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him to
touch her again so he could toss her off the cliff.
    It didn’t work. Disappointment sat like a
bitter morsel on her tongue as he flew down to fish her out of the
water. Her only satisfaction was that he got soaked as a result of
his efforts.
    He set her on her feet back at the top of the
cliff and she fought the urge to kick him out of sheer frustration.
This had been a perfectly awful day, and it didn’t appear as though
things were going to improve. How could she face disappointing her
parents yet again?
    “That’s okay,” Quincy said patiently. “Let’s
just go over it again. There’s probably something you don’t—”
    “I understood you perfectly well, Quincy,”
she snapped, reaching up to re-secure her hair as it started
slipping from its knot. “I’m not an idiot. As you’re the one who
assisted me in my first physics lessons, you know I’m familiar with
these concepts.”
    “You’ve heard of them, yes,” he agreed,
irritation now filtering through his tone, “but you haven’t
experienced them first-hand. You need to actually sense what it
means for the air to hit a wing at a certain angle, how it feels
when a current of wind creates a lift—”
    “And just how,” she ground out, “am I
supposed to do those things when I can’t extend my
wings?”
    “Let me carry you,” he suggested. “But
instead of you sitting in my arms sideways, you’ll wrap your legs
around my waist and face me. You’ll be able to see my wings better
from that perspective, and you can reach out and touch them to see
how the air passes over them.”
    The very suggestion of herself pressed
against him in such a way had her heart racing, and that pushed her
right over the edge. Suddenly furious with the circumstances that
put her in this position—having these feelings for someone who
couldn’t stand her—she actually growled.
    “I have a better idea,” she shouted over the
wind that whipped his black tank top and pants and pressed them
torturously close to his gorgeous body. His eyes widened in
surprise as she advanced and she had a split second to wonder
exactly what went through his head as he registered her ferocity.
“Why don’t you see how it feels to swim, so you can experience what
this is like from my perspective?”
    And using her fury to give her added
strength, she shoved him off the cliff.
     

Chapter 5
     
    Tate felt the astonishment on her face as she
watched Sophia plummet straight down into the lake after Quincy
tossed her off the cliff. Her mouth hung open even as Quincy flew
down to lift Sophia out of the water.
    She registered that her cousin wore a swim
tank and shorts. And she understood then that this was all part of
the training process. Obviously Sophia had to learn to fly with a
fairly safe landing zone. The lake seemed logical enough, Tate
supposed. Though if Sophia knew that the lake would break her fall,
would she really need to have the faith in herself required to
bring forth her wings?
    Well, what did she know? It had worked for
Clara Kate, after all.
    Shrugging, Tate decided to climb to a higher
vantage point so she could see Sophia and Quincy on the top of the
cliff. She hoped she might learn some tips about flight that would
allow her to extend her wings with more ease in a few weeks. Tiege
would be so jealous of her.
    Reaching up, she grasped another chunk of
rock, trying not to think about the cramps forming in her hands.
Using her boots again for extra leverage, she pushed herself up a
couple more feet. She made good headway with a few more careful
maneuvers. But when she stretched for an awkward handhold, she lost
her grip and slipped. She barely stopped herself from a forty-foot
freefall.
    Her heart hammering in her chest, she clung
to her perch and took several deep breaths. That had been a close
one.
    She heard Sophia yelling something then, and
strained to get a better view of the top of the cliff. Much to her
surprise, she watched her cousin shove Quincy over