Meera felt him as soon as his step breached the wards. “He’s here.”

“Where?” Ata asked.

She frowned when she realized where the massive movement of power was coming from. “He’s coming from the river. He’s coming right through the front gate.”

“Arrogant,” Sari said.

“Yes.” Ata’s paint was washed away. She had returned to the hardened warrior they met in the swamps. The two Dene Ghal stood on either side of her, their jovial expressions absent as they watched the Wolf strap twin silver blades to her waist and pick up a silver-tipped spear. “We go.”

I’m not ready yet!

Sari glanced at Meera as if reading her thoughts. “Come, sister. Go with me.”

Their mates were already at the house, assisting Patiala and waiting for word of the Fallen.

“Send a runner,” Sari said to the scribe by the door. “Bozidar approaches the house.”

As soon as Meera reached the door of the tent she smelled it. “Smoke?”

“The cane fields are on fire,” Ata said. “That’s not our concern. Begin the spell as we walk. It takes time to build.”

Ata sang with them as Sari and Meera walked hand in hand. The Dene Ghal siblings guarded their steps. Meera had heard the woman griping at her brother the night before, wishing her mate had come with her to fight instead of watching their young child.

Meera felt no such envy. She wished someone else had the burden of this magic because the spell, while she knew it would be effective, was also horrible.

They would have to wait until their mates were in agony, near death, before they unleashed its true power. Anything less than that meant the spell was unlikely to work.

* * *

Meera and Sari invoked various names of the Creator-Who-Was as they walked across the warded ground of Havre Hélène.

It was a binding spell, whispered over and over, the simple brilliance of it centered on building and focusing empathy, a human trait unknown to the Fallen. For as Vasu had said, the Fallen were created to be servants of the Creator-Who-Was. They were not relational. They were created with no need for empathy. For those who followed the will of their maker, it was their highest and most primal need.

But empathy was human. Empathy was vulnerability. Empathy required something angels were not capable of.

Empathy, in the end, could destroy them.

The spell repeated and built, drawing on the mating magic of the Irina, with the singer focused entirely on her mate who would be provoking the rage and violence of the angel he was battling. Meera and Sari had to stay connected to their mates, understand and measure the pain, then release at the very moment it was strongest in order to fling the agony back to the angel. The spell would bind the violence and rage inflicted by the angel into its own soul, creating a self-repeating magic that would eat the monster from within.

She could already see Sari’s face tense with pain. Damien was being pummeled by something, but her voice never wavered.

Meera, on the other hand, felt nothing.

Rhys, what are you doing?

* * *

He ambled through centuries-old wards, a crooked old man who straightened as he grew closer. The swagger became pronounced halfway down the oak alley. His shoulders drew back. His chin jutted out at a petulant angle.

“The old man.” Rhys had known something was off about that human. The fact that not a single one of them had picked up any hint of magic from Bozidar’s disguise warned him that this evil could not be underestimated.

Damien stood next to Rhys, watching the man approach. “You know,” Damien mused, “they choose their human form.”

Rhys frowned. “And?”

“And this angel, somehow, decided that this form is attractive,” Damien muttered. “Is that a fake tan? I wonder if his teeth are capped like those politicians you see on the television. He looks like a politician.”

Rhys couldn’t contain his smirk. It was a stark moment of levity in an otherwise tense situation. “I wonder if any of the Fallen have become politicians.”

“It would not be a shocking revelation.”

The angel approached, eyeing the gathering of Tomir warriors, Irin scribes, and singers. Every one of them was frozen, ready and waiting for the signal. Bozidar had grown from an average human height to somewhere around eight feet tall. His human form slowly burned away. Clothing dissolved, revealing flesh marked by raised talesm that radiated in the morning light. He was at once monstrous and beautiful in his heavenly visage.

He eyed the gathered warriors with disdain.

Rhys could still hear the cries and screams coming from the cane fields. Could feel the heady scent of magic flowing in the air as gold dust scattered in the breeze. Acrid smoke filled his nostrils.

But he, like all the warriors who lined the oak alley, was silent.

“Mongrel bitches,” Bozidar muttered as he passed a group of singers.

An arrow flew through the shadows, striking Bozidar directly in the throat. The angel took a single step back, glanced down, and roared.

Damien muttered, “And here we go.”

Arrows and spears flew through the air, bouncing off the angel and occasionally piercing his skin. He batted them away, pulled them out. They did nothing to him, nor did the warriors aiming them think they would. The goal was to kill time and allow Meera and Sari’s magic to build. The goal was to antagonize him until he lost his temper and loosed his true rage on his tormenters.

Which was why Rhys and Damien stood directly in the angel’s line of sight.

Damien lifted a shotgun and aimed it at the angel’s face. He shot once. Twice. Bozidar turned from batting away a spear to snarl at Damien.

“Sorry, Bozo! Was trying to improve your face,” Damien called.

Rhys aimed to be even more annoying. He grabbed a red laser pointer from his pocket and shone it directly in Bozidar’s eyes.

“A laser pointer?” Damien reloaded his shotgun.

“Have you ever tried giving a presentation with someone using these? I hate them. Hopefully he will too.”

The spears, arrows, and gunshots all came from the trees or from the front porch of the main house. Rhys and Damien were the only scribes in the path of the angel. Everyone else was attacking from the sides.

Bozidar narrowed his eyes on Rhys.

“Can I have the gun?” Rhys asked. “This laser pointer might have been a bad idea.”

“Pissing him off is the idea.”

Bozidar reached down and picked up a giant concrete urn, growling before he hurled it at Rhys’s head.

He dived to the side and rolled. “Well, it’s working!”

“Somasikara.” Bozidar’s voice rumbled through the trees. “Where is she?”

“You’re really not her type,” Rhys shouted. “She generally prefers the nonmonstrous. Also, men with beards.”

“She’s picky that way,” Damien shouted. “Quite the diva.”

“Did you come for the Wolf?” Rhys shouted. “I win the bet, Damien. She said he’d be too afraid to come.”

“Well, she did kill Nalu.” Damien rolled closer to Bozidar and aimed up at the Fallen, shooting the monster in the groin. “And Bozidar is nothing to Nalu.”

Bozidar didn’t even pause. He reached down and grabbed Damien by the foot. He flipped the scribe over his head and tossed him to the ground, where Damien landed with a hard thud. “I do not fight dogs. Give me the somasikara, and she will come to no harm. I will keep her as my mongrel pet.”

Red-hot rage rose in Rhys, along with a burning desire to kill the angel. Hate flooded through him, souring his mouth.

You cannot.

Ata had warned them. The key to fighting an angel was mental control, not physical. They could never be a match for an archangel. Their only hope was turning his own magic against him.

Bozidar started a low, guttural chant. The magic hit Rhys like a punch to the belly and he doubled over.

Where is she? he whispered in Rhys’s mind. Give her to me, and I will leave you. Give me the memory keeper, and I will leave you in peace.

Rhys threw up. The vomit splashed into a flower bed and turned black, eating at the verdant green plants that had been blooming only minutes before and spreading toward the singer closest to him.

Rhys’s eyes went wide. What was this? What had the angel put in him?

“It’s not real!” Damien yelled.

All around him, singers and scribes were vomiting and crying. Staring at the ground or at their brothers and sisters in horror. The constant assault had stopped and Rhys heard crying in the background.

“He’s making you see things,” Damien yelled again over the sound of Bozidar’s magic. “Wake up!”

Rhys clamped down on the feeling of terror and pushed it to the edges of his mind. He looked down. The vomit was only vomit. The plants weren’t eaten away. The oily black stain was gone.

Rhys felt Meera reaching out, felt her touch the edge of his magic, searching for him. He resisted the connection. What if she felt the angel’s influence in her mind? Everything would fall apart. If she could feel the angel, would the angel feel her?

“Bozidar!” A commanding shout cut through the air. “What dog enters the territory of the Wolf? I am the killer of Nalu, greatest of the archangels.” Ata walked through smoke, the glowing fire of the fields at her back. “Have you come to beg for his scraps?”

The angel stopped chanting and lunged toward Ata. The warrior drew her sword, flipped head over heels, and launched herself at Bozidar’s head.

Rhys searched the smoke, but he saw no sign of Meera. Where was she? Ata’s job was to guard the singers as they built the spell. Only she knew when it would be ready. Only she knew what needed to happen. Now the scarred warrior was flinging herself into battle against an archangel of unspeakable power, and she had no mate to guard her back.

Heaven above. Rhys remembered too late. “She wants to die.”

* * *

Meera closed her eyes, ignoring the chaos outside the house, focusing only on the building magic in her breast. She could feel it growing like a black hole inside her. Dark magic. Blood magic. It drilled into her soul like a sickness. Every dreadful thought, every antagonism, every negative energy built and built, rolling over and over like an avalanche thundering down a mountainside.

“When?” Patiala said. “We’re holding him off and shielding her presence, but we can’t wait forever.”

Ata’s right hand, the Koconah Citlal woman, knelt between Sari and Meera, her face and arms covered in Grigori blood. “I was there when Nalu died and Akune was slain. They will know when it is time.”

“Are you sure?”

The woman didn’t say another word, and Patiala pressed her mouth shut and nodded.

“I can feel him,” Sari said. “He’s angry.”

“Damien?”

“Bozidar.” Her eyes were closed and she was in pain. “He’s attacking their minds, creating horrors.”

* * *

The little ones wailed at his feet, their eyes gone, nothing left but bloody sockets they covered with tiny, soft hands. “Tatá, tatá!” they sobbed. “Why did you leave us?”

The fear ripped through Damien’s chest. Lies. All lies. But the little hands reached for his ankles and he could feel them, feel their terror and pain. He saw the fingers missing. The stumps where feet had been. They crawled in the mud, and the ground beneath them was pooled in blood.

“Tatá, why did you leave?”

Damien nearly lost himself to rage. The only thing holding him back was the tug of Sari’s magic in his mind and the mating mark over his heart.

Here, her magic whispered. My love, I am here.

* * *

“I can’t feel Rhys,” Meera said, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I’m completely blocked.”

Sha ne’ev reshon, what are you doing?

* * *

Rhys rocked on the battlefield, holding Meera’s lifeless body in his arms. The cut ran from her breast down to her belly. Blood was everywhere and her eyes stared up at him, lifeless and accusing. Rain poured over them, drenching the ground in her endless blood.

You didn’t protect me. Why didn’t you protect me?

“No!” he screamed in rage. “Meera!”

Rhys.

He wept and clutched her to his chest, soaking his shirt with blood.

Rhys.

Her gentle voice accused him.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “Meera, I’m sorry.”

Look up, my love.

He looked up and he was not on an empty field. It was not raining. No lifeless body was in his arms.

He lies.

Rhys narrowed his eyes on Bozidar who was whirling around, trying to swat Ata off his back as if she were an annoying bug. Through all that, he’d still managed to send all the singers and scribes around him into wailing horrors.

“Wake up!” he screamed. “It’s not real. It’s not real!”

* * *

“I have him,” Meera said. “The field is in chaos. Bozidar is sending visions to everyone.”

“That’s different than Nalu’s power,” the Koconah warrior said. “Can we use that?”

Of course they could. “We throw it back on him. They need to let it take them over,” Meera said. “Tell Damien and Rhys they need to lower their guard. Let Bozidar bring their fears to life.”

“No.” Sari’s face was pale. “Damien will go mad.”

“Not if we pull them out in time,” Meera said.

“You don’t understand what he’s seen,” Sari said with a protective snarl. “He will go mad.”

Meera turned to her mother. “Then it has to be Rhys.”

Patiala turned and ran out the door.

* * *

Rhys thought he was imagining Patiala running through the smoke. He’d just banished the vision of Meera dying in his arms and was forcing himself to focus on the fight in front of him. The last remaining Grigori had reached the oak alley and gone after the scribes and singers Bozidar held in his grasp. The youngest members of the haven seemed the most immune to the horrors and were doing their best to fight them off. Ata and Damien were attacking the angel, striking each time they were able, only to be thrown off, batted back, or otherwise neutralized.

He’s playing with them.

The giant had a smirk on his face watching the writhing Irin around him, but he scanned the grounds, still looking for the memory keeper.

“Rhys!” Patiala ran to him, her bow still clutched in her hand. “You have to give in to the visions.”

He thought he was hearing things. “Are you a vision?” He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She felt solid enough. “What lie is this?”

“No lie.” Patiala grasped his hand. “Meera says you have to give in. Let the nightmare take you. She’ll pull you out in time. You have to trust her.”

Nausea spread in his belly. “No.” It was one thing to have a vision of horrors attacking him. It was quite another to walk into it.

“It’s the only way,” she said. “If we can let the horrors build, then they can fling Bozidar’s visions back on him. Turn the nightmares against him.”

It was completely logical. Of course it was. It was a good plan.

All it needed was Rhys’s complete surrender to a monster.

Do you trust me?

Falling to his knees, Rhys let his defenses fall.

* * *

He was walking through the great library of Glast, but there was no one inside. The stacks had been torn down and blood splattered everywhere. Gold dust layered the floor.

“You left.”

He turned and Angharad stood at the end of the room. Blood ran down from her cut throat.

“You left.”

“Mam!”

The floor fell away. He splashed in the sea. Unfurled scrolls and lifeless bodies sank with him. You left.

He woke in his room in Istanbul. Rising from his bed, he stepped into the garden. Matti and Geron were playing near the roses, giggling while they told each other secrets.

Rhys smiled. “What mischief are you two making?”

Matti turned and raised a hand. “We’re playing.”

Rhys froze. “What are you doing?”

Matti began to whisper, and Rhys realized he was truly paralyzed. Locked within his own body by the baby he’d fed and cared for.

“We’re playing,” Geron said. He walked over and held his hands up. Bloody wounds rose on Rhys’s skin. “Don’t you think this is fun, Uncle Rhys?”

Their eyes had turned from warm gold and grey to pitch-black.

“No,” Rhys whispered.

“Fallen blood,” Matti sang. “Fallen magic.”

“Blood will tell.” Geron ran in circles around him. “Blood will tell.”

“No.” Rhys sank to his knees. “No!”

As he fell, he saw the rose vines twining around the familiar forms of Ava and Malachi. The vines twisted and squeezed, choking off their breath until they both disappeared in a cloud of gold dust.

“NO!”

He looked away from the roses and saw Meera lying on the edge of a shell mound, surrounded by a forest flooded with blood. Her body was broken and the light in her eyes was extinguished. She turned her face to Rhys.

“You didn’t love me.”

“I did.”

“If you loved me, why did you let me die?”

“I didn’t.” He began to cry. “You’re not dead. You’re not dead.”

“I am.”

“No,” he sobbed. “Meera, no.”

He felt his soul rip in two. This was the agony they sang of in laments. This was the true rending. Rhys fell on her, tried to straighten her broken limbs, and cried onto her bloody breast as bugs crawled out of the swamp and swarmed over his lover, hiding her from his sight.

“No!” He tried swatting them away. “Get away!”

It didn’t matter what he did. He crushed them under his hand, but more came. They covered him. Covered his reshon. Covered the mound. The insects swarmed over everything before they began to eat Rhys alive. He screamed but he did not let go. They crawled into his eyes and mouth, devouring him from within.

* * *

Meera opened her eyes. “NOW!”

She gripped Sari’s hand and ran to the front porch. Bozidar saw her and looked up.

“Somasikara.” He grinned.

Meera and Sari shouted the final lines of the spell.

Return the rage given, bind darkness within. Meera ripped the vision of horror from the mind of her mate and flung it toward the fallen angel.

Yoke pride to the soul and bring on the end. She arrowed her magic directly into Bozidar’s heart, using the black hole she’d woken in herself to tunnel into the light of his being. He was a star, but even stars could be swallowed.

“Zimya dawan, Bozidar!” she cried. “Da’anamé!”

She didn’t plead for his submission, Meera demanded it.

Bozidar’s eyes went wide. The arrogant grin fell from his face. He dropped Damien and Ata, who were both struggling to use their swords, and his shoulders hunched inward.

“What have you done?” His glorious countenance turned grey.

“Do you need to ask?” Meera watched in fascination and horror as a black mark bloomed on his chest and spread. It traced the lines of his talesm and slowly covered his body. Bozidar’s eyes lost their focus and turned inward. The angel began to groan. Then he began to keen.

“Get away from him,” Ata yelled.

Damien and Ata dragged away any singer or scribe near the angel. Rhys was on the ground, and he wasn’t moving. Patiala knelt next to him. She looked up at Meera with tears in her eyes.

“He’s not dead,” Meera whispered. “He is not.”

Now was not the time for fear. She opened her mouth and sang a song of victory as Bozidar fell to the earth. He writhed on the ground, curling into himself and wailing like a wounded animal. He gnashed his teeth and snapped at them, but he could not move.

“No!” he wailed. “What have you done?”

Damien limped up the stairs to Sari. “What do the Fallen dream of,” he asked, “when they are locked in their own nightmares?”

“Whatever it is,” Ata said, “they fear it.”

Meera kept singing even when her father appeared behind her. Maarut laid a hand on her shoulder, and Meera reached up and squeezed his fingers, realizing too late he was missing one of them.

“Don’t stop singing,” he whispered. “I’ll get Rhys.”

Maarut walked down the stairs to his mate. With the gentle hands of a father, he lifted Rhys as Patiala held his head. They brought her mate up the stairs and disappeared into the house.

Bozidar lay curled and twisted on the ground. Meera descended the steps of the old house and walked over to the monster. Ata, Damien, and Sari walked with her.

His face was inhuman. Ugly and twisted. Frozen in nightmares. He didn’t taunt or mock them. Black veins marked his skin, and his eyes stared into nothing.

Meera turned to the bloody warrior at her side. “Ata?”

“You can kill him with your voice, but not without killing your mate. That was the sacrifice Akune and I didn’t know that heaven demanded. Even knowing that, Akune wouldn’t have hesitated,” Ata said. “Not if it meant killing the Fallen and freeing their children. He believed, even when I didn’t. That was how we found peace, Somasikara. We made the Fallen fear humanity. Even the humanity of their own children.”

“So how do we finish him?” Damien asked.

The Wolf reached into her belt and pulled out a small black blade. “The French did steal it. I just stole it back.” She handed it to Damien. “A singer cannot wield a black blade.”

“No, but she can ruin an angel with her voice.” Damien looked at Meera. “Well done, sister.”

Meera felt bruised all over. She felt sick. She wanted to vomit. Wanted fresh, clean water in her stomach. She wanted to lay next to Rhys and sleep. Wanted to wake next to him and banish his nightmares.

“Finish it.”

Damien plunged the knife into the back of Bozidar’s neck. The earth rocked beneath them and the angel rose to heaven, dissolving to dust in the air.