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He stared at his shadow.

Shadows never seemed scary before, but this one did. It was too big. Misshapen, all funny and broad out to the sides.

As if responding to his own new fear of himself, Alex’s wings wrapped around his body in a soft, flexibly-feathery hug.

He screamed.

And then he was airborne.

How it happened, he never knew. His back still ached where the wings had burst through, tearing skin and for all he knew leaving him gaping and bleeding like a shark victim, and now he was forty feet in the air.

No no no, he panicked, and his wings listened to that, too – they disappeared.

What? He had time to think as he fell, and then he landed.

It wasn’t pretty. Crashing into the bush, through the trees and down almost to the shore, and when he finally rolled to a gasping, filthy stop, he realized his leg was broken.

That figured, didn’t it? Alex laughed. There was nothing else he could do.

Besides. It would heal in an hour. He’d never been so grateful to be strange.

#

An hour later, he wandered toward the hotel, limping just a little and weighing mad plans to get inside through the kitchens somehow to avoid being seen. He was Exalted, meant to become part of the carnal attractions in this place – and that meant no scars, no bruises, nothing that could possibly disfigure or diminish his value. The scrapes had healed quickly enough, but he was still filthy, and his shirt was in so many pieces he didn’t know what to do with it besides ball it up and carry it in his fist. Happily, silk compressed very well.

The kitchen was busy right now. Bustling servants, chefs, laughing people of varying skin color and education, talking about whatever they’d seen on the television the night before. All of that was a mystery: Alex could not watch TV. No Exalted could. It was supposed to be part of their charm, or something – the perpetually imagined purity of people kept in ignorance of all things except how to effectively spread their legs.

Alex didn’t feel he was missing out regarding the TV, at any rate. Conversation involving it tended to be dull.

Carefully and cautiously, he sneaked through the back door by the dumpsters and into the stainless-steel glory of Libertas Culinary. Garlic, onions and cinnamon competed in the air, tainted by the sizzle of roasting fish and chicken and pork, and Alex ducked beside the largest gas range.

The door to the hotel was right over there, across from the pot rack. The kitchen was also full of people. He licked his lips. Held his breath. Scuttled.

Undignified like a desperate crab, half on his hands and knees and half on crouched-over tiptoes, he moved from island to island and avoided the main traffic of cooking and serving activity. One person saw him – but she was a part-timer, didn’t care, and knew he was Exalted and thus off-limits – the grey silk trousers made that clear. The door was inches away now. If he only dared slip around that last dessert station –

The door slammed open and gave him precisely the opportunity he needed.

“The Chancellor’s here!” gasped the maître d’ with all due drama, his back to the door as if he thought the Chancellor was coming in after him.

“What? He’s a week early!” cried the head chef, and chaos swept through the wait-staff like a tsunami of disorganization. While they searched desperately for frozen rabbit because the fresh hadn’t arrived and shouted about bay leaves and sour cream, Alex crouched to the door and swung it open just enough to peek out.

Of course it was dinner time. Of course. He couldn’t possibly hope to get past all those people without being seen, and he was crusty with mud and dried blood and leaves that stuck out like peeling skin. White table cloths, dazzling crystal chandeliers, famous and rich people dressed to the nines, and busy bustling wait-staff everywhere – there wasn’t so much as a table empty or an aisle clear. Beyond the diners, the sun was setting over the North Sea, giving an incredible view that was doubtless worth the price of lodging. As if on cue, dolphins played in the surf.

Alex cursed. Over his shoulder, the madness was coming to an end – someone had found a frozen rabbit in the walk-in, and held it aloft with a cry of raw triumph – but the dining room was simply too full.

To hell with it all, he thought, too exasperated to care anymore, and ran through the dining room as fast as he possibly could.

New speed startled him so badly that he tripped, tumbled like an acrobat, somehow ended up on his feet again and resumed running. There were a few double-takes, someone cried out, and someone else dropped a tray of plates with a crash –

And that was it, he was through, out of the dining room and into the marble hall, almost home-free. What was this new speed? Insane tempo, almost like flying as he raced by the mahogany-and-leather smoking lounge and the pink-marble ballroom, through the open colonnade with white pillars framing more of that glorious sunset to the west, past the guest rooms where actual guests stayed, and at last into the super-secret forbidden part of the island: the little hall marked Residents Only.

He slammed that door behind him as if mimicking the maître d’, gasping, and barked one nervous guffaw before slapping his hand over his mouth to stop any more of that coming free. No, he wasn’t safe yet. Light on his feet now – this thin carpet didn’t muffle sound half as well as its richer cousin – he jogged to the baths, stripped in the steam, and plunged into the water.

It felt so good. Heated and slightly salty and fed from some heated underground source, it cleansed and buffed and maybe even healed, because the slight sting on his back reminded him he had gaping holes where his shoulder blades used to be.

Or maybe not. One slight sting, and that was all. Still underwater, holding his breath and letting himself sink to the bottom, he reached over his shoulders to feel.

Smooth skin met his fingers, barely roughened by the first early-pubescent body hair he’d grown – but it was fine and blond like the stuff on his head, so it hadn’t lessened his value. There were no holes back there. There wasn’t even a bump.

No scars meant still Exalted. For a moment, Alex was bitterly disappointed that his saleability remained intact.

He let out a mouth-bubble of annoyance and checked his leg, but the bruise from the break was almost gone now, too. Another hour, and there’d be no sign at all of his injuries.

Except for the wings. He had wings, at least for a few minutes. Who the hell had wings? What did that even mean? Wings that ran away from him, apparently, though where they’d gone, he had no idea. What had they done, gone flapping off on their own to attack some other innocent?

Had any of that even happened? Maybe he’d gone mad.

What does that do for value, I wonder, he thought, and realized with a stomach-plunging jolt that someone was standing just outside the bath, possibly waiting for him.

I left my silks on the tile, he thought, and tried to think of something clever to say that would keep him out of trouble. There really wasn’t anything.  Expelling the last of his air in a sigh, he surfaced.

The hall master stood at the edge of the pool, barefoot, since that’s what the rules required.

He was beautiful. Of course he was beautiful – all Exalted people were, and who better to run the resident hall than someone who understood how the rules worked? Alex had heard the people in the kitchens call the hall master’s eyes stormy gray, but they made him think of steel instead of the softness of clouds. Dark hair tied back in a romance-novel cover’s tail, the hall master frowned just enough to keep from endangering himself with wrinkles and pointed next to him.

Alex obeyed, clambering out of the bath to stand shivering and wet on the tile.

“So it was you in the dining room.” The hall master nudged Alex’s ruined silks, which looked filthy and gray next to his tanned, toe-ringed foot.

“Um. I fell,” Alex said, and shrugged.

The hall master looked him up and down, assessing, lingering. It didn’t make Alex flinch. People had been assessing him like that since before he could walk. “Fell. Turn around.”

Alex did, praying his fingertips hadn’t lied and there were no wounds. He licked his lips as he stopped, daring to meet the hall master’s eyes for a brief moment.

The steam was clearly too thick to reveal much. The hall master couldn’t even see the bruise on Alex’s leg. “So. Is there some reason you decided to scare our customers, Alex? Some deep hatred for the people who’ve taken care of you all your life, perhaps? Or maybe you want your mother out of work? Already trying to be the star attraction, is that it?”

“No! Of course not!” Alex blurted in response to the last sentence, because if he’d responded to anything else it would have been a lie.

The hall master grabbed him by the arms and shook. “Then what the hell were you doing?”

Alex swallowed. ‘Growing feathers’ was a bad reply, no matter how much he wanted to say it just for fun.

The hall master got control of himself. “Never mind.” He let go, watching Alex rub his sore arms. “Your initiation’s been moved up, thanks to this little prank. Obviously, you’re precocious. Well. We can take you up on that. Get clean and dry. First thing in the morning, you’re going to the inner sanctum.”

Alex stared at him. A heavy moment passed, filled with steam and condensation, but the hall master didn’t take the words back. “What?” Alex said.

“Use the internal wash tonight before bed and at first bell tomorrow morning. The cleaner you are, the more pleasant it’ll be for everyone.” The hall master turned to go.

“That’s not supposed to happen for eight more months!” Alex cried.

The hall master spun back and grabbed him by the throat. “It’s. been. Moved. Up,” he said, quietly. “And it’s your own damn fault.” He smirked. “And stop acting like we’re going to hurt you. You’ll enjoy it. Not that you deserve to enjoy anything.” With that, he turned and stalked out of the bath, smoothly grabbing his sandals from the shoe-bench on the way out.

Tomorrow.

Alex stood where he was, breathing too fast, swallowing over and over.

They wanted to initiate him tomorrow. Then he’d be anyone’s – anyone who could pay for him, anyway. Just like his mother. Just like the other Exalted.

He’d had eight months. They were supposed to wait until he turned thirteen.

Eight months had seemed forever.

Tomorrow was right now.

He almost vomited, but held it in. He couldn’t afford to vomit now. There was no telling when he’d eat again. He had no idea how far his new and possibly imaginary wings would carry him, but tonight, he was going to find out.

Time to discover if the outside world was as bad as his teachers had claimed.