Sebastos and Raphael were waiting for us at the edge of the clearing, their bodies silhouetted in the moonlight-tinged mist. Not only did the men from the Academy attract me like a moth to flame, but the moonlight did as well. From the darkness, I could actually feel the light calling to me.

Raphael rushed to me, his blue eyes vivid in the gloom. “Bloody hell, woman, you scared the shit out of us.”

In the next moment, Sebastos was at my side, examining the bloody bandage around my shoulder. “Is this really the best you could do, Balthazar? Pathetic.”

“Stopped the bleeding, didn’t it?” growled Balthazar.

Sebastos held me gently by the biceps, and a warm, soothing energy from his body swept around me. When I closed my eyes, I smelled briny, lemon-swept air. As he traced his fingertips around the wound, all the pain left my body, the skin slowly knitting together.

When I opened my eyes again, I caught the warmth in his hazel eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile. He liked being able to heal me.

Then, all at once, I winced at the memory of my blade at his throat, of the bloodlust with which I’d attacked him. He liked healing me and, once, I’d enjoyed killing him. I didn’t want it to be real, but I knew that it was.

“There,” he said. “All better.”

I looked between the men. “Are you guys okay?”

Raphael shoved his hands into his pockets. “Of course. We’ve faced worse.”

“Right.” I had a feeling we all had. I just didn’t remember most of it. “Let’s go find Holly, shall we?”

A misty field stretched out ahead of us, and we started walking, moving in the direction the astrolabe had indicated. If Holly really was some kind of angel, I had a billion questions to ask her. I mean, assuming I didn’t have to make out with her to get any answers.

But mostly, I just needed to see my old friend.

Raphael frowned at me as we walked. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “I want you to know,” I said as I fell into step with him, “that I’m a badass now.”

“You are?” he asked, eyelids flaring with what may have been mock awe. “Will you teach me your ways, Queen of Venom?”

I shook my head. “Some things can’t be taught, Raph.”

He chuckled, and I rolled my shoulder, still feeling the warmth that had flooded my body when Sebastos had healed me.

“Watch your step,” Sebastos warned us.

“Please don’t tell me there are more wolves coming for us,” said Raphael.

Sebastos breathed in deeply. “I don’t know. Something in the air is… odd. Magical, maybe. Unfamiliar. Just watch your step.”

Balthazar’s arm brushed against me as we walked. “Let’s just make sure we stick together.”

Stick together. Not only did I want to do that, I needed to stick with the guys. Around them, I had power. I had meaning. Heck, I could even shoot light from my body. I’d certainly never been able to do that before. I still had a million questions, but at this point, I had to get to Holly.

The damp grass tickled my bare feet as we walked, and my body buzzed with excitement at the thought of seeing her again soon. Could we actually be drinking wine together on her sofa in just a few hours?

I cleared my throat, unable to let it go. “I saw the shadow angels in a vision,” I said to no one in particular. “And I saw Holly in a vision, looking a lot like an angel. Like, my guardian angel. Even though I’ve seen her puking in Harvard Square station and falling asleep on the 76 bus. Even though she had a crush on Jacob Marlow in eighth grade and pretended to be a superhero to win his affections. She’s an angel, I guess.”

“As I said,” said Balthazar, “you’re remembering.”

“Am I right in thinking there are good angels and bad angels? Because those shadow angels in one of my visions—they wanted us to kill each other. And that’s not Holly.”

Balthazar met my gaze, moonlight glinting in his dark eyes. “That’s exactly right.”

I loosed a long breath. I’d only just begun to scratch the surface, but one thing was clear to me now; I had to steer clear of the shadow angels.

I pulled out the astrolabe again, now more eager than ever to find my old friend. I traced my fingertips over its etched surface. This time, the shadows that bloomed in my mind had stopped stretching over the grassy earth. They’d gone still.

I cleared my throat, pausing in my tracks. “Guys? It says we’re… there.”

A dull panic throbbed in my chest. Had this all been a giant mistake? We were in the middle of an empty, mist-filled field. We weren’t ‘there’ at all. Wherever ‘there’ was, it certainly wasn’t the vast expanse of fog and grass around us.

“What do you mean?” asked Raphael. “There’s nothing here, love.”

“You’re not joking,” said Balthazar.

Around me the mist thickened, so heavy now that I could hardly see the guys. The fog curled around my feet, and I wiggled my toes until I couldn’t see them anymore. “Darn it.”

This no longer seemed like ordinary fog at all.

I squinted through the mist, looking for the others. “Guys?”

“Which direction, Dawn?” Balthazar’s voice sounded strangely distant.

I stared at the astrolabe again, trying to read it, hoping for a new answer this time. I clenched my jaw in frustration as it kept giving me the same answer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit defeat right here.

“Umm…” I stalled for time, panic creeping into my mind. What if I’d just taken them all on a wild goose chase through a wolf-infested forest for no reason because of shadowy visions in my mind…?

When I looked up again to come clean to the guys, I found nothing. It was as if the mist had consumed them completely.

“Guys?” My voice sounded dull in the mist. “Balthazar?”

Silence greeted me. When I swiped my hands through the mist, I marveled with horror at the way it curled past my fingers.

“Raphael?” I shouted. Somehow my voice sounded small even in the relative silence, swallowed up by the thickness of the air itself. I sucked in a breath, wondering if it was even all right to breathe in this magical fog. “Raphael! Balthazar?”

Gripping the astrolabe, I folded my arms across my chest, teeth chattering.

“Sebastos!” My voice seemed to fall like a dead weight in the air. I took a step forward, not entirely sure where I was going. “Son of a nutcracker.”

The fog was as thick as a brick wall, and I inhaled deeply to steady my nerves. As I did, the fog suddenly split vertically, parting like the Red Sea. The edges billowed outward, forming a clear path. Cold dread snaked up my spine. Was this some kind of magical trap?

Cool dew coated my skin, and I began walking through the parted mist as it opened before me.

“Where are you taking me?” I called out to the sky after a while. My voice carried a little further than it had before, and I balled up my fists and yelled as loudly as I could, “Balthazar! Anyone?”

Nothing.

I huffed a breath, following the path over the wet grass until I started to get the feeling I’d been wandering in circles.

After a tense few minutes, the labyrinth of mist around me thinned, revealing stone steps that led up to palatial glass doors, the rest of the house obscured by fog.

I cleared my throat. So I’d come to Death’s door. I probably should have been terrified, but I snorted at my own joke. “Next time, if you want to welcome somebody, a red carpet is pretty traditional,” I said aloud. “And actually less ostentatious than a magical mist maze.”

As if responding to the sound of my voice, the doors creaked open.

Okay, so this seemed ominous and slightly terrifying, but if Holly was in there, I needed to find her. My heart pounded hard in my chest as I made my way up the steps, the stone cold and wet under my bare feet. Through the doors, darkness greeted me.

“Holly?”

Before I could go inside to explore, the sound of footfalls turned my head, and I whirled around.

My gaze trailed slowly from tailored suit pants up to a finely cut shirt, then to a pair of elbows and muscled forearms. A man, standing with his hands in his pockets, completely relaxed.

When my eyes reached his face, I found two of the most piercing gray eyes I’d ever seen, and a sweep of dark hair. “Are you the one they call Death?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

I swallowed hard, staring into his eyes. Practically the same color I’d seen in the apartment, but grayer and missing those flecks of silver. And his hair wasn’t that pale blond. My fingers tightened into fists. It wasn’t him. Death didn’t take her. Not the same man I’d seen in the apartment, even if a similar menacing aura whipped around his body, dark whorls of shadows.

I took in the tattoo on his neck—the pointed beak of a raven. It was the man from the hospital. Not the man from Holly’s apartment.

“Dawn,” he said quietly, his lips curling in a faint smile. He looked pleased, like he’d been expecting me.

“Doctor,” I replied even more quietly. “I saw you at the hospital. The night my mom was screaming about devils and ravens.”

My gaze trailed over him, over the constellation of stars stamped over his collarbone. Just like the tattoos Sebastos, Balthazar, and Raphael had. What had they told me about him? He had been a member of the Academy who’d gone rogue.

My jaw tightened. “What’s going on? Where are the others, and why did you lead me here?”

He stepped closer to me on the stairs until he was level with my gaze, the force of his presence rippling over my skin. I tried to ignore the blood roaring in my ears at the sense of power emanating from him. When he leaned in close to me, I concentrated as hard as I could to summon the light from within my chest. A burst of it left my body—then curled around him before evaporating in the damp air. His faint smile never wavered.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice slipped around me like velvet, tracing up my bare thighs. “Eagerly.” His breath warmed the shell of my ear. “They say I’ve gone rogue. I just like to spend time alone. It’s time to begin again, isn’t it?”

He was part of this—this war we were supposed to fight. The war orchestrated by the shadow angels.

“Do you know where Holly is?” I demanded, my breath clouding around my face.

His smile faltered at that. “You’re asking me?”

“They said you were obsessed with angels like her. What do you know?” I repeated more loudly, hoping he’d ignore the way my voice threatened to crack. Exhaustion burned through my body, and I stood before him shoeless and cold and wet and dirty. “Why do they call you ‘Death’?”

“Dawn,” he said, his voice level and his eyes showing a shade of concern that confused me. “Holly’s not here. You’ve come to the wrong place. And I’m not fond of the nickname they’ve given me. You can call me Sam.”

For just a moment, I glimpsed a ghost—a whisper—of wings cascading from his back. I swallowed hard. “You’re like her, aren’t you?” I asked.

He arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“An angel.” I took in those star tattoos again. “And you’re one of us. One of the six, reborn, forced to fight in one age after another. Destined to kill each other under the watchful eyes of the shadow angels.” My hands were shaking, legs trembling. I didn’t even understand what I was saying, but I realized how I sounded. Like I’d completely snapped. “The others needed me to find you, didn’t they?”

He cocked his head. “You’re remembering already. And yes, the Academy of Light needed your astrolabe skills to get to me. But I don’t have your friend. You’ve come to the wrong place.”

Frustration simmered in my chest, so hot and furious I could feel myself about to explode. “I’ve been searching for Holly. I’m doing all of this for her. And you’re saying, what? That she isn’t with you?”

Sam stared at me for several seconds too long before answering, and I rubbed the goosebumps on my arms. “You mentioned six.”

I swallowed hard. “I saw six people in a vision. All standing on a battlefield.” A spark lit in my mind. “So… there’s one more.” Silver-flecked eyes. “I’ve dreamed of someone. His eyes were blue, flecked with silver. Just like I saw at Holly’s apartment the night she was abducted.”

Sam nodded slowly and confirmed my thoughts. “So there’s one more.”

Tears stung my eyes. I’d been so close to finding Holly again, to embracing her. Or so I’d thought. And now I had to start over.

His pale eyes bored a hole into me. “You’re stronger than you know, Dawn.”

I didn’t feel strong right now, but maybe he was right. Maybe I could use my own skills to find Holly. The guys had said the astrolabe’s purpose was to find the other members of the Academy.

I looked down at the astrolabe again, running my fingers over its surface. Emptiness pooled in my chest, a deep isolation. I gritted my teeth. “I’m going to find the others. And then I’m going to find the sixth. It’s him. I know it’s him.”

I marched down the steps, gripping the astrolabe hard. I just had to keep going, keep moving until I found Holly, even if fatigue wanted to pull me down to the wet grass.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turned back to Sam. “Will you keep your wolves away from me?”

“They won’t be a problem.”

Once again, wings darkened the air behind his back, swooping gracefully behind him. Unlike my vision of Holly, his angelic appearance was terrifying instead of protective. I shuddered as the seed of an idea began to bloom in my mind.

“What’s your full name?” I asked. “Just Sam?”

“Samael.” The ancient word rumbled through my bones, and my blood turned to ice. Samael. The avenging angel of death. So that’s where the nickname had come from.

Maybe he was one of our six, destined to fight among us, but this man was pure danger.

I turned away from him, moving quickly through the field, aware that an angel of death loomed somewhere behind me. What the heck had I gotten myself into? In this world of shadow angels and past lives, I was in way over my head.

The icy mist wrapped around me, and I tried to ignore the cold isolation gnawing at my chest. I whispered to the astrolabe. “Tell me where to find the sixth one—the man with the silver-flecked eyes.”

I closed my eyes, tuning in to the canopy of stars and constellations that burned in my mind. But a cold rush of wind over my bare arms opened my eyes again.

I didn’t see him coming until a blur moved through the tree line. Until his arms were wrapped around me.

Frozen with fear, I stared up into his pale, silver-flecked eyes. Something like icy rage shone there. He gripped me roughly around the ribs, then threw me over his shoulder.

I screamed, but the mist seemed to absorb the sound. I tried frantically to summon that light from my body, but as an alien darkness began to claim my mind, I found myself depleted.

Of everything.

It seemed I didn’t need to find the sixth member. He’d found me.