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pressed them down over the towel on Brownie’s belly before running back into his apartment for his trolley. He brought it out to the hallway and managed to explain to Paige that they needed to use it to get Brownie into the elevator, down to her car, and from there to the vet.
    Deklan loaded the whimpering dog onto the trolley and wheeled it to the elevator. “Are you okay to drive?” he asked Paige.
    “Yes, I’m fine,” she snapped, but he understood her anger. The whole thing didn’t make sense. He was still at a loss to comprehend how Mittens had injured the dog at all, let alone ripped its stomach open. His front door was a problem that he pushed to the back of his mind.
    Deklan piled into the back seat of the car with Brownie, holding the towel in place as Paige slid behind the wheel.

Joy

    Sebastian spiraled through the air. Above him was brilliant blue sky marred only by the occasional alabaster cloud. He passed over a thermal and used it to spiral up over the course of a few minutes. He still hadn’t quite figured out how to find them, but whenever he did he used them for the free lift. He spiraled higher and higher, watching as the city below became a toy-like display. He loved to do this, not for itself but for what came next.
    He leveled off and then banked into a steep dive back down to the city. Wind roared in his ears as he grinned widely. There was no flapping, no work, just the adrenaline rush of pure speed.
    Beneath him buildings rushed by. At this pace he could cross the entire metropolis in a matter of minutes. He’d raced a few other fliers who indulged in the same hobby, but of all of them he seemed to be the most addicted to the experience. Yesterday the most exciting thing in his life had been his collection of geodes from all over the world. Today he couldn’t imagine sitting with them and looking at a specimen under a microscope.
    He had never known so pure a happiness as flying. Whereas before acquiring his wings he had been drawn to quiet study and solitary activities, he now wanted nothing more than to spend every minute in the sky. Inhaling deeply, he dove toward the pointing pedestrians below and pulled up at the last moment, skimming along less than six meters off the ground.
    Many different types of Keystone could fly. Most did so without wings, currents of energy trailing behind their bodies or air sacs inflated. Others flew without any obvious method of flight.
    Sebastian swooped by one airborne Keystone of the slower variety who was kept aloft by air sacs. He barely had time to take in her appearance as he sped by: hair so red that he doubted it was natural, unless it had been a gift from The Sweep, and two massive air sacs that stretched from wrist to ankle. He wondered how she steered, but perhaps she didn’t. If she were moving in any direction other than up and down, she certainly wasn’t doing so with any speed. In fact, he had yet to encounter an air-sac flyer who levitated at more than a crawl. Walking would have been faster for most of them, but Sebastian couldn’t fault the woman for wanting to fly no matter in how limited a fashion. Regardless of how they flew, every Keystone that Sebastian saw loved the experience.
    Keystones with wings were the rarest form of flyer, and even among those with wings there was variety—scaled, leathery, furry. Sebastian took a quiet pleasure in being the only Keystone aloft with the feathered wings of a bird of prey.
    The aerial maneuver he enjoyed most was that of swooping down between buildings. He experienced a giddy pleasure when birds scattered before him as he passed. He was living a childhood fantasy. Each beat of his wings was a fresh surge of joy.
    As he rolled in the air, an acrobatic stunt that he wouldn’t have tried a day earlier, he saw below him a small pack of stray dogs. They were approaching a parked car near which two people struggled to manage what looked like an injured dog.
    Concern suspended Sebastian’s