Erzulie’s shop hasn’t changed in thirty years. There’s a fresh coat of yellow paint on the door, the curls and slashes of her veve carved through layers of the golden lacquer, and the tourists posing outside are snapping photos with sleek cell phones instead of bulky Polaroids, but everything else is the same.

I push open the door to the dimly lit shop, and I almost expect them to look up – Serafine, her anger at the world finally tempered by love and happiness, however brief. Marianne couldn’t have been more than fifteen when I knew them, all gangly limbs and messy hair and the wide uncomplicated smile that I’m sure Grace shared before Uriel ripped apart her world.

I blink and the memory fades like the faint curl of incense smoke wafting through the room.

“Elissa, it’s been too long.”

Erzulie is as unchanging as her shop. She walks around the counter, yards of ocean blue fabric swirling around her feet like a whirlpool, tiny braids wreathing her head like Medusa’s serpents. She stands eye to eye with me, fixing me with that ageless scrutiny as she takes my hands in hers. “I’d heard you were back in town.” At my raised eyebrow she adds, “You never manage to keep as low of a profile as you think you do.”

The door bangs open as Lucifer saunters in, flipping the sign to closed as an afterthought. Michael follows at his heels, looking equal parts apologetic and uncomfortable. I’m not terribly surprised at his obvious discomfort. Caila was always a bundle of nervous energy anytime we ended up here. Angels tend to have a complex relationship with the old gods and spirits, and Erzulie is no exception.

She seems more amused than anything at Lucifer’s posturing, and her face lights up when she sees Grace. “The Last still lives,” she says, releasing my hands to clasp Grace’s with almost maternal affection. “Prophecies always are tricky things.” Her attention finally drifts to Michael, and even she looks surprised to see him inside her shop. “And the Archangel Michael. Whatever is the reason for this reunion of Heaven, Hell, and Earth? None of you tend to bother much with social calls.”

It’s Lucifer that speaks, his voice tight as he casts quick glances at Grace. I only have the vaguest details about Grace and Lucifer’s interactions with Erzulie, but something happened in this shop that has Lucifer’s hackles up, and it’s not just celestial pretense.

“You seem to know everything that goes on in this city,” he sneers. “And you’ve never crossed paths with an incredibly powerful witch who likes to kidnap angels?”

Erzulie’s jaw tightens. She knows exactly who we’re referring to, whether our target has ever darkened her doorstep or not. “I believe I know who you mean, though we’re hardly on a first name basis.” Lucifer scoffs, and Erzulie flashes him a sharp look before pressing on. “She and I run in very different circles. I don’t traffic in the dead, and I don’t corrupt.”

“She’s a necromancer,” Lucifer finishes. “Lovely. We know what she wants Caila for then.”

Grace takes a step toward me, and I know I must look stricken. The heavy iron chain from the vision flashes across my eyes.

Oh Caila. We’re coming.

It’s Erzulie that answers Grace’s unspoken question. The rest of us already know. “If she has an angel, she’s draining her like a battery. The dead can only provide so much. She can siphon power off their souls and make deals with demons, but that won’t keep her from rotting from the inside out and she knows it. But an angel? That opens many new doors.”

“Who the Hell is she?” I choke out.

Erzulie shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know.”

Lucifer snorts at that. “Another prophecy then? More cagey bullshit for us to wade through?”

Erzulie rounds on Lucifer as her already thin patience snaps. “I’ve seen those wards too, boy,” she growls. “I know what they mean. You aren’t the only one taking shots at Heaven, and I more than had my fill of it last time.”

She glares at Michael, her expression stony. “Your kind tends to leave a mess that the rest of us are stuck cleaning up after.”

An instant later, she’s back to her usual inscrutable tranquility, calmly taking the list of ingredients from my numb hands and disappearing into the back room to fill them. I follow her through the doorway, the beaded curtain slipping over me like water.

“How much of this have you seen, Erzulie?” I demand, shoving aside the few strands of beads still caught on my shoulder, the stones clanking together like a necklace of bones. “How much of this do you know? I feel like we’re all running blind but you’ve seen the full picture for decades!”

Erzulie ignores my outburst as she measures out dried white petals, her quick fingers tying off the bag before moving onto another jar holding desiccated white bones. Her hands pause on the lid, and she takes a heavy breath.

“You think it’s that simple?” she chides. Her voice is light, but when she turns to me there’s only bleakness in her eyes. “Everything I see comes in pieces. You know as well as I do that following the breadcrumbs gets easier after centuries but you’re still fumbling through the darkness.” She looks over my shoulder at the curtain hiding us from the rest of the shop. “Do you think I wanted to send that girl to her death, or watch her mother pretend to be just another human, as though hiding would save them?”

“Erzulie,” I begin only to trail off immediately. What could I say, after all? I’d watched Caila suffer at every loss, watched her bury the guilt and blame and sadness under a saccharine smile and a pastel dress. Finally I stammer, “It’s not your fault,” the words feeling as hollow now as they ever have.

“Of course it’s not my fault,” she agrees, twisting the lid and plucking two of the bleached white bones from the jar. “But it wasn’t theirs either. And it’s far from over.”

The bronze bowl rests on the scarred lacquer of the desk, and I try to imagine Caila’s horrified expression at my savagery of chopping ingredients on the bare wood. The conjured fire boils the viscous fluid, and Grace hovers at my elbow, leaning over my shoulder to stare at the tar-colored mixture.

“Magic isn’t like baking a cake,” I lecture, startling Grace just enough that she takes a quick step backward, giving me the room I need to work. “You don’t just throw two cups of virgin’s blood and a teaspoon of rosemary into a cauldron and become immortal.”

I chop the asphodel roughly, the dried petals crumbling into pieces that smell of ashes and Hellfire. I scoop them into my palm and toss them all into the bowl. The mixture flares white for a moment before fading back into black.

“That being said,” I continue, “Intent needs a guide sometimes. That’s where this comes in.”

Grace’s curiosity gets the best of her again and she leans closer, inhaling the scent of freshly turned earth that emanates from the bowl. “Tell me again what this is going to do for us?” she asks.

“Not us. You and Lucifer.” Grace’s grey eyes widen at my admission but she doesn’t balk. Serafine would be proud at her granddaughter’s mettle. “Lucifer told me about the bond. I can work with that, but this isn’t going to be easy for either of you.”

Lucifer enters the room as if on cue, and if the situation wasn’t so dire I’d be laughing at the image of the devil hovering in doorways and waiting his turn. Instead I take his hand in mine and hold it over the bowl. The steam rises around us as I press the hilt of a small dagger into Grace’s palm, the Hell-forged metal blackened and scorched.

Grace only hesitates for a moment before drawing the tip of the blade across his palm. He rotates his hand so that the few bright drops of blood that well up drip into the bowl before the wound closes. When Lucifer’s blood hits the surface the potion glows blindingly white and the sharp scent of ozone cuts through the air.

Grace hands the knife to Lucifer, and he takes her hand in his, tracing his thumb over her palm before making the cut. Grace doesn’t wince at the sting, and Lucifer turns her hand so that gravity can do its work.

When Grace’s blood hits the potion the fire immediately goes out. The steam hangs in the air above the surface for a moment before clearing, revealing a liquid as clear as water.

“Did it work?” Grace asks tentatively.

“We’ll know soon enough,” I answer, grabbing the two shot glasses I’d found buried in the back of the cabinet and filling them with the concoction. “Bottoms up.”

Lucifer smirks as he takes the glass, the sarcasm doing a poor job of hiding his apprehension. “Shot glasses?”

I shrug. “When in New Orleans.”

They both knock back the potion without hesitating. Lucifer has never expressed much concern for his own safety so I’m not terribly surprised at his boldness, but Grace continues to impress me at every turn. No one who’s ever met her could call her weak after this.

I watch them both, scrutinizing them for effects. Potions tend to be volatile, and one with this much power should work almost instantly. Lucifer’s face is apprehensive as he focuses all his attention on Grace, worry furrowing his brow.

It hits Lucifer first, buckling his knees and driving him to the ground. Grace is by his side in an instant, lacing her fingers through his as he stares unseeingly up at her face.

I’d explained what would happen to them both on the street outside Erzulie’s shop, that the potion would heighten the bond between them temporarily to let Grace tap into Lucifer’s strength and invulnerability.

Considering what we’re up against, the potion is a necessity, but like all magic it comes at a cost. A bridge like that isn’t something I can just build without letting everything else through – thoughts, memories, sensations. It’s all pouring through the bond both ways like a flash flood strong enough to bring the devil to his knees.

I only hope Grace is strong enough to come out from under the torrent of Lucifer’s past unscathed.

Lucifer shrugs off the onslaught quickly enough, pushing his own reactions aside out of concern for Grace. The look he gives her holds such bare emotion, protectiveness and respect and love overflowing in one expression that I turn away, feeling like an intruder.

Lucifer pushes himself upright, knife-edged tension rippling through him as he waits.

A few more seconds tick by before Grace inhales sharply, her fingers digging into Lucifer’s shoulder as she wavers. Lucifer pulls her closer, lifting her onto the torn seat of the blue velvet couch, my presence entirely forgotten.

Grace’s eyes are wild and unfocused, her senses lost inside the images flashing through her mind.

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer breathes. “I’m so sorry.”

Grace whimpers, the noise sounding confused but not painful, not yet. Lucifer cups her chin in his hand, trying to draw her focus to him. “Grace, Grace look at me. Stay with me.” His voice is firm, his grip tight enough to force her out of the memory for an instant.

“Lu-Lucifer? It’s all so bright-” her voice cuts off as she plunges back into the memory.

Lucifer looks up at me, his face a mask. “She’s seeing the time before the Fall. It won’t be bright for much longer.”

Grace arches upward, an animal sob of pain wrenching from her throat. I hear Michael’s heavy footfalls as Grace’s cry brings him into the room. It goes on and on, a raw sound of anguish, of soul deep pain until her voice falters and she breathes the word, “Michael.”

None of us need to ask what she’s seeing now.

I glance over at Michael, and his face is grey as he watches Grace relive Lucifer’s fall. Grace may be the one trapped in a memory, but Michael is hearing every cracked bone and seeing every spray of blood.

Abruptly Grace tenses up, her teeth gritting and every muscle locking as though she’s bracing herself for impact. Lucifer strokes her hair, rocking her still form. The low hum of Lucifer’s voice is a language I don’t understand, but I recognize the foreign cadence.

Enochian.

Lucifer’s voice is hoarse as though he was the one screaming in agony moments ago, and I wonder when he last spoke in the language of Heaven. I whisper to Michael, still standing frozen beside me, “What’s he saying?”

Michael shakes his head without looking at me.

“Come back to me.” Lucifer switches back to English before whispering more words in Enochian, flowing from one tongue to the next.

After the Fall was century upon century in Hell, surrounded by the worst of humanity and their own personal torments with nothing but demons for companionship. Grace is lost in a torrent of blood and pain and anger so deep that there was always the risk that she’d be unable to surface.

I’d told her that. I’d almost wanted her to say no.

The three of us wait for what feels like hours as Grace rides out the terrifying depths of Lucifer’s psyche. Michael and I give them what little privacy the small house offers, standing sentry at the edge of the room. I’m reluctant to stray any further in case something goes wrong. Because this is the spell going right.

“You don’t have to watch this.” Michael starts as though he’s coming out of a trance.

“Yes, I do,” he replies.

Grace blinks, taking in a shuddering breath as she wrenches herself free from whatever corner of Hell she’s trapped in. “How?” she asks, her voice cracking on the word.

We’re all holding our breath, no one more so than Lucifer. Every memory, every action over thousands of years has been laid bare before her. Would she ever look at him the same way again?

Grace swallows thickly before speaking again. “How did you go through all that and come out who you are?” There are tears on her face, and I know I have no business watching this, but I’m rooted to the spot. “How do you love me?”

The devil is dumbstruck as he looks at her, wonder in his eyes. He finds his voice enough to ask, “Are you all right?”

Grace nods. “I need some time to sort it all out, but I’m okay. I’m still me.” She leans closer, brushing her lips across Lucifer’s. “Nothing has changed.”

I want to give them the time and space to soothe their frayed nerves with each other, but the spell will only last so long. We need to do this now or else everything I just put them through is for nothing.

“It worked then.” My words snap Grace back to the present and out of the bubble she and Lucifer have ensconced themselves in.

Grace stands up, swaying on her feet for the briefest second before getting her equilibrium back. She rolls her shoulders, forcing the stiffness from them as she feels Lucifer’s power flow through her.

“Can you do this?” I ask, abandoning my spot at Michael’s side to stand in front of Grace, scrutinizing her for lingering weakness. “You need to be at 100% or it’s too risky.”

“I’m fine.” There’s no trace of waver in her voice, no signs that she was mentally flayed a few minutes ago. “It’s all a bit raw, but nothing I can’t handle,” Grace says, squeezing Lucifer’s hand. I hate the pang of jealousy that surges in me at their united front.

“Let’s do this.”

I climb into the passenger’s seat of Grace’s car. She sits behind the wheel, staring blankly through the windshield. Lucifer and Michael took off ahead of us to give Grace some breathing room.

She turns on the car, the air conditioner sputtering for a moment before coming to life, but makes no move to drive.

“The way he sees me-” Grace stops herself, leaning her forehead against the hot leather of the steering wheel as she closes her eyes, and I’m glad Lucifer gave her the space to process. She obviously needs it.

“There was so much darkness. So much hate and betrayal, and he was so alone.” Grace swipes at her eyes, before turning to me. “But in those last few moments where I was so lost everything started getting brighter. It was so bright it almost hurt. It was like staring into the sun, and in those last seconds before I woke up I realized that it was me.”

Grace puts the car in gear without another word, and we drive on in silence.

The mansion looms ahead, the stately columns and manicured plants hiding the nightmare within. This side of town is quieter than the tourist centers. Only a few cars drive sedately down the street, and the sidewalks aren’t choked with gawkers. It’s the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

Grace parks the car a block down the street. Lucifer and Michael are already standing at the edge of the property, eyeing the gate warily.

“She thought of everything,” Lucifer says. “The wards are even on the roof.”

I hadn’t held much hope for an aerial assault, but the idea of even more protections to break through is disheartening.

Lucifer wraps his fingers around the iron fence. Michael and I immediately rush forward to stop him. “Don’t touch it-”

Lucifer cuts me off with a look as he twists the iron until it snaps. The wards poured into the metal bind the soul, but those at least are nothing to Lucifer. A rush of icy air blows past us with a hiss as Lucifer sends the soul plummeting down to Hell where it belongs.

He takes a step back, letting go of the fence. It’s nothing more than a physical barrier now, just decorative iron that holds no match to any of us. “One down.”

I glance past the decorative spires of the fence to where the wards shimmer in the air. One down, and still so many left to go.

I hand Grace a Hell-forged knife, the blade as long as my hand and wickedly sharp. Weapons feel more than useless, but I can’t stomach the idea of Grace walking in unarmed.

“Stab first, ask questions later,” I direct. Grace takes the knife, testing the weight in her hand before tucking the sheathed blade into the back of her jeans.

“Elissa.”

I turn around to see Michael, and I can’t pretend I didn’t expect this. He shifts from foot to foot, filled with the same battle-ready nervous energy that flows through all of us.

This isn’t the time or the place. I need to focus on finding Caila and not getting anyone killed, not on my love life, but I can still hear the low hum of Lucifer’s voice, whispering to Grace in a language I’ll never understand. I can still see Michael’s stricken face as he watched it all, and whatever embers of hate and anger I still hold for him sputter and die.

Two thousand years is long enough to hold a grudge.

“I was wrong all those years ago.” The words spill out of Michael as he rushes to get them out before I go inside.

Just in case one of us doesn’t make it out.

“I did the wrong things for the right reasons, but that doesn’t make it any better,” he confesses, clasping his hands together as he tips his head back, gazing up at the unfeeling blue of the sky. “Heaven was going to kill you, and there’s nothing I could have done to stop it. I did what was needed to save you, and I won’t apologize for that.” Michael lets out a long exhale as he forces himself to look at me, and there’s so much regret in his eyes. “I still love you. I never stopped.”

Michael’s words fade into nothing, blocked out by the sudden ringing in my ears.

I’m reeling.

Heaven did this.

Heaven stole our life together, our happiness.

I see Lucifer and Grace in my peripheral vision, more casualties of Heaven’s hypocrisy and rules. They survived Heaven’s meddling once, but not without their own sets of scars.

I stare through Michael, seeing nothing but the gate, the wards, what I have to do, and I almost wish she had picked another angel.

Somewhere deep in my memories I still hear the sound of the water lapping against slick stones and smell the acrid scents of cheap wine and human filth rolling off my father as his head slips beneath the waves. And once again that same realization strikes me.

If she had picked another angel, I’d walk away and leave her to it.

“Elissa?” I blink, the deep blue of Michael’s eyes coming back into focus, his brow furrowed with worry at my silence.

They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. I’m not dying, but it all comes pouring back in that one moment, washing over me like the flood.

Michael standing stiff-backed in the corner of my study and the look of utter bafflement on his face when he realizes I can see him, like a child being surprised that closing their eyes doesn’t grant them invisibility.

That first kiss, my back against the stone wall with his hands in my hair, hands that had wielded blades and could tear down cities that still tremble the slightest bit when they touch me.

Days and nights lost in skin and touch, in tangled bedsheets and torn robes, all our earlier hesitance forgotten when need takes hold.

The dead look in his eyes when he tells me I can never understand his duty to Heaven.

So much time and so many mistakes.

“You have terrible timing,” I murmur as I grasp the collar of Michael’s shirt and yank him downward, pressing my lips against his. This isn’t goodbye. It’s not one last kiss before dying.

Year after year of longing pours into that kiss. Michael’s hands slide around my waist, pulling me against him, and I don’t need a bond or shared memories to know that he understands. This kiss is a promise that we don’t die today.

Heaven doesn’t get to win, but neither does she.

We do.

I extricate myself from Michael’s arms and blast through the first ward.

Inside the gate the air is oppressive, the weight of the magic surrounding us pressing down on our bodies, squeezing the air from our lungs until even breathing hurts. Grace looks over her shoulder at where Lucifer stands just beyond the mystical barrier, his shoulders a tense line as he watches us.

The wards are a Gordian knot that would take days to entirely unravel. Layer upon layer of spells shimmer in the air, far more than were visible from the outside, and I’m at a loss for where to start. Brute force worked for the first, but most of the spells surrounding us won’t go down easily. The magic is powerful enough to be almost sentient, and unmaking these spells will be like cutting the wires on a bomb. One wrong move could turn the air to acid or boil our blood in our veins.

She knows we’re here. The second we crossed the gate she felt it, so I can only imagine that she’s watching us for her own amusement from some secret lair like a comic book villain.

Grace stays close, hovering only a step behind me but this time I don’t argue or ask for space. Every extraneous movement is another chance for a single wrong step to end us. The angelic wards are the closest to the house, but getting to them requires us to wade through the tangled mire of everything else first.

I hold my hand up, and Grace freezes. The air shifts, the threads of the spell glowing bright gold. We’re close enough that it’s readying itself to trigger. “Don’t step any closer. This one is basically a mine,” I say.

Grace blinks. “Like a landmine?”

I nod, already focusing on untwisting the strands of the spell, murmuring the incantations that will dissipate the power. It pulses an even brighter gold, enticing me to take another step closer the warm glow. I rock on my feet, my weight shifting forward and I almost take the step, the thrall so subtle that I don’t even notice until the light brightens to the point where it’s almost painful to look at.

I shake my head, shifting my weight back onto my heels and away from that step that will rip as apart with all the finesse of a claymore mine, and I feel the flood of indignant rage press against me from all sides as the spell fights to do what it was made for.

The pressure grows, and I hear Grace gasp beside me, but I can’t spare her any attention. Deep in the twisted mess of gold I see a strand just a bit darker than the others and I blindly reach back, grabbing Grace’s arm and drawing on her borrowed power to snap that thread.

A high-pitched whine tears through the air around us as the spell melts away. My eardrums are still ringing when I take a tentative step forward, testing the ground. When we aren’t immediately blown up I continue forward with Grace right behind.

We inch closer to the house, eyes wide as we scan our surroundings for more traps. And there are always more traps. Removing all the spells enrobing this house is an utter impossibility, so we tunnel through only those that are in our path to the door and the angelic wards wrapped around it.

I’m drenched in sweat by the time I reach the steps of the porch, the effort of tearing down the spells dizzying even with siphoning power off Grace. I put my foot on the first step, and Grace yanks me backward, shoving me to the ground as a stream of red flame arcs through the air like a whip. It’s close enough that I can feel the fabric of my shirt smolder for an instant, and it would have ripped both of us apart.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Grace replies as we mount the steps tensely, waiting for another attack.

Nothing.

Looming in front of us are a dozen wards like what was hidden in Caila’s bedroom, along with more spells to blind Heaven to this house’s very presence. Grace offers me her hand, but I shake my head. “Lucifer’s an angel. That borrowed power won’t work on these.”

These sigils hang in the air, black and heavy, looking like tears through the sky. Slashing through these is going to be a lot more difficult that pulling down plaster and drywall in Caila’s bedroom. They’re all entangled in each other, so there’s no hope of taking them down one at a time.

I need to rip them down all at once, hopefully without killing myself in the process.

I plant my feet, staring up at the sigils, the oily black lines oozing through the air like a poison. I summon up every reserve of energy I have and a few that have long since run empty. I close my eyes and see Caila chained and broken, Michael bleeding out in the backseat of a sedan, and Lucifer clutching Grace as she loses herself in his darkest memories.

We’ve all been through enough.

I open my eyes, and the wards burn.