Curiosity's Price

Chapter Fourteen

But it could never last.

It took quite a while before Matthew would so much as return Alice's gestures of friendship: a smile, a wave, a kind "Hey there!" or "Bye!"

Slowly, with both Alice and Sera's guidance, he began to see that Alice, at least, wasn't bad even if she was human. The fact that she was just a wingless Angel also helped him gather his trust and give some to her.

One day, around the middle of January, Alice emerged from the trees and stamped off her boots in the snow-laden clearing. Her coat was heavy and poofy, doing its job to retain some of her body warmth. Sera and Matthew were already waiting, his wings unmasked and forming a sort of shield to block the cold winds that found their way through the trees. With a grin on her face, Alice rushed over and set her tarp down inside Matthew's wings' protection so she wouldn't be soaking her bum with melted snow.

"Hi, guys!" she greeted, cheeks rosy with the chill in the air. "Did I miss anything?"

Sera shook her head, leaning back on her hands. "Not really. It's just freaking cold!"

As if in response, Alice shivered inside her poofed-up monstrosity that was a garment. "How're you not freezing your ass off, Mattie?" she asked Matthew with a touch of jealousy.

The Angel, who was still shirtless as always, shrugged his shoulders. "It gets cold up in the Angel city, so I guess I'm just used to it."

Inside the circle of feathers, Alice could feel the heat rolling off his wings in tendrils. "Wow, you're warm." She touched a feather and smiled. Matthew fought down a blush rising. "So, hey! Are you guys gonna make it to my birthday?"

"When is that, again?" Sera asked jokingly, earning a smack on the arm from her younger sister. "Yes, Alice, of course I'll be there. Not at the party, but I'll at least have a gift for you in here." With a wave of her hand she gestured to the clearing, their secret place to relax and talk together.

Matthew looked rather perturbed by something on his mind. "I don't know if I will... There's an examination coming up, to test whether I'll be allowed to go up in the ranks."

"You can't be an Elder until you're a certain age, right?" Alice asked, trying to remember what she'd been told about the process before.

Matthew nodded. "Right. Forty is the youngest age allowed."

Still sixteen, Alice winced at the thought of being forty years old. "Yeesh..."

"Wait... That means we won't get to see you as much, if you're going to move up a rank," Sera said.

His nod was solemn. "I'll be a lot busier and I won't be able to get away from it so easily."

"And you still have to find a wife soon, right?" Alice asked. She tried to not be too bothered by the idea, but to deny that she didn't like it was to lie to her heart.

Yes, Alice Carlea Carriedo had come to realize how she felt about the good-looking, bespectacled, and kind Angel that had fallen into her life half a year ago. The thought of not seeing him as often, if ever again, was painful to her fragile teenaged heart.

"... Right," Matthew answered, though he wasn't happy about the idea, either. "And so far, it's not a very wide "selection" of women close to my age. It's getting clear that our population is dwindling."

That made Alice's face fall even farther. The idea of the Angel society dying out was such a sad one. No more winged humans living above the ground in their magically-protected haven. That wasn't for a while, though.

Suddenly, it was like the sun had come up. "I just learned something in Biology! It's about DNA and heredity and alleles, and maybe it applies to that!"