Blackridge Institute (wlw)

Chapter 5

Casandra sat as straight as her spine would allow—which was required of her—in attendance to the occasional angel meeting—which was required of her.

One major thing about this body was that it had the ability to undergo sensations. How jejune! Must the skin feel when some external thing rubs against it? Cas was sure having nerves served its purposes, but those purposes were irrelevant to her.

Across the big table that looked like one of the ones from the dining hall, Ulysses—the only scribe among them, and therefore quick to assume he was leader—was reiterating a point on the agenda. Cas knew he was bonded to his body, as was his privilege as a scribe, and thus he was used to having nerves, which was why he had already managed to get on everyone else's.

"This meeting could have been an email," said Pyrrha, twirling saffron-red hair in her hands. Casandra could have kissed her, in the virtue of understanding that kissing someone was like a high-five, or a firm clasp of the hands.

"We don't eschew the instructions given to us by the High Council, Pyrrhus," began Ulysses, who—normally the color of a beautiful unbroken egg, or perhaps alabaster—had begun turning pink. Casandra enjoyed the body doing things its owner didn't want it to, but only on other people.

"It's Pyrrha today," said Pyrrha, who on other days was Pyrrhus, and people wouldn't know unless he told people what she wanted to be called. "And the Metatron time and again disapproves of our presence here."

"Pyrrha," amended Ulysses without malice, but with impatience. "The High Council demands a meeting and so a meeting we will hold. We respect our lord, but we do not defer as such."

"I only mean to say that we have bigger squid to fry." Pyrrha had spent half of last week's meeting talking about how she ate a squid, and had tried not to sound too excited about it. Everyone could tell.

"If I may interject," said Casandra, who did not want to be here. "Could we return to the meeting."

"We will return to the agenda, yes. Thank you, Casandra. Which brings us to the next point; everyone summarize your work, so we may present it to the High Council—and justify our participation in this Institute. Who would like to begin? Casandra?"

Casandra, who had been fascinated by Ulysses's ability to verbally pronounce punctuation, had been too unprepared to object. She cleared her throat. "I've made progress with documenting interrelationships specifically between us and other creatures."

This was not a popular topic, because most angels liked to think that angels were insulated from every other creature; their league so high up like wheat from the chaff, and the farmer was winnowing on the face of Blackridge's highest peak and had left the undesirables to scatter down the cliffs. As such, no one cared about where angels fit with the rest of the world, because they didn't want to fit in with the rest of the world. Nonetheless, everyone was polite and appreciative.

"You have been working with that human doctor? Harlan Xate?" Ulysses sounded uncharacteristically interested, though that might have been just his body.

"Good work, but what about your demon partner? I hope you will not make the High Council regret their decision to send you," said Pyrrha, and Casandra didn't want to kiss her anymore.

"Ridiculous," said Cas.

Casandra was prepared for everyone to follow down this line of questions, every single one of them she was ready to give a non-answer to. But the topic was avoided, like no one wanted to think the words onto their tongues.

The meeting did not so much adjourn as it fizzled out, with its constituents excusing themselves one after the other that the remaining attendees called it a day, as a way to demonstrate that they still had control. Casandra had considered leaving early but someone else always got up quicker than her so she had to wait for a while until it was appropriate for someone else—her—to leave, at which point a different person would beat her to it. So she was relieved when they ended.