Sensing Stephanie’s unnerving stare, he focused on his clothes, buttoning his shirt.
Their black hue matched the clouds bubbling across the skyline. Since yesterday the weather had evolved into something straight from Hell, and the silence that had lingered into the morning meant what had to be the worst—the Academy was cut off from the rest of the mainland. Now, they were all destined to either sink or drown in the attempt to leave Luz alive.
“We’re through. But if you’re lonely, you always have Naamah for company—”
“Shut up,” Stephanie said. She jumped from the bed and grabbed Kim by the shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. He winced slightly, aware of the blood trickling to his navel.
“Tell me where Angela is.”
“You talk like I keep tabs on her.”
She looked at him coolly, her hands shaking, like she couldn’t make up her mind about something, or decide on what she felt. “Where, Kim?”
“Why does it matter, Stephanie? Your mind is made up, after all. You’re the Archon. You’re the Ruin Naamah has been waiting for. So does it really matter where Angela is and why? Unless,” he said slowly, “you’re second-guessing yourself . . .”
Stephanie stared at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re right,” she said, though her voice was hushed. The tactic of someone who didn’t want to be heard. “I am the Archon.”
“But I also warned you about what that means—”
“I’m not afraid of Lucifel.” Her face took on a strange, shrewd expression, her green eyes wide and haunted. “Or that angel who just stood there while Brendan bled to death. That relic—Israfel.”
She said the name with such hatred, it was startling.
That’s right. Brendan was dead. In the sallow normality of morning, Kim had almost forgotten the blander details of the previous night. But if Angela needed any consoling—and Kim doubted she did—he wasn’t in the best position to offer it to her anymore. Besides, right now he had an insane ex-girlfriend to deal with. “Oh, you sound afraid, Stephanie.”
“I just don’t like what he did to me. His kiss—”
“The way he tasted you,” he corrected her.
She shivered more visibly. “Naamah told me Israfel was dead. Now I’m sure that everyone just assumed he was.”
“Angels have a way of dropping in on you unexpectedly,” Kim said, half glancing at the window. “And always at the worst times.”
He knew it. Fury had left to tell Troy what was going on. His cousin would probably try to slash open his wrists, blaming him—not her Vapor—for forcing her into a daytime journey to rip out Stephanie’s voice box. The storm continued to darken the sky one black inch at a time, but for Troy, this was hardly dark enough.
She’d find happiness when the rain began and Luz shuddered down into the sea.
“What about my questions for a change?” he said, picking his words carefully. “Fair is only fair. That doll named Sophia.” Kim wrestled with the irritated bitterness in his tone. They’d always been like this—perfect in bed, at each other’s throats out of it. “Who is she? Israfel showed more than passing interest in her. The fact that he abducted her is even worse.”
Stephanie went rigid. “He abducted her—”
“That’s what I said.”
A delicate lick of lightning brightened the room.
Soon, it seemed to say.
Soon, Kim’s mahogany frame bed, his religious paintings, his prayer books, his collection of occult paraphernalia—they would all be destroyed.
The storm was whipping deeper into Luz, and he could only imagine the ocean waves, the swells, the forced evacuations to higher levels of the city. And with the Academy in such turmoil, and the sirens unable to sound unless the deceased archbishop said the word . . .
Thunder broke above them, and Stephanie shook her head. Then her eyes glazed over, and she found a grim expression worse than all the others, so strange it didn’t even fit her face. “Fine. Let’s play your game.” Her lips seemed to move in slow motion. “Kim, Sophia is the Book of Raziel.”
He could only stare.
This was unbelievable, a complete and absolute disaster. If Israfel opened the Book—which was apparently Sophia of all people or things—then he would have the power to crush Lucifel, to crush Hell, to remake the world however he wished. And in that world, there would be no place for Kim, possibly Angela, and certainly not for the both of them together.
“You—” He heard the murder in his voice. Every last bit of self-control was slipping from him fast. “Why did you take the Book to the cathedral?”