Cal was frightened as he had never been frightened in his life before. He sat in his room, the door locked, and shook.

The shaking had begun a few minutes after events at Rue Street, almost twenty-four hours ago now, and it hadn't shown much sign of stopping since. Sometimes it made his hands tremble so much he could hardly hold the glass of whiskey he'd nursed through an all but sleepless night, other times it made his teeth chatter. But most of the shaking didn't go on outside, it was in. It was as if the pigeons had gotten in his belly somehow, and were flapping their wings against his innards.

And all because he'd seen something wonderful, and he knew in his bones that his life would never be the same again. How could it? He'd climbed the sky and looked down on the secret place that he'd been waiting since childhood to find.