“He was,” Mom answers smoothly. “I was able to grab hold of him while I was in glory, and I took off his ear. I thought he was too vain to show himself until he was fully healed.” Again with her not wanting them to know the full story of what happened that day. It’s a bald-faced lie. I look at her sharply, but she doesn’t even glance in my direction.

“So he’s healed, then,” Julia says.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “What I do know is that Clara feels his presence in the cemetery.”

All eyes turn back to me.

“You’re sure,” Walter says, not really as a question. “You’re sure it was this Black Wing’s sorrow you felt and not simply grief over your . . .”

“My mother’s death?” I finish for him, surprising myself with how calm I sound. “No. It was him.”

For a minute or two nobody says anything else.

“So tell us, Clara.” Walter again, his eyes that are so like Christian’s, deep pools of emerald, trained on me like he wants to pluck this information right out of my head. “What did you feel, in your dream, at the cemetery? What did he feel, exactly?”

“Sorrow,” I answer slowly. I don’t want to get Mom into trouble or embarrass her further, by telling them that Samjeeza is in love with her.

“Just tell them,” Mom says. “Don’t worry about me.”

Okay, then. I close my eyes, cast myself back to that moment in the dream, trying to recapture his feeling.

“I feel sorrow. Separation. Pain. And you’re right, I thought it was me at first. But then I started feeling his despair. He knows he’s never going to see my mom again. He can’t go where she has gone. He’s lost her, forever. He never got a chance to plead his case. To make amends.”

“He should have tried to make amends last summer, then,” Billy says hotly, “instead of trying to choke the life out of her.”

Mom looks at her with a mournful, pleading expression, and Billy quiets.

“The point is,” I continue, “he’s angry. At some of us, specifically.”

“Who?” Julia asks.

“Well, me, for starters. He thinks I’m an insolent child. I humiliated him. I said things that hurt him.” I shiver. “He wants to destroy me. I remind him of . . .”

“Who else?” Mom prompts then. “Tell them who else.”

“Mr. Phibbs—I mean Corbett. For some reason he really hates you.”

“Glad to hear it,” says Mr. Phibbs gruffly.

“He’s not too fond of Billy either. Or you, Walter.”

Billy snorts. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

“That’s why I thought it’d be appropriate for you to know. So you can decide whether it’s worth the risk to attend my funeral,” Mom says.

“Oh, we’re all going to be there,” Billy insists. “Like I said, we can handle Samjeeza. He wouldn’t take on forty of us.”

The rest of the group doesn’t look so sure.

“We’re all going to be there,” Billy says again, like she’s daring someone to cross her.

“We stand by each other.”

Mom sighs in exasperation. “Bill, I’m not going to be standing anywhere. I won’t be there.

It’s very nice for you to pay your respects, but it’s really unnecessary. Not worth the risk, if you want my opinion.”

Billy doesn’t bat an eye. She turns to my mom, my serene and dying mother, who wouldn’t have had the strength to hike out here to the meadow without us helping her, who can hardly keep herself sitting up straight now, and Billy looks at her like she’s a total moron.

“Mags, sweetie,” she says. “I know that. It’s not for you, dear. We’re going to be there for Clara. For Jeffrey. For everyone else who loves you. And if there’s a Black Wing, it’s all the more reason for everyone to be there. To protect them.”

Mom closes her eyes. “It’s only a funeral.”

“It’s your funeral,” says Billy, slinging an arm around her affectionately. “We love you.

We’re going to take care of your kids.”

There’s another wave of whispering from the crowd, this time in agreement.

“I don’t think the funeral is really the issue here,” Mr. Phibbs says suddenly.

“So what is?” Billy asks.

“Clara says Samjeeza is at the graveside. And that he’s hurting, sure, as Black Wings are like to do. But she also says he’s mad at us. I’d say the larger question here is, what are we going to do between then and now to piss him off?”

Okay, so that ruffles more than a few feathers. People start arguing again.

“The last time one of us fought a Black Wing, she ended up dead,” that Julia lady says.

“And she sacrificed her life so that the Black Wings wouldn’t find out about the rest of us, in case you forgot.”

This time Christian does not meet my eyes. He’s looking down into the crackling fire.

“We didn’t forget,” Walter says in a low voice.

“It’s understandable that you’re afraid,” says Mr. Phibbs. “But that was seven years ago.

We’ve become sleepy since then. Sleepy and safe.”

“You’re careless, Corbett, but you can afford to be,” Julia replies. “You don’t have anything to lose, since your time is almost up, yourself.” Mr. Phibbs regards her like a troublesome student. “Maybe that’s true,” he fires back.

“But we’re at war, in case you’ve forgotten. You can ignore that and go on with your human lives in your human houses and your special camping trips in the woods a few times a year, but the reality is, we’re angel-bloods. This is a war. We’ve been chosen to fight.” His words ring out in the cool night air, which has gone suddenly still.

“Stop,” Mom protests. “I’m responsible for this mess with Samjeeza, and no one else.”

“Mags, dear, be quiet,” Billy says.

I look around the campfire. Mr. Phibbs is right. Everyone knows he’s right.

“I’ll be there, at the cemetery,” says Christian suddenly, fiercely. “It doesn’t matter who else shows up.”

“As will I,” says Walter, clapping a hand on Christian’s shoulder.

“And me,” pipes up someone else. “To the end.”

They go around the circle, each angel-blood vowing to be there in Aspen Hill Cemetery that day. Even Julia begrudgingly agrees. When it gets to Jeffrey, who hasn’t said anything this entire weekend, he shrugs and says, “Kind of a given, right?” and then Angela says, “Bring it on,” and then it’s me and I just nod, because I’m suddenly too choked up to get the words out.