It was still early in the morning when I landed back at the bar. Nep had left, but a different woman was reclining in one of the booths, her legs crossed and resting on the table. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and pants, with a pale complexion and shiny black hair cut in a bob. “Hello,” she said, barely looking up from her phone.

“Hello?”

“You’re Vespa’s new host, is that right?”

“T-that’s right, I suppose.” Another Angel, then. It had to be. Unless... “You’re not a Demon, are you?”

She bristled at the mention of Demons. “No. I kill Demons.” She swung her feet off the table and got to her feet. She was tall. Nearly as tall as I was, in this body, which meant she must have been a head taller than my human self. “Well, are you just going to walk around in your Imago? Change back.”

“I... I don’t know how.”

A voice buzzed in my ear. “Just picture your human form in your head. Imagine your current body melting away around it.”

“Vespa!”

The wasp landed on my shoulder. “Did you enjoy your flight? Did you find it liberating?”

“It was pretty fun,” I said.

“That is good. It seems that you are very compatible with this Imago. I hope you want to spend even more time learning about this body and your newfound abilities.”

“I do. I have so many questions. This body... I thought it would be weirder, but it feels so... so right, somehow. I can move so easily. I don’t get tired. I can see so well.”

“It really is a marvel.”

“Yeah!”

The girl cleared her throat. “Hurry up please. Or we’ll be here until Nep gets back.”

Right. “Sorry.” I pictured myself standing in this spot. Wait, what about my clothes? Was I supposed to picture them too? Or would that mess with the transformation, making them part of my body in some gruesome manner? What exactly had happened to my clothes, anyways? I wasn’t wearing anything as an Imago, and that was fine, since any ‘skin’ was basically exposed armour. But when I was in the chrysalis, transforming, had I been wearing anything? I couldn’t remember.

Too late. It was time to find out.

The membrane was forming around me again, immobilizing my arms and legs and wings and head, applying a steady pressure all around to constrict my movements and force my body back into position. The shell of my Imago melted away painlessly, my body liquefying again before reforming. Bones first, then muscle and tendons and nerves and skin. And then the cocoon split open and I stepped back out.

Fully clothed, thankfully.

I was absolutely exhausted. I wasn’t sure if this was some side-effect of transforming back, or if the Imago body had simply been unable to feel pain in the same way, but every muscle in my body was sore. Particularly raw were the sides of my torso, muscles I’d scarcely known existed before now painfully sore whenever I lifted my arms. My eyesight felt oddly constricted, like I was still wearing a mask. My heartbeat was like a hammer pounding against the back of my head. Breathing made my mouth and throat and lungs raw. It had never felt more terrible to be human.

But at least I was human again. Again? As if I’d suddenly stopped moments before. But that was silly. I was till myself, strange transformation or not. Yet I felt like that was the right word for it. I’d become human. Because my Imago was not.

The girl in the booth nodded in acknowledgement. “That’s better.” She stood up and stretched, heading for a door at the back of the room. She fished into her pockets for the key, opening the door with a satisfying click. “Well?” she asked. “Are you coming?”

I pointed at myself.

“Of course. You’re the only other person here. Now come on. Nep’s told me to show you around.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s your name? Why are you showing me around? What are you even—”

“Angelina,” she interrupted. “Now hurry up.”

“Should I?” I whispered to Vespa.

“Trust her, Quinn. The angels of Sanctuary 73 have agreed to take you in for now and oversee your training and development.” Take me in?

“What are you standing there for?” said Angelina.

“Sorry.” I supposed Vespa was right. I followed Angelina through the doorway and into an old staircase. The steps were concrete, the walls were the same. Dim light filtered through the dust and cobwebs from the ceiling far above. Our footsteps echoed with every step. “You, uh, have the whole building to yourselves?”

“Yes.”

“Not very homely, is it?”

She scoffed. “We don’t live in the staircase.” We reached the landing of the second floor. The door was plain metal, without even a window. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have assumed that it was some maintenance closet. But inside was a spacious apartment, with glossy wood flooring and mismatched chairs set up around a central table. Lining the walls were an unusually high number of doors. A few were marked with name tags slotted carefully into a metal slot, while the majority were not. An old couch was propped against one of the doors, with a large flatscreen TV sitting on a short table opposite it. Near the back of the room was a small kitchenette and island, with a wooden staircase spiralling up to the next floor.

“You have this whole building to yourselves?”

Angelina smiled. “No paper or digital address. Makes it a pain to order things online, but it makes it hard for anyone to track us. On top of that, the building is constructed with fixed points; it’s protected from any manipulations that Demons might try to inflict. Each sanctuary is woven into the immutable tapestry of history, just like we are.”

She led me up the stairs to the second floor, which was some sort of library. Yet more rooms branched off from a shared central chamber. Between the doors, the walls were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, full of books but also bearing countless terrariums, each crawling with insects of various sizes and shapes. Desks and chairs were set up in small alcoves in the bookshelves, but nobody was sitting at them at the moment.

Angelina took a key, unlocking one of the many unlabelled doors. It opened into a surprisingly bare, but clean, room, with plain plaster walls and the same wooden flooring as the rest of the apartment. A large window filled most of the far wall, with a mattress taking up most of the floor space, covered in white bedsheets. A single gray pillow lay at the head. To my side, the door to a bathroom lay ajar; from what I could see it was likewise simple but tidy. “Make yourself at home,” she said. “We’ll explain the rest later. I’m sure you’re tired after all that frolicking out with your Imago. Take a nap or something.”

I felt uncertain, still. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why?”

“Why are you letting me stay here?” There was some ulterior motive. Right? This wasn’t something that strangers just did. My stomach churned at any of the possible reasons, though. “What do you want from me?”

Angelina rolled her eyes. “We’re taking you in because you have nowhere else to go. It’s our responsibility to take care of you. As your fellow Angels. Nothing more. The only thing we ask is that you listen to us and don’t try anything reckless or stupid. Okay, kiddo?” She tossed me the key and closed the door behind her.

Why’d she have to treat me like a child? She couldn’t be more than three or four years older than me. I turned the object over in my hands. It was made of the same material as my weapon—what had Vespa called it, again?—the ‘martial component’ of my Imago. That is to say, it was made of organic material. Whose material, I wondered. Probably not the best road to go down. It was flexible and strong, but much more ornate than it needed to be. The handle was delicately carved into the shape of a wasp pupa, even managing to imitate the translucent layer with the darker body of the adult wasp within.

I yawned. The bed was comfortable. The sheets, though not freshly washed, still had that new laundry smell. I felt like I was melting into it, though not in the literal sense, know that I knew what it really felt like to... melt. That still felt so weird to think about. But I was too tired to think any more. I closed the blinds and quickly drifted off to sleep.