Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow

Alan is a middle-aged entrepeneur in contemporary Toronto, who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment of stress, reveals to him that she has wings–wings, moreover, which grow back after each attempt to cut them off.