The house falls into abrupt silence as the power cuts off.

With the hum of the air conditioner hushed, my own heartbeat rushes to fill the auditory void, pounding in my ears. The faintest hint of smoke tickles my nose, sharp and bracing over the twin scents of flowers and decay. The russet glow of the setting sun filters into the room through the large picture window overlooking the backyard, the orange light carving Brielle into silhouette where she stands, her unflinching hand holding a knife to Caila’s throat.

I hate being helpless.

With fists or magic, I know I could best Brielle. She’s amassed an incredible amount of power in the last few centuries, hoarding it like a dragon, not caring where it came from or what the cost.

But her powers are borrowed and bought or stolen outright. She can fill her house with walking corpses and siphon off the magical energy of every cemetery in the city, but it will only last for so long.

The dead can’t sustain her forever, and she knows it. That’s why we’re all here.

Brielle presses the blade deeper into Caila’s jugular, and a thin stream of blood drips from the cut, pooling in the hollow of her throat. It’s not a killing wound by any means, but it’s enough to remind me of how quickly that cut could deepen. Brielle moves the knife aside and draws her fingers over the wound, and I see the faint golden glow of her angelic essence pulse for a moment before fading as Brielle steals a bit more from her.

Brielle’s eyes slip shut for an instant before she peels them open, her blissed out gaze focusing right back on me, daring me to take a step closer. “This one has so much guilt.” My eyes dart back and forth from Caila’s stricken face to Brielle.

I want to tell myself that Brielle is crazy, that the loss of Roux and the solitude snapped her mind and drove her to this. I want to blame the spells, the demons she trafficked with, whatever injuries she sustained in that blaze, but that would all be too easy.

I see nothing but the cold calculation of complete sanity in her face. Brielle knows exactly what she’s doing, and that makes her words far more terrifying than the pitiable ramblings of the insane.

“I didn’t know their kind even understood the word guilt, but I learned a few things in Hell myself.” A full-bodied shiver rips through Caila at the word. Behind me, I feel Grace’s hand brush the bare skin of my wrist, the growing shadows in the room concealing the contact, and the power that floods me at that brief touch is almost dizzying.

The devil’s on his way, and he is pissed.

“She whispered the names off like a list to herself each night. There are dozens and dozens, but a few show up the most. Milly. Serafine. Marianne. Will. Uriel. Grace.” Grace’s head snaps up at the sound of her name, and Brielle notices. “Oh yes, this pathetic creature is your self-appointed guardian angel. Piss poor job she did though. She failed your grandmother and your mother so completely that they both ended up dead. She’s even the reason your father grew up an orphan. Couldn’t even save poor, weak little Milly from a human.”

Scorn drips from Brielle’s voice and the knife presses harder into Caila’s skin as her mounting anger makes her grow careless. “That’s what angels do, Grace. They ruin everything they touch.”

“Roux was half angel,” I counter, trying desperately to get her to shift the knife just enough so that I can make my move.

Brielle’s lips curl back in a sneer at that, but her reply is cut off by the crack of wood splintering from downstairs and the sudden roar of fire. Lucifer and Michael saunter into the room a moment later, the flames consuming Brielle’s palace trailing behind them.

As he strides into the room Lucifer looks every inch the devil we were all warned about. His impeccable suit remains untouched by the smoke and soot, and I know him well enough that he’s preening just a bit at the tremor of fear that Brielle can’t quite hide before she steadies herself. Lucifer draws out every bit of shock and awe he can muster, the embers of Hell itself glowing in his eyes. Michael is a step behind him, looking every bit God’s fiercest warrior with a sword in each hand.

For all the power Caila and Phenex can wield, there’s no comparison to the might of an Archangel, let alone two.

Lucifer isn’t one to stand in stalemate for long, and when he takes a step closer to Brielle she slashes her wrist across Caila’s throat.

Or tries to.

We all forgot Phenex, even Brielle. Broken and beaten, huddled in the corner as far away from his tormentor as he could get, Phenex watched and waited for his chance.

With her attention focused on Lucifer and the growing roar of the fire to drown out the clink of chains Phenex forces himself to his feet and grabs a fistful of Brielle’s dark hair, yanking her backward.

The knife clatters to the floor as Caila pitches forward. Grace and I rush to her but it’s Lucifer who catches the weakened angel before she hits the ground, hissing as the enspelled chains brush his hands.

Grace slips her fingers under the collar, searching for a clasp and finding only a keyhole in the front of the heavy iron.

“There’s a key,” Caila chokes out. “It’s around her neck.”

“Of course it is,” I grumble, standing up and rolling my shoulders.

Now that her hostage is out of reach, I’m ending this.

I spare a glance at Michael, his weapons at the ready, and consider telling him that this is my fight.

Screw that.

Brielle went it alone, and I see what it turned her into.

If I hadn’t met Caila and found a reason for my endless existence, I might have one day done the same.

We’re all so much stronger together.

Brielle twists in Phenex’s grip, fighting to throw him off, and his rusty reflexes aren’t fast enough to avoid the conjured flame in her hand. She shoves her burning palm against his cheek, and the smell of scorched flesh adds to the increasing cloud of smoke billowing into the room.

Phenex doesn’t even seem to feel it. The tattered remnants of his suit flutter around him like dirty bandages as he darts out of reach. His broken wing drags behind him, but still he circles Brielle, his teeth bared. He looks savage, like the years in Hell at her mercy stripped away the guise of humanity Phenex normally wears as well as those pale suits.

Brielle reaches out both her arms and clenches her hands into tight fists. Already weakened from constant abuse, Phenex goes down first, clawing at his chest in agony. I manage to draw in one more breath before it strikes me.

I feel her hand gripping my heart, feel every delicate finger bone pressing into aortas and arteries, squeezing tighter. My arms drop to my side, feeling more like lead than flesh and blood and bone, and black spots march across my vision like insects.

I fight to stay conscious as she cuts off my arterial blood, the grip growing stronger, and I waver on my feet.

And suddenly I’m not choking on my own blood in a burning room with the smell of scorched carpet and smoldering wallpaper around me.

I’m on the hillside, my hillside, back in Sidon, pebbles and dust under my bare feet as I stare out at the ships and wish. I’m so young, so alone and afraid but somewhere between one step and the next I slip into the skin I wear now. I watch masons carve my villa from the rocks. Before my eyes, dust and stones become something beautiful and mine.

I look over the edge, staring down at the deep azure of the water, and I feel him against my back. Michael’s heart beats with mine, and there’s love and tears wrapped up in every pulse. I turn to look at him and his eyes grow darker, blue melting into black, into Lucifer’s hate-filled gaze. The look’s so familiar to me. I see it in every reflective surface I pass – hurt, betrayal, loss.

But not evil. Not cruelty for its own sake. That’s why I’ve never feared him. Michael severed my heart and snapped Lucifer’s wings, and still we both ached to forgive him in the deepest pits of our souls.

The balmy heat of Sidon fades as cold creeps in, and I see flashes of white and red, of Brielle and Roux, of rabbit fur cloaks and red hair whipping in the wind as the carriage cuts through the snow, the horses foaming as Roux pushes them harder as though he can outrun his fate.

Brielle is by his side like a jewel – haughty and beautiful and so beloved by both of us. I’ve learned many times over that love can so easily be twisted into a weapon, and Brielle’s smile is a knife.

Somewhere buried under the flashes of tangled memories I hear Michael’s voice screaming my name. The sharp pain as my knees hit the floor snaps me back to awareness for an instant.

“Now you’ll know how I felt!” Brielle shrieks at Michael, and I understand it all.

Roux wasn’t evil. Reckless and impulsive to the point of being dangerous, his powers were too much for a mere human to be trusted with. Maybe someone in Heaven saw what he would become if they didn’t intervene, or maybe they simply couldn’t abide anyone challenging their eternal order.

But he was never evil.

The darkness is closing in again, and I see blood on the snow. I drop to my hands, feeling the heat from the flames creeping into the room around me and with the last wisps of breath in my lungs I wheeze, “Show me.”

The glamour wrapped around Brielle wavers for just an instant, our combined magics butting heads, and I see a flash of burned hair and wizened skin and sunken eyes before Brielle wrests control back.

It’s enough.

I blink and when my eyes open again a slender blade protrudes from between Brielle’s ribs, silver coated in red. Michael wrenches the blade out of her back and she falls.

Suddenly, I can breathe again. I gasp as I draw air back into my lungs, my bruised heart pumping oxygen through my blood again. I hear Phenex coughing a few feet away, the collar still preventing him from healing properly.

Michael’s arms are around me, easing me to my feet. His hand pushes my hair away from my clammy face, and the worry in his voice finally cuts through the ringing in my ears.

“-Elissa, it’s over. Please, look at me.” I tear my eyes away from Brielle’s crumpled body to look at Michael, and his face breaks into a smile so filled with relief that I can’t help returning it.

“Hey,” I murmur, brushing a streak of soot off his cheek. I take a deep breath and immediately regret it as the smoky air brings on a bout of coughing. I stagger away from Michael to where Brielle lays, her blood painting the soft green and gold of the rug a deep burgundy.

The faint gold of a chain half hidden by her hair catches my eye, and I crouch down beside her, plucking the blackened key from where it rests under her shirt. The slender chain snaps easily and the movement pulls Brielle back from the brink of death, her eyes sliding open to stare up at me.

Brielle pulls her lips back, the feral smile baring blood-stained teeth. “You’re too late,” she whispers. “It’s already begun.” She slumps back to the ground like a broken doll, her eyes falling shut as I stand up.

I move on autopilot, pressing the key numbly into Grace’s hand, watching as her deft fingers unlock the collars from Caila and Phenex. Caila kicks the chains away the instant she’s free while Phenex still looks shell-shocked, at though he can’t quite believe the weight of the collar is finally gone.

He tries to take a step and his legs nearly give out under him, but Grace is there, offering him a shoulder to lean on. Phenex lifts his hand up, tracing his fingers over the ugly scar marring the skin of his throat before his arm drops limply to his side.

The flames lick up the walls around us, and the doorway is a complete inferno. There’s nowhere to go but out the window.

Lucifer grabs a spindly-legged chair tucked against a white-lacquered writing desk and heaves it through the window, shattering the glass. He grasps Caila’s shoulder, pulling her out of the daze she seems still caught in. “Are you strong enough to fly?” he demands. Caila nods, spreading her wings, the tawny gold of her feathers looking shockingly whole compared to the mess of Phenex’s.

Lucifer peers over her shoulder at where Grace supports a barely mobile Phenex as he stands frozen, staring blankly into the blaze. “I need you to take Grace,” Lucifer says, his voice every bit the commanding general. “He can’t fly. I’m not even sure if he can walk.”

A deafening crack cuts through the air as half the staircase collapses, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the rest of the house won’t be far behind as the blaze eats through floorboards and support beams. The faint noise of sirens in the distance grows louder as the neighbors finally take notice of the smoke pouring from the windows.

Michael herds me closer to the window as Caila and Grace make their escape. Lucifer gathers Phenex into his arms with a surprising amount of gentleness before taking off himself, and I know we’ve just added a sixth member to our little band of misfits.

An instant later we’re all airborne, the last streaks of sunset hidden as the burning house stands out like a torch against the evening sky. As Michael’s wings take us home, the mansion glows like a second sun behind us, but all I see is blood on the snow.

This isn’t over.