I go after it. It moves slowly enough that I can keep pace, far enough behind that I can barely make out its bulk through the fog. Swirls of mist open around me, and in every faint, moonlit shadow I expect to see a walking corpse or a lizard-bird waiting to claw my guts out. But nothing attacks me. Overhead, I hear the squeak and flap of bats on the hunt, and once the abrupt screech of something small dying suddenly amid the undergrowth.
I don’t know which direction we’re going, but we travel for some time. Eventually the forest stops at a neat line of trees, and the angel walks out into a plowed field. There are other angels here, inert and still, waiting for daylight to begin their appointed tasks again. Compared to Soliton’s guardians, who are all disturbing, fantastical shapes, the an
