Awakening is like clawing through the surface of water blackened with an oil slick. The enveloping darkness calls me back, the sweet thrall of my memories beckoning me to bury myself in their depths, and I want so badly to give in.

Instead, I choke on the brackish water and come out the other side wheezing for air. I sit up, the sweaty blankets falling away as a wave of dizziness momentarily whites out my vision. The plastic of a bandage crinkles as I roll my shoulder. I rip it off, staring down at the small red circle next to my heart that nearly killed me.

That would have killed me if Elissa hadn’t been there.

Elissa. . . my memories of the last few hours are hazy at best, but I know I didn’t imagine her fingertips on my brow and her low voice alternately begging me not to die and cursing me for existing in the first place.

The familiar pull of Heaven calling me back intensifies. Once, I would have found it comforting, that sound in the back of my mind reminding me of home, the collective voices of my brothers and sisters coalescing into a hum that rises higher and higher until I obey.

If I concentrate on a single voice the words become clear. “Michael, you are summoned.” Over and over again, repeated in a thousand voices.

In all my years of life, I’ve never ignored a summons. Even in the midst of battle, if I’ve been called back, I obeyed instantly. Even bloodied and battered after the fight with Lucifer, I spread my damaged wings and made my way home as quickly as my injured body was able.

The summons jolts me to awareness as I lay dozing in Elissa’s bed, tangled in soft linens. Elissa sleeps beside me, the bare expanse of her back tempting me to stay.

Would it be so terrible if I did? Would the world notice?

I ignore the call, pulling the soft sheets over us both and forgetting myself in the taste of her skin.

It works for a day.

Heaven will not be ignored, and the call grows louder, the pitch increasing, building upon itself, layer after layer of sound rising in volume until it drowns out my thoughts, until my vision blurs as my brain shudders under the endless, unceasing din.

I slip away as Elissa rests, telling myself that I’ll return before she wakes. There’s no need to worry her over nothing. Metatron is flexing his wings as always, taking his usual petty joy in reminding me that while I might be God’s fists, only he is God’s voice.

The shrieking tone of the summons softens the closer my wings take me to Heaven, the piercing timbre sliding back into the calming voices of my brothers and sisters. The moment I pass through the gates I wonder for the briefest moment why I would ever want to leave again.

But a beautiful cage is still a cage.

Metatron waits, impatience painted across his blandly serene countenance. While the Archangels and lower angels look as varied and unique as the humans on the Earth, Metatron has always been a blank slate, a doughy face with undefined features always watching. He follows my movements with those watery blue eyes, his face so unremarkable that alone makes it unique.

Before Father fell silent to all but him, Metatron was merely the scribe. A recording device to make certain the words were never lost. But he was not an Archangel. We stood apart, first in Father’s eyes until Lucifer who wore his pride like a mantle shattered that.

As we five splintered, Metatron rose. And behind that flat, empty stare, I know he remembers how we once kept him at a distance.

Metatron waits for me far from the heavy silence of the central chamber. He rarely leaves it anymore. The throne room. It has never been called by another name, though each year that passes removes it further from the space when my Father sat beside us. It feels like a tomb now, the sheer walls of marble polished to a silver sheen rising far above our heads until they disappear into the skies. The throne sits empty, the unadorned stone smooth as water and just as cold.

And there Metatron waits in this sterile chamber, day after day, year after year, an empty vessel awaiting His voice.

Except for today. Today Metatron stands just inside the gates, a placid smile across his lips that looks jarringly out of place on him.

“Michael,” he says, dipping his head in greeting. “You are late. That is unlike you.”

I refuse to rise to the bait, remembering that same smile the day I was ordered to raise my blade against Lucifer. “Apologies, brother,” I reply. “I was detained.”

“I’m aware of just what has detained you, Michael.”

I hear the threat in his voice and every part of me goes tense and wary. Metatron notices.

Of course he does. With centuries of nothing to do but watch us all, he misses nothing.

“Walk with me, Michael.” I follow at his heels, wondering not for the first time why of all of us Metatron was the last one my Father chose to speak to. Metatron walks seemingly without aim, and I seethe in the silence. He is nothing if not patient though, and soon I find myself desperately awaiting his oily voice, even if it’s to give me another order.

He is God’s voice, after all, while I’m nothing but God’s blunt instrument.

“She’s quite lovely, Michael. For a human.” He breaks the silence without warning, and I stop abruptly. The gates to the Garden loom ahead, though Uriel is absent from his post, no doubt wandering through the depths, losing a bit more of himself among the flowers each day.

“She’s of no consequence,” I reply quickly. “Merely a diversion.”

“A diversion,” Metatron echoes. “A diversion that leads you to ignore your orders?” The deceptively light tone of his voice drops away and his next words are flinty, “You forget your place, Archangel.”

I draw myself up to my full height, head and shoulders above Metatron’s diminutive form. It is not arrogance speaking when I say I know I’m much more formidable than he. Metatron has never raised a sword in the celestial battles, never held the life of another angel in his hand, never been anything but a jealous mouthpiece for one greater than himself.

And he laughs.

There are none on Earth and few in Heaven or Hell that would dare challenge me. Metatron knows I could crush him before he could stop me, but still he laughs.

He laughs because he knows my hands are tied. Lucifer’s insurrection is still too fresh, too raw. An attack on him would be seen as an attack on Heaven itself, and I would be unaided. No one would side with me against the throne.

And Metatron knows it.

I back down, hating him just a bit more for the self-satisfied smirk that grows on his lips.

“My orders,” I grind out, “were to discover what the witch’s motives are, and if she poses a danger to Heaven. I’ve done that.”

“You certainly have.” My eyes flash, and I clench my jaw tighter in an effort to keep silent. “Always such a hothead, Michael,” he drawls, walking closer to the border of the Garden. He narrows his eyes at the unattended gate. “You aren’t the only Archangel neglecting his duties as of late. Seems as though Lucifer is the only one to actually follow through on his words.”

Metatron strides through the gate, leaving me gaping at his back. Lucifer’s name is barely spoken in Heaven, and when he is mentioned it’s in low, hushed voices as though invoking his name will bring the devil’s wrath down upon any angel unwary enough to use it. It certainly isn’t thrown around casually as an example of angelic efficiency.

I enter the Garden, expecting to see Metatron hovering just inside the gates but instead he’s ambling down one of the many paths to pause in front of a patch of gladiolus, their spiky red blooms pointed to the sky. He plucks one from the soil, turning the large flower over in his hand before speaking.

“The humans have taken to calling this one the sword lily,” he says, tugging one crimson petal free from the stem. “I rather like it.” He squeezes the petal between his thumb and forefinger, the delicate blossom bruising under his touch. “It is so breakable though.” He tosses the ruined stem down onto the soil. “All of our Father’s creations are so breakable.”

Metatron turns to me, all traces of subtlety gone. “I could order you to kill her, you know,” he states, his voice flat as though he was just discussing another flower. “What would you do then?” He takes a step closer, his eyes never leaving mine as he appraises my reaction. “Would you fall? Sever your wings for the love of one of them?”

“Are these your words or Father’s?” I snap, tiring of Metatron’s mind games.

He ignores my question as he continues. “She has already made herself an enemy of Heaven by tempting an Archangel to fall.”

He’s right. However Metatron might be twisting Heaven’s laws to suit his own whims, I know how Elissa will be seen by my brothers and sisters.

As an enemy, a creature of darkness and evil, bending the will of the mighty Michael to her base, human desires. Metatron may be unwilling to sully his own hands with her blood, but dozens would. Thrones and Dominions eager to curry favor amongst those that outrank them, Powers and Principalities seeing it as their duty to free me from her thrall.

Metatron need only say the word.

I nod my head stiffly as understanding grows in me. Metatron rests his hand on my shoulder, murmuring words of approval like perfumed poison in my ear. “I knew you were more than just an executioner, Michael,” he says, his fingers tightening, digging into muscle and bone. “There will be talk, of course, but all this unpleasantness will be forgotten soon enough.”

I numbly allow myself to be steered along the path, the plants and flowers nothing but a bright blur in my peripheral vision. Metatron stops, and I nearly trip over him, my body on autopilot as my mind runs in circles, trying to think of an escape from the fate I see looming before me.

“You’ve made the right choice, Michael. For once.”

“Leave me.” My voice sounds choked to my own ears, the words a plea rather than the order I wish them to be.

For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, Metatron holds his tongue. I barely notice as he leaves, his absence failing to offer the solace I hoped for.

It’s over. That much is sure.

The thick perfume of the Garden turns oppressive, the cloying nectar of a thousand blooms blocking my throat. I rush along the path and burst through the gates and take to the skies.

I fly at breakneck speed, trying to outpace the truth or at least find a place to suffer in silence.

Heaven has its own borders, and I find my way there, alighting on the edge of a cliff, the sheer precipice so achingly familiar, though instead of the glinting blue of the ocean below there is only a featureless black void.

I’m not surprised my wings took me here.

The rocks bear the scars of our blades, the pale stone still stained with blood and broken feathers, his and my own. Heaven has no rain to wash it away, no wind to blow the evidence into the void that leads to Hell.

It’s here where I fought Lucifer, on these rocks where we beat each other bloody, shattering teeth and bones, spraying the stones with each other’s blood like a gruesome fountain. I stand at the edge, staring down into nothingness at the place I snapped my brother’s wings and pushed him over the edge.

For what?

I could fall. Sever my own wings and my connection to Heaven and live as a human, hidden away in her villa at the edge of the world. I see Elissa, see the joy on her face even as time passes and streaks of silver cut through her dark hair. I see myself laying down my sword, lines growing on my face like dried riverbeds, my back growing stooped and weak. I see the years piling up like bricks, time truly meaning something when it’s no longer infinite.

It’s a beautiful dream.

Were I just another angel, it might be possible. I would become a cautionary tale passed through the garrison. “Be careful among the humans. Don’t allow yourself to grow too close, too attached, or you might end up like him.” They would stop speaking my name, as though my choice to fall was some disease they could contract.

But I’m not just another angel. I’m Michael, and my hands have never been my own. I was a fool to think otherwise.

I stare out at the void, standing in the very spot Lucifer stood awaiting me before that final battle.

And I understand.

“I’m sorry, brother,” I whisper to the empty air.

She is in her study when I return. One of the trade ships arrived in Sidon three days ago, laden with gold and ivory from the eastern routes, and her head has been buried in ledgers and scrolls since then.

For the first time, I wish that I could keep myself cloaked from her. I want just a few moments to watch her before I have to do this.

“Michael!”

Elissa springs from her seat, figures and records forgotten, and she’s in my arms. Her lips are on mine, her mouth parting as her hands sweep across my back. She smells of incense and fire, of magic and life, and I want so much to forget the last day, to bundle her onto one of her ships and take her across the world.

I allow myself that momentary dream of losing ourselves in Egypt or Rome and letting the crowds swallow us up. But there’s no hiding from Heaven. Not for me, and not for her as long as she’s by my side.

Elissa pulls back, sensing the change in me. She cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing as she takes me in.

She would want to fight. Elissa has never given up easily. She carved a life for herself from bare stone and the strength of her will, harnessing powers in a few short years that normally take a lifetime to master.

She will fight back, and she will lose.

They will make an example of her, just a broken thing to be held up as an effigy against defying the will of Heaven. I look at her, at the warmth of her soul glowing bright as the midday sun when she looks at me, and I know this is my punishment.

I never questioned the decree from Father that ordered me to be my brother’s executioner. It didn’t matter that my orders were to stop just before the killing blow, the brother I loved still died that day.

If this was a test, I failed.

I deserve her hatred.

“I’ve been called back,” I say. My voice sounds as though it’s coming from miles away.

“Called back?” she repeats, her brow furrowing. “But you’re not going, are you?” I stay silent, biting the inside of my cheek raw as I fight to keep my face neutral. “Michael,” she says again, her voice growing louder, sharper. “Michael, you’re not going back?”

She closes her mouth as the realization washes over her, and it’s as though the light in her eyes, that glorious, joyous brightness that surrounds her is snuffed out in an instant. Despite myself, I take a step closer to her and she immediately recoils.

“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing my words ring hollow. “I have my duties to consider.”

She laughs, and it sounds nothing like the elation as we flew through the skies. “Your duties. Was this something you were ordered to do?” Her voice breaks, but her eyes are dry. “Was I just a duty?”

“Never.” The word slips out of me before I can stop it, and I’m so close to telling her that it was all a mistake, but I see Metatron’s smirking face and hear the crack of the bones in Lucifer’s wings.

God’s Hands.

God’s Broken, Bloody Fists.

God’s Poison.

“I enjoyed our time together, but this place is not my home. It never was.” I steel myself, drawing on the cold, dead part of me that allowed me to drive a sword into my brother’s flesh and say the words I know will end us. “My duty to Heaven is something you can never understand.”

Something flickers in her eyes for the barest moment. The same shocked betrayal Lucifer wore in that instant before I pushed him into the Pit. Then her pale eyes turn cold as she draws her anger around her like a shroud.

“Get out.” Her voice is clipped, as she stands still in the center of the room. She’s still close enough to touch, and she lifts her chin, staring defiantly at me, unwilling to cede even a single step to me in her own home.

“Leave,” she says, her voice never wavering.

And I do.