Stephanie’s voice echoed with her, equally pained, and a crimson shield exploded into life, blazing like fire behind Troy’s eyelids.
Then everything stopped. A gentler pulse of light signaled Naamah’s escape deep into the lower Realms, her curses resounding even after she’d left. Stephanie must have escaped with her—the girl’s scent had vanished along with the light—but Troy remained curled up like a spider, shivering from the horror of Israfel’s attack. Her sore muscles soaked up the chill of the tiles. Her wings twitched, their tendons and ligaments exhausted by the intensity of the battle and the draining power of Naamah’s ghosts.
Sariel’s voice was an unwelcome addition to the pain.
“You can get up,” he said coarsely. “They’re gone. All of them.”
His shoe scraped the side of her wing and she bit at him, mad with frustration.
He cursed even more savagely than usual, and then did the stupidest thing possible, pushing one of her wings sideways and stooping down to stare directly in her face. Troy would have lunged and chewed his eyes out, but there was a strange look to him that kept her suspicious and docile.
He was crying.
She watched the water slide down Sariel’s cheekbones, mesmerized. From what she had learned, humans cried when they were angry, upset, or hurt. Judging from her cousin’s face, he was all three at once.
“Gone where?” she muttered.
“I don’t know,” he said, hissing like a Jinn himself. “But they’re gone. Angela, Israfel, and that resurrected bitch Sophia.”
“Together?”
“Yes,” he said, biting at his lip. “Now get the hell up and help me arrange some of these bodies. Without gnawing on them, if you can even help yourself.” He shook his head, the tears continuing to glisten, his teeth bared. “What a goddamned fine mess this is.”
“The witch and her demon escaped to the Underworld,” Troy said. “I’d call that a victory.”
“Of course you would,” he whispered. “Chaos amuses you.”
He stepped over a corpse, its arm splayed sideways across the floor.
Troy laughed. She was so tired, the noise came out of her cracked and broken, but it was so obvious to her why Sariel was distraught. In the end, he was no different from his father, from any other male Jinn who’d suffered the loss of a mate, especially a faithless one. Angela must have chosen the angel over him.
Her cousin glared at her, his pale face white like his collar, and she continued to laugh, blissfully licking a cut on her hand.
When Troy paused, it was only to state the obvious.
“You are a ridiculous fool.”
Twenty-nine
I have often debated which Supernal is the greatest among the Three. But perhaps the better question would be: which is the most dangerous?
—BROTHER FRANCIS, An Encyclopedia of the Realms
It had felt like a dream.
Stephanie, racing for Angela, swiping at her with that hellish sword of her own blood; a vision more frightful than Troy, if only because Stephanie was human. Thinking about the danger she’d so narrowly escaped, Angela had only two things to be truly grateful for. One was that Stephanie had been too distracted by Naamah to actually steal the Grail. The other was that Israfel had kidnapped Angela and Sophia far away from everyone and everything else.
Kim’s amber eyes haunted her, even more than the Eye suspended near her face.
The Grail swung like a pendulum in front of her nose, beckoning her to take it back. Instead, Angela stared at Sophia until a breeze entered the church through the open ceiling, blocking her vision with thick strands of hair. She pushed them aside, sighing at the sudden awkwardness, the difficulty of dealing with people—even things that merely looked like people—and the pain they caused her.
She actually is a doll, and now I’m afraid.
Sophia was Raziel’s toy. His walking, talking creation. “It can’t hurt me,” she said, indicating the Grail. “Because of what I am.”
Her voice sounded horrifically tired.
Angela shook her head, examining a blackened pew. The church seemed so quiet compared to the last time she’d entered, searching for Israfel. But that of course had been because the world felt that much more alive.
Sophia grabbed for Angela’s palm, her own skin strangely clammy and moist.
“No.” Angela held her at arm’s length, wrapping Sophia’s slender fingers around the Eye again, blocking its terrible vision. “It’s better off with you right now.” She took a step backward and fingered the vicious slash in her blouse, cringing at the texture of shredded fabric. A red line, sticky to the touch, swept across her chest at a diagonal; one more scar to mix with the others. “I don’t need him to see it. I don’t need any more problems. Or anything else to—”