She’s here.

Elissa is here.

Grace and Lucifer are laughably easy to find. Neither one makes any effort to conceal their presence, and the power rolling off them in waves can be felt for miles. I’m no stranger to my brother’s pride, and I never expected to find Lucifer masking himself from Heaven, but the girl surprises me.

The Last is still such a contradiction to me. She walks beside Lucifer, her slight form looking so small and breakable and human. Her eyes pause on other mortals as they pass, their souls laid bare before her, and I wonder if she can feel the blackness tingeing her own.

Then she looks at my brother and the light that surges in her soul blocks out the darkness, and I can feel my own sin choking me.

Envy always was the ugliest of sins.

Its weak cousin jealousy pales in the face of what I feel looking at them. Jealousy merely means wanting what someone else has, but envy is wanting them not to have it.

To me, Grace holds no more enticement than any other human. Beautiful, yes, but nothing more than that until I see Lucifer’s attention slide to her. I see the way his hand rests at the small of her back and his eyes follow her steps, and the longing catches in my throat. I remember the cliffs and the sand and the washed out blue of the summer skies, that hue still so much darker than her eyes.

And I want.

The structure they enter is nothing special, another low shotgun house with a fresh coat of white paint hastily applied to the worn siding and a slightly wilted pot of scarlet geraniums sitting sentry by the front door. The scent of magic hangs thick as smog in the air, and my hand unconsciously moves to my blade. I grip the handle, the familiar weight doing nothing to calm the uneasiness that crawls across my skin like insects, and I wonder if Grace and Lucifer can feel the twisted sense of wrongness emanating from the house.

Whatever happened here, it isn’t good.

I keep my distance as the sun dips lower and the first streaks of purple begin to color the sky. I circle the small house and the overgrown backyard, keeping concealed in the shadows between the two neighboring houses when the back door bangs open and she emerges.

My Elissa.

But, of course, she hasn’t been my Elissa in centuries, and this hard-edged creature that pauses on the bare cement slab of the back porch to scan the scraggly grass of the backyard hardly resembles her.

The petticoats and lace of Paris and the soft linen of Sidon are long gone, replaced by black denim and faded cotton. She dresses for utility now, for battle, a stark contrast to the filmy sundresses Grace seems to live in. If the heavy leather boots or dark jeans are uncomfortable in the stifling heat she doesn’t show it. Elissa drops down to the steps, resting her head in her hands and sighing loudly. She looks upset, and my irrational heart wants nothing more than to comfort her.

I quash that urge before it can grow. Whatever emotions my presence might bring out of her, comfort is very far down the list.

The door creaks again and Grace emerges, hesitating in the doorway for several moments before sitting down next to her, delicately tucking her bare legs under the hem of the sky blue dress she wears. I almost want to laugh at the irony. The Prince of Darkness has his heart stolen by this picture of innocence with her sundresses and golden hair, while God’s most obedient son can’t look away from a glowering witch in biker boots.

Elissa starts speaking without looking at Grace. She keeps her voice a low murmur, flat and emotionless as she recounts the story of her childhood and the ugly, unloved existence she endured before I met her.

I listen, feeling like a voyeur as the words spill from her, but I’m too enthralled with this unknown side of her to do the honorable thing and leave. I forget myself, my all-important duty, everything but her measured voice weaving the image of her past.

What does it say that for everything we shared, she never shared these secrets with me? What does it say that I’d never thought to ask why she cloistered herself at the apex of the city, building her own gilded cage and feathering the nest with power?

When I walked into her life, Elissa was well on her way to becoming the witch she is now, wrapping herself in a mantle of blood magic and immortality until nothing and no one could touch her. Her power on Earth had grown enough that even Heaven took notice and as the only angel in the vicinity, I was sent to investigate.

Grace puts her hand on Elissa’s shoulder, and I see the first crack in the armor surrounding her as she leans into the touch, that tiny movement as she seeks comfort revealing just how much digging up her early life pains her.

So much loneliness. So much regret.

I try to reconcile the picture of that barefoot child, alone and unwanted, with the women I knew so many years ago.

Did I really know her at all?

The house sits on the cliff side, as close to the edge as the masons dared build, and I suspect that more than a little magical help is shoring up the limestone. I land on a wide balcony that stretches over the dizzying precipice, nothing more than a stone railing holding you back from a sheer drop into the ocean far below. The wind whips my feathers and stings my eyes as I hide my wings and walk through the wide double doors into the atrium.

This is no rough hut outside the safety of the town where spell-casting might go unnoticed. This is no stinking fisherman’s hovel when the lost and forgotten claw for any power they might find. The owner of this house has no fear of displaying her considerable wealth, and the privilege of building her home so high above the muck of the city shows that she has far more influence in this place than I expected.

The roar of the wind fades as I walk through the door, cloaking my presence from the mortals inside. Even with the wind silenced, the house is far from quiet. Servants bustle through the house, women young and old tending the household tasks with quick efficiency.

A girl of barely more than ten brushes past me, a basket overflowing with ripe fruit in her hands. I follow her, watching as she slips into the kitchen, passing the basket into the hands of the cook, a small woman with the same smile who could only be her mother. She was beautiful once, but half her face is marred with a deep burn, and I hear the echoes of her pain when the torch was thrust into her face.

Now she laughs as she digs through the basket before pulling out a pomegranate. Singing to herself, she cuts into the fruit, the ruby seeds spilling out like drops of blood. “Sisa, come here!” she calls, popping a few of the sweet seeds into her mouth before passing the fruit to the child. “Bring the figs to Tanith for the mistress.” The child nods solemnly before gabbing up the basket and barreling out of the room, her mother’s voice ringing through the corridor like a bell.

These are not the well-trained daughters of the domestic class, women working the only trades allowed to them. As I pass unseen through the servants I see a few scarred faces and even more scarred souls that belie their current happiness. The lives of these women were not easy before they came to this house on the cliffs, and the gratefulness in their hearts isn’t for love of a soft bed in the beautiful house and the promise of a kind mistress.

She saved them all, in one way or another, and every one of them would kill for her.

I follow the child to a frail, elderly woman with a missing eye. Her gnarled hands hold a simple bronze tray with a cup of the harsh wine favored in this city. The girl proudly brandishes the basket of figs, rifling through them to search for the choicest morsels before depositing three fat figs onto the tray, their golden skin bursting with juices. “Back to your mother, Sisa,” the old woman says. “I’ll tell the mistress they came from you.”

The child beams, revealing a gap-toothed smile that the old woman mirrors before running back down the hall, her small feet slapping on the clay tiles. Chuckling, the old woman taps gently on the door.

“Come in!” a muffled voice answers, and she pushes open the heavy wooden door.

Sunlight streams in through the high windows, the air clean and sharp from this height. Bundles of herbs hang down from the rafters, swaying in the soft breeze that flows through the windows, releasing their scents to fill the room.

A mountain of tightly rolled scrolls rests on the large wooden table in the center of the room. Maps are spread out on the surface, their edges curling, and other fragments of yellowed parchment, scribbled with text in Greek and Latin and Phoenician litter the surface.

I creep in behind the old woman, keeping my presence carefully cloaked, and take in the woman bent over the maps. The old woman walks closer, delicately placing the tray on a clear space beside her.

“Thank you, Tanith,” she says, without looking up.

“Little Sisa picked the very best figs for you,” she croaks, her voice a low rattle in her throat. Tanith pauses for a moment, as though considering her next words. “It’s a lovely day outside, mistress. You’ve been shut up in this room for days.” She rests one of her worn, wrinkled hands on the woman’s arm and squeezes gently, the sort of casual touch one would see between a grandmother and a wayward child and not servant and mistress.

The younger woman looks up, her ice blue eyes focusing on the old woman for just a moment before flicking to where I stand by the doorway. “What have I told you about calling me mistress?” she asks, her full lips curling into a smile that I know she means for me. “It’s Elissa.” Her voice is firm, but kind, repeating a conversation that has likely occurred many times before. “Fortune has been kind to me in these last years, but I am no one’s master.”

She looks away from me and focuses on Tanith, and the old woman smiles at her, revealing a mouth with far more gaps than teeth. “I promise, I’ll come out soon. And do tell Sisa I thank her for the figs. She always knows which are the sweetest.” Her eyes slide back to my hiding spot, locking with my gaze, and she adds, “For now though, I’ve just found something very interesting that I need to look into.”

Neither of us look away from the other as Tanith totters out of the room, closing the heavy door behind us with an audible click.

Elissa is on her feet an instant later, striding across the room towards me. She holds my gaze, her steps sure and steady and without fear, and I indulge myself for a moment.

She is tall, her back ramrod straight when she stands. As with everything else in the house, her attire speaks of wealth without ostentation. The robes she wears are soft linen of the purest white. The fabric she drapes herself in is undoubtedly fine and many steps removed from the rougher spun cloth the servants clothe themselves in, but any man or pampered wife in the city holding court in a household such as this would have been decorated in the famous Tyrian dye, yet I haven’t noticed a stitch of purple anywhere in the house.

The nimble fingers of her servants have twisted her dark hair into a nest of elaborate braids that coil like snakes around her skull before dangling down her back. Anyone else would have dripped with jewels and gold, but only a few simple bracelets of hammered bronze circle her slim wrists. Beyond that, she is unadorned. She needs nothing else.

She stands before me, her icy blue eyes staring up into mine, and she presses her hand against my chest, pushing just hard enough to rock me back on my heels in surprise. “And who are you?”

Magic crackles around her, leaving the air charged as in the moments before a lightning strike, and if I have any reservations left that she is the one I seek they melt away.

Her finger pokes impatiently into my chest again, reminding me that her question still hangs unanswered.

“I am the Archangel Michael.”

Elissa takes a step backward, cocking her head to the side as she takes my measure. She narrows her pale blue eyes for a moment as she mulls over my words. “A servant of the new god then,” she says, turning her back on me and returning to her maps and parchments. I gape at her as she grabs a fig from the tray and takes a delicate bite, the sticky sweet juice running over her lips as she glances back at me, unconcerned.

“Now tell me, Archangel Michael,” she demands, the casual disinterest fading abruptly as she drops the half-eaten fig onto the clay plate. “What is your business in my home?”

I don’t have an answer. My orders were to merely observe this woman, to watch and discover the depths and heights of her abilities. What has she bartered with to claim this power? Has she been trading with the Fallen or with Lucifer himself?

It’s obvious that she is no village healer dealing only in herbs and trinkets. These are old magics swirling around her, power born from blood and fire and the Earth itself.

But I feel no evil in her. No true darkness. Her affection for the old woman has lit up her soul, and even now I see no anger or fear in her, nothing but a curiosity and a mild annoyance at my unexpected interruption.

“Have you forgotten how to speak?” she asks, a chuckle in her voice. “Whatever the men in the village might say, I don’t wrest the tongues from men to boil into my potions.” A spark of resentment flickers across her soul at that, a contradiction to the lightness of her tone.

I evidently am not the first man to show up at Elissa’s door questioning her, but I suspect I’m the first to make it past her threshold.

“I have no quarrel with you, witch,” I say, finally leaving my spot on the periphery of the room where I hung back silently observing.

“That’s certainly a relief,” Elissa replies, taking a sip of her wine as she unrolls another scroll, the parchment covered in cramped Greek letters.

I’ve never come across a mortal like her. Witch or not, I’m an Archangel, and I could crush her out of existence with no more effort than swatting an insect, and yet here she sits, sipping wine and reading through her scrolls as though I’m nothing more than a passing merchant, boring her with my very presence.

“You have been noticed in Heaven.”

Her muscles tense, the casual posture she slipped into tightening, and the flush of anger that pulses in her soul startles me.

“I’ve been noticed in Heaven,” she parrots, slowly setting the cup and scroll back down onto the table, her movements suddenly stiff. “Of course, Heaven notices me now when all the gods were blind to my prayers when I was weak.”

She rises from her seat and stalks across the room to the window, pushing open the half closed shutters that dampen the wind. Behind her, the scrolls flutter on the table like wings.

“You saw Tanith.” Her back is to me as she stares out the window, her eyes focused on the distant horizon. “She was lucky enough to bear sons, but they left to seek their fortunes across the sea and forgot her. And when her husband died, she had nothing. I found her begging in the streets, living on whatever scraps she could find. Where was Heaven then?”

I keep silent. The wind whips through the room as I creep closer to her. The scrolls flap upwards, her carefully arranged piles of parchment riding the drafts for a moment before faltering and dropping to the floor.

She stares unflinchingly into the stinging wind as she continues. “I’m sure you saw Sisa and her mother as you skulked through my house.” Her hand grasps the windowsill, wood and stone creaking ever so slightly under her fingers as she fights for control. “Melita worked in the brothel,” she murmurs, her voice nearly swallowed up by the wind. “Sisa was born there and would have continued in her mother’s footsteps if I hadn’t brought them here, but one of Melita’s lovers was a jealous man. She was so beautiful, you see.”

Elissa’s voice trails off for a moment before she turns to face me, her anger barely held in check as she rails at me. “He didn’t like sharing her, and he made her many pretty promises. But Melita refused to leave her daughter behind, and he didn’t like that. If she wouldn’t give herself solely to him, he made certain that no one else would want her. Where was Heaven then?”

The word blasphemy rests on my lips, and I wonder what outcome my Father expected from sending me here to be scoured by her righteous rage. Why had her little kingdom on the cliffside reached His notice?

Elissa shakes her head in disgust at my silence. The wind at her back tears at her hair, tugging dark strands free from her braids to swirl around her face as she stares coldly at me.

“Heaven was always there.”

Something in her face softens at that, her lush lips curling into a sad smile. “And that, Archangel Michael, is exactly why I have no need of it.”

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, wrenching me deeper into the shadows between the two houses. I have my weapon in my hand in an instant, pressing against the neck of my assailant, ready to strike as I turn-

-and see the smug face of my brother looking utterly unconcerned with my blade digging into his throat.

“Michael,” he drawls, his eyes flickering down to the blade. “At ease, solider.” I lower the weapon reluctantly, stowing it away and glancing back to where Grace and Elissa still sit, unaware of both of us.

Lucifer follows my gaze, and I can feel his hackles rising as he connects the dots. “Why are you here?” he grinds out. “Did Father send you? Are you bringing another war to my doorstep?”

“Your doorstep?” I snap. “This isn’t your world, Lucifer. We aren’t meant to walk in this realm for long!” I sound entirely unconvincing, especially as I hide in the shadows like a love-struck human, mooning over a woman who loathes me.

Lucifer’s anger melts into another self-satisfied grin, and I wrestle with the ever-increasing urge to punch him.

He was so much easier to deal with when he was just my mortal enemy.

“You’d know about over-staying your welcome, wouldn’t you?” At my continued silence, Lucifer adds, “Do you honestly think things will go well for you if she sees you?”

The gravel crunches behind me, and I know without looking that it’s her. Nothing more than the faintest intake of breath gives her away, a sharp inhale revealing her shock at seeing me. Two millennia have given her the iron control her younger self never had, and when I turn around to look her in the face for the first time in so long it’s like staring into the dead eyes of a statue.

A slight tick as her jaw tightens is the only indication that my presence has any kind of effect on her. Beyond that, her face stays a mask as she pushes past me in the narrow pathway. Lucifer steps aside, and she pauses just long enough to give him a withering look before her boots are thumping on the uneven pavement of the sidewalk. A moment later I hear the low rumble of a motorcycle engine as she peels out, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust and confusion.