Number Seven couldn't move. He felt a weight on his chest pinning him down. His left arm was immobile. His right hand was clenched into a fist, felt like it had been clenched for hours, and the arm had stiffened. He couldn’t feel his legs but he could still feel the ache of his cracked ribs.

He remembered cracked ribs but not how he got them, or where he was, or why there was a weight on his chest. Why was he so relaxed about all this? Usually when he woke up unable to move it meant that something had gone very wrong. Perhaps it would be a good idea to open his eyes.

He could see very little light through his eyelids and he half expected a blindfold or a hood. The dark blue haze he saw when he opened his eyes was something of an anti-climax. He blinked and tried to get a better look at the room but something was obscuring his view and it was too close to focus on.

He heard a groan from somewhere nearby. It wasn’t coming from him. The weight on his chest shifted. It must be a person. That had to be where the sound was coming from. At last it was beginning to make sense. The person on his chest moved and the thing that was blocking his view moved into focus. Hair. Thick, dark hair. That seemed familiar. So this was someone he knew. He must have had a very good night.

The head lifted away from him and turned slightly and he could see a face. The details of the night before came flooding back to him. For a moment he was warmed by the memory. It had been glorious. Then the guilt came crashing in to spoil it. Five was dying and instead of doing something about that he’d been distracted by Sorrow and lost the whole night. Of course he had. Thinking with his dick again. Just like Two used to say.

The feather. Maybe it hadn’t been entirely selfish. He looked at his right hand. It was still clenched tight but there was something dark held in his fist.

The memory of the night before had sent blood rushing back to his nether regions. Now he was uncomfortably aware of exactly how she was lying on him.

Sorrow groaned again and then opened her eyes. She blinked at him as if she too was having trouble focusing. Then she smiled. A wide, radiant, guileless smile that drove the guilt and suspicion from his mind.

She smiled and he wanted to stay exactly where he was. He wanted her to keep smiling at him. He wanted more. More of her. More from life. More from himself.

'Good morning,' she said.

Even the warmth of her smile couldn’t keep the guilt at bay. It washed back into him. Reminding him that Five was still dying, that One, Two, and Three were still dead, that he still didn’t know who was responsible, that four was still missing, and that he had a handful of evidence against the woman who was gazing into his eyes and that she’d better not find out because she could snap him like a twig.

He smiled back. 'Morning. I hate to bother you first thing but you have me pinned.'

'Sorry. Give me a sec while I remember how to move.' She rolled off him and onto the bed next to him. 'Ow. Fuck.'

'What’s wrong?'

'I just rolled onto my own wing.' She wriggled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. 'Are you ok? I didn’t crack any more of your ribs did I?'

'I’m fine. I think. Ask me again when I stand up. Is it always like that with you?'

'I didn’t know it could be like that. Nobody ever touched my wings before. I knew they were sensitive to touch but I didn’t know they were sensitive like that.'

'So you didn’t know that would happen?'

'Of course not. I wouldn’t have let you touch them if I did. Not while you were in the middle of explaining what Number Five told you. That’s a major breakthrough.' She stopped talking for a moment. A look of alarm spread across her face. 'I have to get a message to Doctor Hung.' She rose to her knees and reached for her yPhone. 'You said he was poisoned by something from my dream?' She certainly looked like someone acting out of concern.

'Something from the trees there.'

'Probably the yew trees,' she said as she typed.

'He said it was poisoning his soul, not just his body.'

She nodded and typed more then stopped and looked away from her phone for a moment as if thinking. She looked back at him and smiled. It was almost the same radiant smile as before but this time it somehow missed her eyes. 'I’m sure our team will be able to find something to help him.' Her eyes told him that she was sure of no such thing but even the way she lied was endearing.

He wanted her. He wanted her so badly that it was a physical yearning in the pit of his stomach that made him feel ill. 'Stay,' he said. He hadn’t meant to speak. He certainly hadn’t meant to say that.

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'You mean by your side or specifically here, in bed? All day?'

'In bed.'

'I wish you really meant that.' She was trying to smile but her eyes were sad.

'I do mean it.' But he knew he was lying the moment the words left his lips.

'Actually I don’t wish you meant it. If you really were ready to stop looking for Officer Jinx and abandon Number Five I would be going right off you. I mean I wish that we could.'

She was right. He couldn’t stop. If she’d wanted to keep him in that bed she would have to nail him to the headboard.

'How long before we need to get up?' he said.

She glanced down at her watch. 'You can stay where you are but I need to get in the shower.'

'It’s a pretty spacious shower,' he said.

'It is. But I can think of no way to make use of it that won’t hurt either your ribs or your back.'

Again she was right and he hated it.

She jumped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. As soon as she was out of sight he looked at the feather in the palm of his right hand. It was identical to the ones he’d found in the bed the day before. Had those come from her? But they had been identical to the ones found in the Beta safe house and to the one found on Number One.

He’d better get the feather out of sight before she finished her shower. He reached for his garment bag in the wardrobe, bracing against the expected stab of pain from his ribs. Nothing. That was odd. He hid the feather then stood before the mirror and inspected the bruising. There was a strange pale spot where the livid purple had receded and his natural skin colour had returned. He prodded at it, expecting to feel the swelling beneath the skin and the usual queasy churn of the stomach that came with poking at swollen tissue.

There was no swelling, just a small hard lump on each of the cracked ribs. Exactly like the raised area of thicker bone where some of his other ribs had healed from breaks. But they couldn’t be healed yet. That took months.

Behind him he heard Sorrow shut off the water in the shower. No time to investigate further. He dived back under the covers and by the time Sorrow returned he was lying back against the headboard and looking appropriately nonchalant.

Seven tried to avoid looking at the way the water beaded on Sorrow’s skin. It was too tempting to lick it all off and that would only lead back to bed. Instead he found himself staring at the surreal sight of the water droplets lying on her invisible wings. He got up and grabbed a spare towel. 'Let me help you with your wings.'

'I don’t need help with them,' she said as she towel dried her hair in front of the mirror.

'Touching them with a towel isn’t going to be as… stimulating.' Seven hoped it was true. He began to brush the water from her wings with the towel.

'They don’t need drying,' she said.

'Ravens aren’t water birds. They don’t oil their plumage.'

'They’re metaphorical raven wings. They’re not actually real,' she said.

'But I can feel them. I can hear them. Last night, I even saw them for a moment,' he said.

'Practically the first thing you learn working for the Department is that something can be imaginary, metaphorical or fictional but also solid. Hold on. You saw them? How?' she said.

'I don’t know. They’re your wings.'

'Oh now you admit that I’m the expert. They don’t need drying.' She flexed her shoulders and the wings shook him off. He fell back on the bed. He heard the wings shake and felt the water they flicked onto him.

He propped himself up on his elbows to watch her dress. She picked out dark blue slim leg trousers and a sleeveless knitted thing with a high neck, a racer back and a concealed armour plate that Number Two would have given her eye teeth for. She pulled on another pair of aggressively sensible knickers identical to the one’s he’d sliced off the night before, then wriggled into the trousers. They seemed to have more play at the seams than was usual and he wondered if the Department had its own tailors. She picked up the knitted thing.

How are you going to get that on over the wings?' It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder about it before.

'I’m going to drop the mantle of the Goddess,' she said.

'You can do that?' he said.

'I don’t have to manifest the Morrigan all the time. But I do have to concentrate hard to drop the mantel. Once you take it on the way I have it’s easier to put on than it is to take off.'

She pulled the knitted thing over her head. He saw it bunch up against the wings. She closed her eyes in concentration then pulled it down, right through where the wings had certainly been just a moment before.

He jumped off the bed and stepped behind her. He felt for the wings and they were definitely gone. There were other changes too. Her skin looked tanned instead of pale and he noticed freckles that he hadn’t seen before. Her hair looked more brown than black and more curly than feathery. He stroked the skin of her exposed shoulder searching for the point where the wings had joined her back. He found a pale line like an old scar on each shoulder blade. He stroked the line with one finger. Sorrow jerked in surprise at his touch.

He had a brief sensation of movement and felt the wings grow out of her body with such speed that he was knocked off his feet and back onto the bed.

'Shit.' She spun round to check on him but saw something behind him. She gasped and took a half step backwards with a look of horror on her face.

He scrambled off the bed and turned to see what she was looking at. The bed was covered in black feathers. He found himself backing away and forced himself to stop.

'There’s some stuck to your back,' she said and started peeling the feathers from him.

'Go and do your rounds. I’ll phone Cherry,' He said.

She hesitated as if reluctant to leave him alone, but then turned and headed for the stairs.

-'If you’re not going to take your coat, at least wear a scarf,' he shouted after her. He watched her descend the stairs. Once she was out of sight he went for his SIS phone. He would call Cherry but not straight away. First he had to call Abby. Then he would call Cherry. Then a very quick shower because he did not want to be naked when Cherry arrived.