convent. They took what they came for and left. It is over. There is no hope.”
“So let me get this straight,” Mr. Grigori said. Although Percival knew that his father adored
Otterley, and must be in a state of unspeakable dispair, he displayed the icy calm that had so
frightened Percival in his youth. “You allowed your sister to go into attack alone. Then you let the
angelologists who killed her escape, losing the opportunity to retrieve a treasure we have sought for a
thousand years. And you believe that you are finished?”
Percival regarded his father with hatred and yearning. How was it that he had not lost his strength
with age and that Percival, who should be at the height of his powers, had become so weakened?
“You will pursue them,” Mr. Grigori said, standing to his full height, his silver wings fanning open
about his shoulders. “You will find them and retrieve the instrument. And you will keep me informed
as the hunt progresses. We will do whatever necessary to bring victory.”
Upper West Side, New York City
Evangeline turned onto West Seventy-ninth Street, driving slowly behind a city bus. Pausing at a red
light, she glanced down Broadway, squinting to see the afternoon streetscape, and felt a rush of
recognition. She’d spent many weekends with her father walking these streets, stopping for breakfast
at any one of the cramped diners tucked along the avenues. The chaos of people slogging through the
slush, the squish of buildings, the incessant movement of traffic in every direction—New York City
was deeply familiar, despite her years away.
Gabriella lived only a few blocks ahead. Although Evangeline had not been to her grandmother’s
apartment since her childhood, she remembered it well—the subdued façade of the brownstone, the
elegant metalwork fence, the slanted view of the park. It used to be that she had recalled these images
with care. Now thoughts of St. Rose filled her mind. Try as she might, she could not forget how the
sisters looked at her as she left the church, as if the attack were somehow her fault and their youngest
member had brought the Gibborim upon them. Evangeline kept her gaze fixed upon the pathway as she
left them. It was all she could manage to get to the edge of the garage without looking back.
In the end Evangeline had betrayed her instincts and looked into the rearview mirror to see the
sooty snow and the baleful sisters collected at the riverside. The convent was as dilapidated as a
ruined castle, the lawn coated with ash from the fires. She, too, had changed. In a matter of minutes,
she had shed her role as Sister Evangeline, Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, and had become
Evangeline Angelina Cacciatore, Angelologist. As they drove from the grounds, birch trees rising at
each side of the car like hundreds of marble pillars, Evangeline believed she saw the shadow of a
fiery angel glinting in the distance, beckoning her onward.
On the journey to New York City, Verlaine had sat in the front seat, while Gabriella insisted upon
taking the back, where she had spread out the contents of the leather case and examined them. Perhaps
the silence imposed upon Evangeline at St. Rose had come to wear heavily on her—over the course
of the drive, she had spoken frankly with Verlaine about her life, the convent, and even, to her
surprise, her parents. She told him about her childhood in Brooklyn, how it was punctuated by walks
with her father over the Brooklyn Bridge. She told him that the famous walkway that runs the length of
the bridge was the one place where she had felt a carefree, undiluted happiness and for that reason, it
was still her favorite place in the world. Verlaine asked more and more questions, and she was
amazed by how readily and openly she answered each one, as if she’d known him all her life. It had
been many years since she’d talked to someone like Verlaine—handsome, intelligent, interested in
every detail. In fact, years had passed since she’d felt anything at all about a man. Her thoughts of men
seemed, all at once, childish and superficial. Surely her behavior struck him as comically naive.
After Evangeline had found a parking spot, she and Verlaine followed Gabriella to the brownstone.
The street was strangely barren. Snow swept the sidewalk; parked cars were encrusted with a thin
layer of ice. The windows of Gabriella’s apartment, however, glowed. Evangeline detected
movement beyond the glass, as if a group of friends awaited their arrival. She imagined the Times
spread in sections on thick Oriental carpets, cups of tea balanced at the edges of end tables, fires
kindled in gratings—those were the Sundays of her childhood, the afternoons she had spent in
Gabriella’s care. Of course, her memories were those of a child, and her thoughts were filled with