I run.

The Saint is only a few blocks away, but every step is like running in a dream. My limbs feel too slow, like gravity itself is trying to hold me back, but I shrug it off. When I turn the corner onto Canal Street, the mob surrounding the hotel is thicker than Mardi Gras as hundreds of damned souls watch Heaven and Hell battle it out inside a hotel lobby.

They part as I grow closer, clearing a path to the door. The power spirals through my veins, burning so much brighter than it had that very first night. The memory of those moments feels detached like watching a movie of another person's life, that terrified girl crawling the walls, begging for respite long gone.

This time though, the fear never comes. Lucifer’s pain echoes through the bond, and the piercing intensity of it would have broken me even a day ago. But buried in all the noise of his existence, hidden below the screaming crescendo of anger and defiance is a deep well of iron resolve.

He believes.

He believes that stopping Uriel and protecting me is worth it, even if it costs him his life. It may have taken thousands of years, but the Devil finally sees humanity as something worth saving.

But revelation or not, I’m going to let anyone else decide the destiny for one more Celestin woman. After all, I’m the Last, and I know with absolute certainty what is going to happen.

The princess is going to save herself in this one.

My fingers scarcely brush the handle, and the door springs open, shards of the already cracked glass clinking softly as they fall to the floor when the door strikes the back wall.

In an instant, I take in the destruction around me – the splintered mound of lacquered wood that was once the front desk, the rubble half the bar has been reduced to, Phenex face down on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

I crouch down next to him, feeling the defiant spark of his soul still clinging to life when I touch his shoulder.

A few feet away, Michael stands as a mute sentry to the scene. When I rise, he takes a step forward, his intent to stop me written plainly across his face.

“No,” I say, the finality of the word stopping Michael in his tracks.

Lucifer's head snaps up when he hears my voice, his dark eyes meeting mine from across the room, and in a flash, it all falls away. I see beyond the brief glimpse he gave me of his true face - the exquisite majesty of an Archangel, once the most beautiful of all the Archangels, scorched black and twisted with thousands of years of darkness and hatred and pain. Even hidden under all that, I see the glow of the Lightbringer. His favorite. The Morningstar. In the space of a second, I see what he was and what he’s becoming again, and it’s so beautiful.

Until his face contorts in a grimace of pain as Uriel slams his sword into his back, piercing his heart.

Lucifer drops to his knees, his hand uselessly clutching where the blade protrudes from his chest. Uriel pulls the sword from his body with a sick sucking sound that fades into silence.

I don’t notice the noise of Lucifer's knife clattering on the floor or Uriel's gloating voice rambling on about cleansing the world. The sirens and car alarms in the distance wither to nothing in my ears. It all fades into the sound of my heartbeat as I take those last few steps to Lucifer, my hands catching him as he pitches forward. I roll him onto his back, and his eyes meet mine. Bit by bit the life ebbs out of them, quicker and quicker with each breath. His fingers, slick with blood, twist through mine.

I bow my head, trying to remember how to breathe.

I thought we would win.

We were supposed to win.

“Choose.”

I lift my head to see Lucifer’s eyes slip closed, and the voice speaks again. “Choose.”

It sounds like my mother. My father. Erzulie. Talia. A dozen female voices I don’t recognize that can only be my ancestors.

And underneath them all is Lucifer.

Everyone who ever touched my life, all speaking over each other until they melt into one voice.

“Choose. Heaven or Hell. Light or dark. Good or evil. You must choose.”

I place my left hand over the exit wound in the center of Lucifer's chest, the blood welling from it staining my fingers a deep crimson. My right hand still clenches Lucifer's, his grip stronger than a dying man's should be. I don’t look away from his face when I speak, my words intended only for him. "I choose both. I choose neither."

With the last drop of strength in his body, Lucifer presses the blood-slick knife into my palm. My fingers close around it, and I whirl upward, ramming it into Uriel’s throat to the hilt, the Hell-forged knife going deep enough to sever his spinal cord. In the half-second before his existence is snuffed out, the angel’s eyes meet mine with disbelief. I lean close to his face and whisper, “I choose him.”

Blinding light fills the room as Uriel expires, the last flare of a dying star. A week ago, my mortal eyes would have been boiled in their sockets, but today I simply turn away, forgetting his cruel existence before his body hits the floor.

Lucifer struggles to his feet, his fingers shaking slightly as he presses them through the tear in his shirt to touch the unmarred skin. Behind me, I heard Michael's sharp intake of breath as Phenex sits up.

"Grace," he murmurs, words finally failing him. Lucifer's true face recedes into the background, hidden under the façade he shows the world. The look of awe on his features makes me wonder just what he sees now when he looks at me. He starts to reach out to me, his fingers spread, before clenching his hand and drawing his arm back. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady himself before looking past me to where the others stand.

Michael rounds the bar, broken glass crunching under his feet. He openly stares at both of us with a reverence that does nothing but amuse Lucifer.

“Would you like to take a picture, brother?” The snide comment breaks the tension, and even Michael chuckles. Resurrection certainly hasn’t changed that aspect of Lucifer.

“I should return to Heaven,” Michael says, looking at Uriel’s body with unexpected regret.

“Agreed,” Lucifer replies, the brief levity sobering. “Let his garrison know his fate, lest any of them have any ideas of following in his footsteps. It’s over.”

Michael nods, and an instant later he’s gone, taking Uriel’s body with him. If I was expecting a brotherly reconciliation, I had certainly been mistaken.

The scrape of wood on the tile floor as he rights a barstool brings our attention back to Phenex. Ducking behind the bar, he grabs the first unbroken bottle his fingers touch, popping the lid off and taking a deep drink of the clear liquor before slumping down on the barstool.

Grimacing at the taste he mutters, “Warm vodka, lovely” before taking another swig. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” He offers the bottle to Lucifer. Lucifer stares at him silently, far longer than is comfortable, and Phenex shrinks back into himself. Finally relenting, Lucifer grabs the bottle and drinks before passing it to me and flipping over two more chairs.

I wince at the flavorless burn but don’t comment, watching as Lucifer sits next to Phenex. “I know why you did it,” Lucifer says, resting his hands against the lacquered surface of the bar. “You don’t belong in Hell. You never did.” Lucifer reaches across the space between them and clasps Phenex’s shoulder for a moment. “Don’t return to Hell. The way will be barred to you.” Lucifer takes the bottle from me, taking another long drink before passing it to Phenex without looking.

“I can’t undo bringing you into this all those years ago. And promise or no, Michael can’t let you back into Heaven.” Lucifer twists on the barstool, leaning back and staring out the wall of windows at the crowd still milling outside. “But I think this world is big enough that you can find your place in it.” Lucifer glances over at me, a small smile crossing his lips. “Maybe we both can.”

The Devil, a fallen angel, and. . . whatever the Hell I am sit in a destroyed bar as evening bleeds into night. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

The whole city wakes up from its daze. The wailing sirens grow louder as police and ambulances tear down the streets, the barely controlled chaos that stands for order in New Orleans finally reasserting itself.

The trapped souls were cast down to Hell at the moment of Uriel’s death, but the sudden freedom won’t heal all the scars. Phenex hangs a few steps behind us, the dried blood across this throat doing little to conceal the ragged scar there. Somehow I pulled him back from death, but he’ll wear the scars from Uriel’s weapons for the rest of his existence.

Despite the size of the crowd, silence falls across the street again. The bewildered citizens wander down the street, searching for their cars or their homes, picking at the blank spaces of time inside their heads like a wound. So many of them are already Hellbound because of Uriel's interference.

But then I see Lucifer, gazing up at the stars from the middle of the street like he’s seeing them for the first time.

It never is too late for a second chance.

Once I would have hesitated on the sidelines, waiting and wishing for things to be different. For so many years, life just happened to me, but as I watch Lucifer look at me, beckoning me to his side with the wicked grin I know so well, I realize that I earned this.

I spent seven years locked in guilt for surviving if I allowed myself to feel anything at all. I forged our future in trials and blood.

Erzulie was right when she said, “You both might just save each other.”

My name is Grace Celestin, and I don't quite know what I am anymore. As I take Lucifer's hand I think, that makes two of us.

I dreamed of wings for so long.

Even after everything I’ve seen and done in the last few days, I can’t help gasping when I see them. The brief glimpses in the past can’t compare.

From tip to tip they span a dozen feet, the flight feathers as long as my arm. Under the harsh fluorescence of the streetlights, they glow smoky grey, the color of smooth worn stone, of ashes.

Not black. Not anymore.

“Can I?” I leave the question dangling in the air, sensing what I’m asking for is an intimacy that goes far beyond anything we’ve shared. Lucifer inclines his head forward, just the barest hint of movement.

Around us, the streets have emptied, the formerly possessed having dragged themselves away from The Saint at record speeds. Michael is long gone, and Phenex has slipped away as well to lick his wounds and consider his future.

Lucifer stands stock still, the light breeze ruffling his feathers. He looks stunned, as though he hasn’t quite finished processing what has happened.

I take the last few steps to reach him. Up close, the wings are startlingly beautiful, and I feel the first inkling of understanding Heaven. Tentatively I run my fingers through the feathers, marveling at the cloud-softness of the shorter feathers, feeling the powerful muscle and bone beneath them.

The noise that escapes his throat is almost a purr as he leans back into my touch. Lucifer's eyes fall shut, and his face relaxes into a look of pure contentment. Some tiny part of me had wondered if the bond between us was something temporary that would dissipate into nothing once the battles were fought and won.

Those thoughts crumble to dust as his wings wrap around me, cocooning me in warm feathers that smell charged, like the air before a lightning strike. Already off balance when he crushes his mouth to mine, I wrap my arms around his neck. I feel the pressure of his wings against my back, holding me up, and I know he’ll never allow me to fall.

His mouth opens under mine, and I taste the tang of blood from his split lip, long since healed. One of his hands creeps across my waist before tucking under my knees and lifting me up.

And suddenly we’re airborne.

Lucifer's wings beat quietly, the flight feathers cutting through the air and carrying us higher and higher. Below us, the city rushes by, a blur of lights. The air grows thin and cool, dizzying and exhilarating all at once. I bury my face in his shirt, still stiff with dried blood, the rip in the fabric reminding me of how close I came to losing him.

I healed him. I think we healed each other.

After so many years lost and alone, I feel sure for the first time. What I am now, what the future holds, those soul-tearing consequences of killing an angel - I have more questions than answers. Until I look at him and I know with the certainty of breathing that the choices I made were the right ones.

Soaring above the city in the Devil's arms, I finally know where I belong.