She’s right. That sounds far from ideal too.
“That’s how Lucifel thinks. That’s what she’ll do. Opening Raziel’s Book will just be the clincher. If she can start on erasing everything now, she will.”
“Why now? Why is everything happening now?”
Nina stood up from her handiwork, glancing over the sigils to make sure they were appropriate. “Because she has the freedom now. For some reason, the dimensional layers that make up the material world, and Heaven, and Hell—they’re coming apart. Lucifel can’t escape her cage just yet—not unless she’s physically freed—but I wouldn’t be surprised if she finds a way around that and soon. Enough to come after the Archon anyway.”
Then, entering the Netherworld was the only way to stop Stephanie from destroying Luz and Angela’s life, and perhaps stop Lucifel from erasing every dead human soul from whatever existence it had, however miserable. Angela wasn’t the Archon—so said Troy, and for a while, Kim—but apparently that no longer mattered. She wasn’t trying to open the Book, so at least she wouldn’t go insane. Though it bothered her, that she felt like the world was crumbling beneath the weight of her feet, yet she had very little to prove that was really the case.
No—they were missing something here.
Angela gripped the Grail, surprised again by the Eye’s warmth.
“Are you ready?” Nina said, her skirt swaying in the breeze. Tileaf’s tree creaked and groaned, like it was protesting over being awakened again. “But there’s no going back once you’re in there, Angela. You’ve got to be resolved about this.”
Troy’s dried blood must have still been good enough to resuscitate the Fae. Before Angela could answer Nina, the eerie wind began, the intense green light flickered throughout the grotto, and the branches and leaves around them glowed with that strange, unearthly color. While it had seemed to take forever for Tileaf to show herself the first time, this was different. Angela had less than a second to adjust her eyes and blink, and the Fae stood before them as groggy and tormented as before, maybe even worse, her eyes shifting wildly until she saw Angela. The collar of light around her neck seemed to choke off her voice.
“Now—you will keep your promise?” Tileaf beckoned Angela near.
“I have to go to the Netherworld.”
I sound like such a selfish bitch.
She was still angry. Her heart raced, but with a fire coming from somewhere different than before. Now, people and things that were in her way would have to step aside, and whenever she needed them to.
Tileaf smiled. “I know. Don’t worry, you’ll do what I asked. You must—if you want to enter Azrael’s domain. Luz is connected . . . to the Underworld. My tree rests over the only way inside and out.”
That explains so much about this city.
“So I have to kill you just to get in there?”
“Yes,” Tileaf sighed, as if a great weight were being lifted from her shoulders.
Angela wrapped her arms around herself, sucking in a deep breath. This was it, then. But promising Tileaf that she would kill her was much easier than actually doing it. Her parents’ deaths were an accident, even though they probably got what they deserved. Besides, Angela had a hard time squashing bugs, and suddenly she had to murder a Fae who’d lived for centuries. If Troy was anywhere nearby, she could have commanded her to do it, but there had to be a reason why Tileaf hadn’t asked that Jinn to maul her to death. “It has to be me?”
The Fae trembled, and she sank down next to her tree, her spider-silk dress rustling through the leaves. “No.”
“Then why me? Or—why the Archon?”
“Because,” said the faerie, her anguished eyes shining, “that would be an honor.”
“All right.” Angela couldn’t even look at Nina. Her only friend at the Academy was going to watch her murder Tileaf in cold blood. The bile rose in the back of her throat. “If there’s no way around it . . .”
Angela didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t have a clue. How was this going to happen?
“This is your world,” Tileaf was saying.
And I made the rules.
That voice in her head. It was more familiar than ever, speaking in tandem with hers.
“I can’t do this.”
“You can. It’s your right.”
It’s my right. Because I made the rules . . .
Angela took out the Grail, folding her hand around the Eye. How could she do it?
She and Tileaf were only a few feet apart. Angela clambered over the thick roots at the base of the tree to where Tileaf rested near the oak’s trunk, her tattered dress splayed around her bruised knees. The Fae gazed at her intently, motioning for Angela to reveal the Grail. “Take back what’s rightfully yours.”