly listening to her uncle pester Del.

            "So is it true you have what is called 'reserves' that allow you to carry a full-grown human being for hours at a time without breaks?  But it's not constant, correct?  You do eventually need breaks and you bring them out only for that kind of purpose, kind of like stored stamina?"

            Del made a few quipped responses, but their voices were fading away down a dark rabbit hole.  Her throbbing head was finally unable to keep her awake any longer as it seemed more of a passing thought, fading into the night, taking all the monsters and emotional fear at losing her friend with it.  The beginnings of a dream started to form behind her eyelids when a sharp voice cut in to her brain like a knife.

            "You're hurt too."

            Aza jerked awake and her eyes flickered open to stare up at the long raven haired boy with the pale angled face, and cat-like eyes, completely unreadable.

            Aza was too tired to snip at him for waking her up.  The pain, though, was startlingly back on full blast.  An ache that went from her shoulder down her spine as though it had been compacted continued to grow, and one of her legs burned for some reason, that she wasn't sure why.  The twinge in her neck sent rocketing jets through her nerves almost any time she moved it. And the bruises on her head were pounding almost too loudly for her to register what he had said.  However, she did realize it after several moments of her blinking up at him and processing.  "Oh, yeah.  Lucis dropped me in a dumpster."

            Del arched an eyebrow.  "That doesn't sound like my brother."

            Aza shrugged and let out a hiss before saying, "I told him to do it."

            Del rolled his eyes.  "Of course you did."  His gaze flicked up over Aza's head to where she could hear furious scribbling on paper.  "My brother wasn't the only one who was hurt."

            The writing stopped and Aza heard the creak on the floorboards as Matt started to come around the chair.  "What?  Aza, are you--?"

            Del cut him off.  "First aid kit."

            From the corner of her eye, Aza saw Matt pause, but then quickly nod before rushing out of sight.

            Aza looked up at Del's face as he watched her uncle go back to the room with Lucis.  Her injuries weren't that bad.  Of course she hurt, but it wasn't like she was barely alive like Lucis had been.  Her mind trailed back to Wendy's and her little episode, and how she had been scared that that might have been the last thing he'd hear her say to him.  She thought of Calandra saying that Del had arrived back and the Sanctuary and suddenly it was as if someone had opened up her airway again.

            Aza licked her lips and opened her mouth, but was stopped before she could speak as Del suddenly crouched down and touched Aza's bare leg, on her upper calf.  Electricity jolted up it and she was afraid she might spontaneously kick him in the face.

            "You're lucky this wasn't higher up or it could have nicked a major artery," He pushed his hair back from his face and bent closer.

            Aza leaned forward in the chair and looked down to see the entire back of her leg from the knee down was coated in red.  Del's thin fingers gently brushing against a long dark line where the blood had been flowing.  Most of the blood was dried, but the source of the relatively large cut still oozed out the necessary liquid.  How had she not noticed that?

            "What the dumpster filled with knives?"  Del shook his head.

            Aza let out air from her nose.  "Yes, Del, Lucis saw the knives and thought, 'yes, this ought to be a fun challenge for her.'  I was fairly successful wouldn't you say?  Only one cut."

            Del bowed his head , but not before Aza thought she saw the beginnings of an actual smile.

            A flip-flopping sensation resonated in Aza's chest.

            The dark angel rose up again, his hand falling, though the place where his fingers had been pressed felt hotter than the rest of her already fevered leg.  Del looked up again over Aza's head behind her where her uncle must be standing.  This time, Aza turned herself to see him, tensing as her back and neck refuted her for the movement.

            Matt stood with the smaller first aid box in his hands, though his expression wasn't on Aza.  His eyes were on Del, staring at him as if he were some long lost treasure.  "You're eyes," He murmured.  "You're the current Oracle of this generation.  I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but that's it isn't it?"

            Del's lip curled as he let out a bitter snarl.  He stomped forward and wrenched the supplies from Matt's grip.  Returning to Aza, he placed the box in front of her on the coffee table, opening it up and pulling out disinfectant wipes, bandages, and a bean sack used as a heating or cooling pack.  Del then tossed it at Matt, who caught it with a grunt as it nailed him in the stomach.

            "Be useful and put that in your freezer, and don't come back until it's cold enough.  Then maybe I'll tell you about my beautiful eyes."  Del spat.

            Without questioning what temperature was cold enough, Matt scampered away.

            Aza gave a tired chuckle.  "Looks like you've found his kind of motivation."

            Del brought a hand down over his mouth, shaking his head.  Then he knelt in front of Aza, grabbed one of the cool damp cloths, and began to clean the cut on her leg.  He didn't ask her to help, he just did it. 

            Aza sat unnaturally still, not sure what to do.  Her focus was far too invested on the soft touches against her hot skin.  Those pale, slim hands, nothing like his brother's, but a little larger than Kai's dainty ones.  His palms were a little wider, but his fingers were long and tapered.  Evabelle would call them musicians hands.  A long time ago the brunette said had expressed her love for hands and them holding a kind of beauty.  She said that the most beautiful things were the most difficult to draw or recreate, and that's part of what gave them their splendor.  Art wasn't easy.  One had to work to capture it's magnificence.  Hands were something most people tended to struggle with.

            Evabelle had told Aza that Kai's hands looked like a violinist's, long slender fingers curling around the handle, pressing the strings.  The other elegantly raising the bow and sawing across the instrument. 

            Del's hands weren't quite like that.  But there was something fine yet firm about them.  She could see his fingers dancing across the black and white keys of a piano.  For a moment Aza thought of the mysterious someone who played the piano back at the Sanctuary.   She didn't know who it was.  She had sort of assumed it to be Calandra since it was her house, but she didn't know.  Either way, Aza could still see his hands beating away across the notes of that or even a larger kind of violin, like a cello or base, creating a symphonic masterpiece.

            Masterpiece.  "You don't know the meaning of masterpiece,"

            Those hands had held her, pressed against her back, slid up and down her spine.  His fingers curled around her own, grazing down her wrist, guiding and compelling the girl into a whirling trance.  Those strong, corded forearms spiraling up to hard biceps and defined shoulders, his body spinning her away and then right up against him, where her brain had gone completely blank.  She'd been absolutely furious with him for forcing her body to not do what she told it to, but then she was even more pissed at herself for letting it happen, for not doing a single thing to screw him up. 

            Del had done it on purpose, surprising her into submission.  Ugh, that sounded terribly pathetic.  What had happened to her?  What had happened to the girl who knew better than to let anyone have anything over her like that? 

            But Aza's mind just kept slipping into the feel of movement of his body against hers.  She felt like she could just melt right into him.  The way he had done it.  He didn't hurt her once.  He'd been solid and direct but never did he push too hard and grip too tight.  In a way he had felt soft and fluid at the same time.  It was strangely magical how her legs and arms just followed.  In a way, it felt better than flying.          Though, out loud she would always deny it, Del had created a masterpiece the night of Kai's coronation.  Though it was not an instrument he had been using as a conduit.  It was a different kind.  Perhaps he did not have specifically 'musician's' hands, but they were certainly an artist's.

            Shut up, Aza!  He's not Del Vinci! She totally would have used that one if she could turn it into an insult.  Stop being such a sick romantic over a stupid overdramatic emo angel!  She slammed her eyes shut and shook her head, gasping as the pain in her neck fired up again.

            Del's head popped up and his beautiful eyes (his words) narrowed.  His mouth parted and Aza's eyes landed there.  They were full, soft, and tasted of rainstorms.  She should know.  Her heart was thudding away to the same useless song, that Aza truly wished she could tone down.  But her brain went there, just like it had a hundred times.  She wasn't sure if that moment ever truly left her mind.

            The kiss. 

            The kiss they had come to the silent, unspoken agreement to never talk about...ever.  But his mouth, his hands, his arms, his slamming heart bubbled up in her thoughts so often, but for some reason now it was worse.  How could she make it stop?  Sometimes Aza was ready to rip her hair out and scream and curse at the sky because she wouldn't do it.  She would never fall in love with someone who could hurt her.  Bad boys were number one on that list to avoid, and she had thought he'd felt pretty negatively toward her too.  But he had kissed her.  He had grabbed her and made the world a devastating hurricane flash-flooding her veins.

            "You kissed me back!"

            Bad boys hurt you, whether it be physically or emotionally.  They constantly glared at you, making you feel like you'd done something wrong.  They smirk at your pain, yell at you for no reason, ignore you, forget you... but they don't go to the bottom of dangerously deep pools for a cheap charm, they don't miss the opportunity to cause you pain, they don't touch you so gently, cleaning wounds the man that was supposed to have raised you didn't even notice you had. 

            Del's artist's fingers reached up and brushed against the side of her aching neck, so close to where he had cupped the back of her head, just under her hair.  "That idiot should be back by now," He muttered.  And his breath was warm on her face that felt way too close.  Closer than it had been in weeks. 

            Now, he smelled of those fairy toothpaste seeds, which was impressive since she was expecting the chicken sandwich he'd had earlier. 

            Aza sighed and pushed away all stupid idea from her head, and focused on what should have been said long before.  "I was wrong."

            Galaxies filled with Aza's favorite skylights flickered back to her face.

            "I was wrong about everything I said to you back at the restaurant."

            Del blinked, but remained his normal frustratingly unreadable self.

            "You're not your father in any way.  You're a good person, who's fighting against him.  I know that.  I was completely out of line."  She narrowed her gaze.  "You see, I can admit when I was wrong."

            Del rolled his eyes and started to rise, but for some insane reason, Aza caught his wrist.   "I am sorry, Del.  Please understand that I didn't mean any of that.  You are..." Her tongue twisted around the words as she wrestled with them for a moment.  "...not a complete jerk," The words came out as a strangled whisper. 

            Del yanked his hand free and shook his head.  "Well, now I have the sudden urge to throw up rainbows and toss glitter everywhere because I think the world just turned upside down."  Then he stalked off behind the chair, out of Aza's range. But bad boys certainly did do that. 

            Aza groaned and shut her eyes, sinking further into her chair.  How could she have thought anything different?

            Again the far-away voice of her uncle and Del arguing in the kitchen began static background, as Aza hoped to find sleep again, but once more she was wrangled out of it something ice cold landed on her shoulder and against her neck.

            Aza gasped and tensed, flinging her palm out and making contact with another arm.  Her eyes burst open, and she stared up at Del again, who pulled her hand off of his forearm.  "Calm down, it's just me."  He hushed her.

            Del walked over to the adjoining couch and sat, his dark wings curling around him, creating two black-feathered barriers on either side of him.  "You weren't entirely wrong," he muttered, staring at the far wall, where one little boy sat comforting a crying one from one of the paintings Aza and Evabelle had done years ago.  They weren't very good.  The paint had been smudged and the girl's had also been around ten, but Aza knew what they were.  Del was obviously not even trying to figure out what the messy blobs were.  "They do treat Lucis worse than me, though I'm the one that acts like a child."

            Aza blinked hard, staring at him.  Her hand pressed against the icepack, so cold, it hurt as the realization clicked in her brain.  "Del, this isn't your fault.  What happened to Lucis, you couldn't have known."

            "No, but I should have been there."  Del's graceful fingers curled into tight fists.  "I flew ahead and left him to fight by himself."

            Aza almost shook her head again, but she managed to stop herself.  "No, you should not have been there.  It was a good thing you flew ahead.  I don't condone my actions by any means, but if you hadn't flown ahead then Lucis wouldn't have had someone to come and heal him.  You would have needed help too.  Faux is still recovering himself.  There was just too many for you two.  Trust me, Del."

            Del turned his head away from her.  "I should have been there to help," he repeated.

            Aza let out a breath.  "You helped now.  This is better."

            For a long time neither one of them said anything.  Aza watched Del as he stared away.  Eventually the dark boy rose and walked toward Aza's bedroom.  He paused for a moment, and Aza waited for him to speak, but in the end he didn't say anything as he slipped into the room with his brother.

            Aza breathed in deep, completely done with this night.  The physical pain was less, for which she was grateful, but it was mainly the emotional fear, strain and tension that wore on her still.  She adjusted the cold bag against her neck and settled herself deeper into the cushions again, this time slipping into the long-awaited undisturbed rest she deserved.

* * *

The dream was a soft, pleasant, alluring one that made Aza feel calm and happy.  It had been a long time since she'd had one of those.  She would have loved to awaken with the memory of it still dancing vaguely through her mind, but that only happened if she awoke of her own accord.

            A large hand gently shook her good shoulder, and the sappy wistfulness slipped away into the mist.  Aza groaned and stretched, wincing at her body's stiffness.  The pain wasn't gone.  In some ways it was worse, but she knew it was better than it would have been.  She opened her eyes to what could only be the late afternoon light peering through the windows for the second day in a row.  This was going to be a hard schedule to get out of once they were back.

            Aza looked up and saw Lucis's bandaged back as he faced the armchair to wake his brother.  That's when Aza realized that she was no longer in said armchair.  She blinked and pushed herself up from the couch that she'd been laying on.  Someone had moved her.  She glanced back up at Lucis and then her sluggish mind also processed that Lucis was standing and walking around.

            "Lucis!"  Aza exclaimed.  "What are you doing?"

            Lucis glanced back at her.  "Getting Del up.  We should get back to Calandra's as soon as possible.  All the fun stuff's happening without us."

            Aza shoved herself up into a standing position and swayed.  Lucis spun and grabbed her arm, steadying her.  "You're helping me?"  She stared, dazedly. 

            "Well, you helped me last night," Lucis smiled.

            "Exactly," Aza nodded.  "Last night you were wobbling around like a one-footed toddler.  You couldn't stand without some serious support."  

            Lucis shook his head.  "The healing spell works wonders.  I'm not back to full strength.  I won't be flying for several days, but Anahalians naturally heal fast, the healing spell increases it, and I myself have been known to come out of some unfortunate injurious situations quicker than most."

            Aza remembered what Del and Lucis had been saying the night before.  At the time she'd been too tired to really delve to deep into it, but now..."How many times is this going to happen, Lucis?"   In her head, she'd been thinking that they hadn't run into that many Annihilators up to that point, but now she wondered what had happened back in Jovis.  Had they been attack there by the monsters...or was there something else...?

            Del stretched his arms above his head and pushed himself up from his seat.  "I take it we're finally getting out of this hellhole,"

            Lucis nodded and tossed his brother a large, gray plaid button up to put over his wings that Aza was pretty sure she recognized from her uncle's closet.  Then he slid a similar one over his own feathers.  She noticed the blonde Anahalian tense a little, but he managed to make it appear as though he weren't a half-angel hybrid.  "We should get going."

            Relief seeped through Aza as he said that.  Finally away from the place that had never been home.  She lead the way toward the door.  She had just undone the locks and swung the door wide when a voice called out.

            "Aza, wait!"  She heard a thump and a crash coming from another room and someone bursting through a door.  Another hand landed on her shoulder, not Lucis's large encompassing ones, neither Del's long refined ones.  Slowly, Aza turned to face Uncle Matt.  "Aza, I know things have been a mess.  I know that I haven't been the man that you've needed.  I know that I have failed you in so many ways.  I am so so sorry for that.  You are my sister's daughter.  You have been through so much and I wasn't there for you."  He struggled through wheezed breaths his fingers digging into her hurt shoulder.

            Aza silently stared at him as he continued.

            "I don't want things to be like that anymore.  I don't want anything else to come before you.  You are my number one priority."  Aza felt like someone had nailed a stake into her chest.  "I've made so many mistakes, but I'm here now.  I've decided that.  You don't have to go with them this time."

            Matt had never said anything remotely like this before, but Aza remembered what Evabelle had told her after she had come to get the metal wings.  "Evabelle said when she came back here for your wings that everything in your storage room had been knocked down and thrown around, like maybe you were upset that I left.  She said that you told Calandra and the Anahalians about her so she could go and that you and I would be safe together.  She said you were done with all the magic, that you wanted to be rid of it."  Aza took a deep breath, already knowing the answer, but the smallest fragment of her hoping for something different.  "So tell me this; did you truly rid yourself of it?  Since I've been gone, have you gone back down there?  Have you thrown it all out?  Or if I go down there right now, will I find it all set back up?"

            Aza watched her uncle's Adams apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard, to no surprise.  "Please, Aza,"  Matt begged as she turned again toward the open door.  His grip tightening, making her grit her teeth.  "I'll throw it out.  I'll do whatever you want me to.  I've screwed up, I know, but please let me make it up to you.  Please just stay with me--"

            His hand tore away from Aza's shoulder and she spun back to see Del gripping Matt's wrist so tightly that the disarrayed man squirmed and bit his lip.  "No," Del growled softly.  Then he shoved Matt aside before placing his hand on Aza's other shoulder and ushered her out of the apartment.

            There must be a few remnants of her euphoric dream still swirling through her mind because she felt like she was walking on air.  A smile pulled up the corners of her mouth without her even realizing it.  She was descending a stairway made of clouds, not old hardwood.

            "Aza," Del's voice was soft, speaking right behind her.  It made the girl feel dizzy.  She couldn't remember the last time he had used her actual name.  Aza grasped the railing for support as he continued talking.  "If he hadn't set that stuff back up, if he wasn't so profanely infatuated with us, if he really meant what he had said, would you have stayed?"

            Aza paused, trying to read the guy's mind through the tone of his voice, but she just couldn't be sure.  Slowly she rotated around right as Del stepped down to the same stair.  It was then that she realized just how narrow the staircase was.  If she leaned forward slightly her nose would fall against his chest that gradually rose and fell.  Her gaze traveled up, and for a moment, caught at his throat where his pulse seemed to be going just a little quicker than was normal.  She pushed her eyes up past that as her own heart seemed to thrum just a little harder again.  Stop that!  She willed her heart to calm its stupid unmanageableness, but then she finally met the evening sky in the eyes of the dark angel, and she wasn't sure if she had a heartbeat at all.  His breath stirred her hair.  She almost closed her eyes to take in the dying peppermint, mixed with something foreign yet familiar to her.  Had he always smelled like that?  It was faint, but made her think of the smell of night itself. 

            Inwardly, she slapped herself and reprimanded her mind's weird idiocy and instead she tried to give him her best imitation of his intense stare and murmured, "Would you have wanted me to?"

            Del didn't respond and Aza felt like she was drifting into outer-space.  There was more to just purple in his eyes.  Up close, there was faint tendrils of gold and burnt orange.  There was a dark blue that melted into black, just around the edges.        

            Aza thought about how NASA had taken a miniscule picture, maybe an inch by inch of the sky.  Then they had expanded it and enlarged it over and over, revealing so much more than a few stars.  Entire galaxies and solar systems, uncountable planets and suns.  There was more to the universe than any scientist would ever know, could ever explore and discover.  It just wasn't possible. 

            Del's eyes were a universe unto itself.

            An airy cough brought Aza plummeting back to Earth with an brusque thunk.  Both her and Del's heads snapped around to stare up at Lucis, leaning against the banister, looking a little pale, but a small smile making his day blue eyes sparkle.  "I think we all know the answers to those questions."

            The heat that ran through Aza's bloodstream gave her the sudden urge to keel over and die.  Now she knew what it felt like to be Evabelle with a tomato face.  "Haha, Lucis very funny," Aza turned and started to descend again. 

            "What?  What's so funny?  What exactly did you think I was implying?"  Lucis asked, his grin apparent in his tenor.

            "Shut up," Del snapped.

            "You guys aren't answering my question, why?  Oh, that's because again the answers are blatantly obvious," Lucis laughed.

            Del grunted.  "So says the guys who's an open book about his affections,"

            "Hah!"  Aza craned her neck around, reawakening the dull ache, but now she turned her own grin on the broad-shouldered man.  "Exactly!  You do like her don't you?"

            There was a brief flash of something in Lucis's eyes before he glanced away.  He opened his mouth but never got a sound out before another voice spoke from the bottom of the staircase, "Aza!" That was followed by a crash of many things falling to the floor.

            The voice was instantaneously identifiable.  The air must have been sucked out of the stairwell as the silence that filled it after the smashing sound, almost made Aza suffocate.  Slowly, the small girl swallowed and turned back forward to blink down at the tall thin woman, with brown scraggily undone hair, no make-up, and deep shadows under her eyes.  At the lady's feet lay the remnants of her groceries from where she must have just been.

            Aza's mouth pressed hard together, not sure of what to say.

            "Where?"  Morgan Danes gasped, her normally impassive eyes, broken, red, and raw as they began to fill with tears.

            There was no need for her to say more.  It was obvious what she was asking.  Again, Aza swallowed hard down her throat that continued to get drier and drier.  She started to shake her head.  "Ms. Danes, I'm so--"

            "No!"  Ms. Danes flung her arms up, her eyes wide.  "No, you do not get to say that to me!  You do not get to say you don't know, or you can't say, because I know you know!  It was that party that you begged me to let Evabelle go to!  It was you, Azara Kendall who did this to me!"

~(A/N: I'm so so so sorry for not getting this up by the weekend like I said I would! My computer has been glitching out, so it wouldn't let me get on to edit or anything. Hopefully, this chapter is still good. And I know I said I'd have the next one up by this weekend, but it might be a little later, due to the technical difficulties. I just can't promise anything, so I'll just try my best to get it up as soon as possible. Anyway, I actually want to give a bit of warning for the next chapter...If I'm able to pull off what I plan, Chapter 17 is going to be a very dark chapter. I'm very excited and very nervous for it. I really hope it turns out the way I want it to *fingers crossed* 

Okay, so please let me know what you thought of this chapter, though! If there was anywhere that was confusing on lacked good description or explanation, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!! Please show me the specific areas where you feel are lacking. It really helps me out. I've had people mention that some things felt a little rushed, but they weren't specific as to where in the text that it was struggling.

Alright, so now, Evabelle's training and getting to know Shaundee's little team of mages. Tell me your thoughts on them, please. Do you feel there's just too many at once, or do you think, just given the time, that you'll be able to get them?

Aza just got to see her uncle again.  What do you think of Matt?  And now she's just run into Evabelle's mom! What do you think's going to happen now?? 

Also we got lots of Laza, Delvabelle, and Daza scenes...Which ones were your favorite?? (I know we need a Luvabelle scene soon, but Lucis is still being a little...odd...)

And I'm sorry for the weird picture again! I was trying to find a lady who looked completely fallen apart, like Morgan Danes did at the end of this...anyway, moving on...

***CHALLENGE TIME***

What would YOUR reaction be if one of your friends suddenly showed up at your door with a bloodied and bruised up Anahalian??

-I know what mine would be: [in my head] Yes! I knew Anahalians were real!  Then a few seconds later...Wait, he's hurt? He's dying?! I don't know how to deal with that! AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, again I'm sorry for the delay! I'll try to work hard and get the next chapter soon!! Thanks so much for reading!!! :D I love you all <3