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Cillian was waiting just inside the building entrance, still wearing his charcoal shirt and combat boots. Without the hotel mask or the polished office setting, he looked like himself: attractive, slightly disreputable, and watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

“I haven't decided whether you're going to impress me or convince me you've lost your mind.”

“Either way, it'll be memorable.”

I nearly smiled before remembering what had brought me here.

He led me up to a loft with broad industrial windows, exposed brick, dark wooden floors, and a ceiling high enough to make my apartment feel like a dollhouse. A worn leather sofa faced the windows, and a worktable held two computer monitors and an abandoned coffee mug. The compact kitchen looked well used but tidy. Nothing suggested he'd secretly hired an engineering crew to construct wings.

Cillian set his keys on the kitchen counter. I remained near the middle of the open room, where I could see the windows and the door.

“Now what?” I asked.

He took a moment to look at me. “I need to take my shirt off.”

I gave him a look. “You understand why that's not a particularly convincing way to begin an explanation?”

“It wasn't an attempt at seduction.” His mouth curved. “Although you've given me plenty to think about.”

He saw my expression and stopped smiling. Then he pulled his shirt over his head and laid it on the back of the sofa. I recognized the tattoos on his forearms from Friday; more black ink covered his shoulders. There was no harness, no hidden frame, and nothing fastened to his back.

I remembered Saturday's dark markings spreading across his bare chest. The man I'd danced with had carried patterns I hadn't seen on Cillian at work. Now, as I watched, darker lines appeared beneath his collarbones and along his ribs, intricate and unmistakably familiar.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag. “What did you just do?”

“I stopped hiding the markings. Watch.”

Cillian stepped into the clear space beneath the highest part of the ceiling. He turned slightly, and I saw the muscles shift along his back.

Black feathers unfolded from him, emerging in broad, layered sweeps on either side of his shoulders. They rose above his head before spreading outward. Air moved across my face as the wings extended, stirring the loose strands of hair at my temples. He adjusted their angle to avoid the hanging light fixture, then held them open until they filled much of the room.

I'd been certain the wings at the Grand needed some elaborate mechanism. Now they rose straight from Cillian's back, their longest feathers shifting as he adjusted his stance.

“Oh my God.”

I heard my own voice and barely recognized it.

Cillian lowered the wings a little, keeping them clear of the furniture. For once, he didn't seem inclined to make a joke.

“You can come closer,” he said, “if you want.”

I took two cautious steps toward him. He stayed still while I circled enough to see where the wings joined his back. I could see muscle shift beneath the dark feathers when he moved one wing.

“May I touch them?”

“Yes.”

I rested my fingertips against the nearest feathers. They were soft along their edges and surprisingly firm nearer the base. A subtle movement passed beneath my hand when Cillian adjusted his shoulder. I drew my fingers away and looked at him.

“Those really were your wings at the Grand,” I said. “And I stood there asking how you got through doorways.”

His mouth curved slightly. “You weren't wrong to ask. You saw what happened in the elevator.”

It ought to have been funny. Part of me remembered how much I'd enjoyed talking to the masked stranger, how he'd made an impossible costume seem like an ordinary inconvenience. But there was nothing ordinary about a pair of wings rooted in a man's back.

I stepped away until the edge of the sofa met the back of my knees. I sat down without taking my eyes off him.