"That's…what are you saying? That you actually died?"

Still standing in the doorway, Satoshi swallowed his heart back down his throat and watched her carefully.

"I know," she said quietly. "It doesn't make any sense. By all means, it should be impossible, but that's what happened. He sent me back."

Satoshi felt bile rising in the back of his mouth. He?

The young woman in the wheelchair continued to blankly stare at the feather on the table. "Of course, I couldn't return to the life I had. Not after they'd identified me at the scene and buried me at my funeral. It would've driven them all mad. So I started over with what the angel gave me: this body…it's a bit broken, but not too bad of a replica, is it?"

She started to grin at her joke, but saw the grim expression on Satoshi's face and decided against it. Maybe she was more insane than she thought.

Then she spoke softly, as if to herself,

"Apparently not even angels can mend everything."

Because he's not an angel, Satoshi thought. He's an imperfect artist.

"I'm sorry, Satoshi," Jocelyn whimpered, tears beginning to fill her eyes again.

Satoshi cut her off. "Did the angel say anything to you?" There was a cold and calculated tone in his voice.

Jocelyn blinked. This was hardly how she had expected this to unfold. Most people would've been shocked or laugh at her in disbelief, but Satoshi…it was almost as if he was analyzing her answers, waiting on edge for a certain response. Then again, she reminded herself, Satoshi wasn't most people.

"Only a little. He knew my name. He folded me into his great wings and said something I couldn't understand. Then he…he called me his 'everything.'"

"No."

She barely heard the word. Looking up from the white feather, she watched the color drain from Satoshi's face, his lavender eyes wide with fear.

"What?"

"No, that's impossible. He can't be—he didn't say that."

Jocelyn frowned. His eyes…it was as if he was staring through her, seeing something other than the woman in the wheelchair. She was almost afraid to move.

"Why?" she asked, unsure if she wanted to be heard.

"Because he didn't!" he shouted. The sound pierced her bones, chilled the blood around her heart. "He doesn't exist! He's gone! There's no way this is possible!"

Jocelyn sat for a moment in silence, stunned.

"The angel…you know him?"

"He's not an angel," Satoshi explained, voice cracking. His stared at the feather while he spoke, "He's…an artistic spirit. A soul that should never have existed in the first place. A few years ago, we sealed him away so that he could never return to this world."

"Sealed him away? Why? What did he do?"

In a trance-like daze, he walked over to the feather and took it in his grasp. Slowly, he began to crush it in his fingers.

"He destroyed people. He took their lives from them and gradually killed them."

A single, cold tear leaked from the corner of her eye. There was such tortured pain in his voice, as if he knew this firsthand.

"But he gave me mine," she said. "He gave me my life."

"In exchange for what?" Jocelyn suddenly found herself at the mercy of two cold amethysts, each one drilling holes into her very core. With a small gasp, she realized what he was implying. "What did he want in return? Your loyalty? Your help to release the seal on him?"

"No," she breathed. "He never asked me for anything."

The feather disintegrated in his hand and he turned on her.

"Don't lie to me, Jocelyn!"

"I'm not!"

"He would never simply grant you your life and the fact that you're here proves it! What are the chances of you and I meeting unless he intervened? He brought you back for his own reasons! So what was the plan, Jocelyn? You get your life and he gets his? Befriend me until my guard falls, so he can finish what he started?"

"No!"

"He's using you! He's using you and you don't even know it! You don't know what he's capable of! What he'll do to you—to me!"

Jocelyn watched in horror as he slammed his fists on the table and cried out. No tears; just a wordless, strangled cry.

"Dammit!" he choked, his fingers clutching into the tangled mess of his hair. "Why is this happening? Why? I was finally free. I was…finally…"

For a long while Jocelyn couldn't move. She stared at the black shirt stretched across his back and wondered how long it had been since she last breathed. Even if she had the use of her legs, she doubted she could've walked across the room like she wanted to. On the floor beside Satoshi were the remnants of the feather, scattered like white ashes that had not yet burned.

She didn't remember moving across the room, nor did she recall exactly when she had reached up to touch him. The second her fingers brushed his shoulder he jerked away.

"Don't touch me." Jocelyn winced. "Just please…please leave me alone."

He turned and walked down the hallway, never raising his eyes to look at her again. Jocelyn watched his retreating figure through a curtain of hot tears.

"But—"

He stopped at the doorway. Jocelyn was grateful he didn't turn around.

"Why did he call me that? His 'everything?'"

"He didn't." She blinked. "That's what he used to call me."

Satoshi closed the door behind him. The first light of dawn broke through her kitchen window and rained golden light upon her skin, glinting off her tears like diamonds.