The charade was officially over, then, but only by half. Kim dropped into a nearby chair with his hands clasped atop the rails, adopting the same bored attitude he took in the confessional. Except right now, Sophia would be the soul on trial. If she wanted to play this game, he wasn’t going to hold back. “I’ll tell you, but only if Sophia explains her demonic friend. Fair is fair.”
Angela gasped. She’d forgotten all about that, hadn’t she?
“How do you know Naamah, Sophia?” he said, hardly in the mood for mercy.
She pursed her lips, so tightly that they looked bloodless.
“Sophia,” Angela said, demanding. “Answer him. I don’t have time to learn who I can trust and who I can’t.”
“She is—” Sophia took in the sight of Angela and Kim, almost side by side, and refused to hide the bitterness in her voice. “—she is my master.”
“God,” Nina said, swearing in Angela’s place. Whether she truly remembered what had thrown her over the balustrade, though, was another matter. It could just as easily have been her possessor speaking, praying for them to suffer.
“Your master,” Angela repeated for her. She crossed her arms, imperious. “Where are you from, Sophia?”
Silence.
“Where?”
Sophia stared at Kim, her pretty face white with resentment. Her words, usually so sweet, could have been dipped in acid. “Hell. I’m dead—and this is my punishment. Naamah oversees it and with the Prince’s permission torments me however she pleases.” She was like a beautiful, life-size doll, but overflowing with hatred. No wonder Angela felt a certain affection for her. In a world of dolls with curls and ribbons, hats and petticoats, some dressed in kimonos and others in contemporary fashions—Sophia had become the capstone to Angela’s collection. Naamah clearly had planned putting Sophia here as the perfect spy. There was no question in Kim’s mind. What that demon hadn’t counted on was Sophia’s fondness for her blood head roommate, or Angela’s for her. “Stephanie’s control over me is temporary. Her pact with Naamah makes her think she has some kind of say in what I do and how I do it. But she’s been overstepping her bounds lately and getting bolder. The incident in the tunnel—”
She and Angela exchanged a glance filled with understanding.
“—was a perfect example of that.”
So Sophia was a Revenant. A human who had been given her body back, but only so that it could be tortured along with her soul, mind, and heart. Even physically die again. That, of course, was the cruelest part of the punishment—never knowing when you would be killed, but knowing that it would be soon, and perhaps more painful than last time, leaving the cycle to perpetuate itself into eternity.
Only Lucifel could devise such an exquisite torture.
Angela opened her mouth, full of questions, but must have decided to focus instead on what fascinated her most, sitting down next to Sophia and looking at her in wonder like she’d never seen her before. Sophia’s face twisted with pain. She was holding back tears, and she set Angela’s hand aside. “Day after day, nothing changes. Day after day, I wait for her, and she doesn’t come. I was starting to worry that Stephanie would be the One after all.”
“You mean the Archon,” Angela whispered.
Sophia nodded, one hand against her forehead. “She can set me free. If She wants to.”
“But what could you have done? Why are you, out of all the humans who’ve ever died—why are you being punished like this?”
Then, Kim saw it. A brief and horrible glimpse of something unimaginable appeared behind Sophia’s gray eyes, and for that single, long second, they became so deep and hollow, they could have sucked in the universe. Whatever she had done, it had been a sin far beyond simple explanations. He allowed her to speak, overly aware that what was being said would be little more than a half-truth. The whole truth would be too incomprehensible for Angela’s ears.
“I died in childbirth.”
“You have children?” Angela said, shocked into a murmur. “How many? How long have you been living like this?”
Silence again.
It was clear Sophia wouldn’t explain further. Instead, she brought everyone’s attention back to where it had first centered, on Kim, her face whipping around to meet his gaze, all her meticulous curls fluffing around her shoulders. Her soft mouth was all smile and no tenderness. Sophia and he were on equal footing now, and she was letting him know it. “I’m not a spy,” she said, back to her old calm and confidence, “and I’m not on Stephanie’s side. If anything, you’re the questionable element, Kim, Sariel. You and your cousin.”