As the first wave of pain crashes over her changing body, her brief fourteen years of life flash behind her eyes like bursts of lightning. She sees herself as a young child, seeking the safety of her older sister’s room to escape Eldest Sister’s cruel torments. She sees herself comforted in her adopted mother’s arms one moment, a cosseted little pet, then fearful of her mother’s wrath just a few years later as the demoness grows tired of tending her fragile human daughter. In a flicker she is a teenager and her mother has just cast her aside, leaving her to face her fate like a lamb among ravenous wolves. As in the present she screams and writhes in pain, feathers bursting out of her flesh like razors, she watches as in the past Noah finds her just in time and tells her not to be afraid, that not all demons are as coldhearted as her mother. She watches her cousin spirit her away from that terrible world and into the realm above, leaving her to fend for herself among the angels. She relives the moment she is discovered by the orphanage and brought aboard the world-spanning train, and the unbelievable joy of being among other human girls. She closes her eyes to block out the horrible sight of her body’s transformation, and in the darkness behind her lids she watches herself fall in love, the kind only young women can feel for each other, deep and endless and passionate. But this memory is only days old and it flashes by too briefly, leaving her in the present where she trembles violently as her body rips and tears to accommodate the angelic metamorphosis. The tears running down her cheeks are partly because of the pain, but also for this fledgling love that now can never, will never, be. A tiny part of her mind wonders if it would have been better to let the demons devour her.