When I came to, I was in the backseat of my car, and my head was resting on Evelyn’s lap. I blinked hard and tried to lift my head, but an explosive pain erupted on the back of my head, and I groaned and dropped my head, which sent another wave of pain reverberating through my skull.

“Oh, god, what the hell,” I murmured, closing my eyes as a bright light flashed against my eyelids.

“We know now that you aren’t out of your mind,” Evelyn offered with a nervous chuckle.

“What happened?” I asked, taking a deep steadying breath.

“We all heard you screaming, and then we rushed in and you were being held down by a statue,” Jo chimed.

“Ah, right, that did happen,” I said, inhaling sharply. Jo was driving, and she made a turn, which made me instantly nauseous.

“Where are we going?” I asked, gagging quietly.

“Please don’t puke on me,” Evelyn said.

“No promises.”

“We’re going to the place on your arm,” Jo said, the car hitting some gravel driveway.

“Okay, that’s good,” I said closing my eyes and looking up through the window. “What else happened in there?”

“A bunch of those cult people came up looking like red-eyed zombies and tried to grab you, then they tried to grab us,” Bond added.

“You didn’t hurt any of them, did you?” I asked.

“Um, kind of?”

“Aw, man, what did you guys do?” And then I looked up at Evelyn’s shirt which was speckled with some blood. My heart immediately sank, and I couldn’t help but feel we’d just dug our own grave.

“We didn’t have a choice, Ama. They attacked us and we just barely made it out of there with you,” Jo said. “We literally just barely got out of there. We’re here.”

Slowly, I tried to sit up, and Evelyn helped me. Everything started to sway slightly, and my limbs felt very heavy.

“Aw, man, I think I have a concussion,” I moaned, my vision tipping.

“We should probably get you to a hospital,” Evelyn offered gently as she looped an arm around my waist and hoisted me up.

“Not yet,” I inhaled. “I feel like we’re really close now.”

My vision bobbed back and forth, but I was able to make out what was before me. The cottage we stood before was quaint and cute. There were two windows and a chimney, which was puffing away steadily. It was set against a wide clearing, covered almost protectively by tall trees just a little ways off in the distance. There was a small flower bed on either side of the door, growing what looked like azaleas, and the path leading up to the door was covered in an unimposing cobble path. I could smell burning wood and cooking food, and something about the people inside put my mind at ease.

“Let’s go,” I said, taking a step. I found I needed to put more weight on Evelyn to keep myself balanced, and we stumbled up to the door haphazardly. I all but threw my knuckles against the door, struggling to keep my eyesight level and have stable control over my limbs. The hit to my head had turned out worse than I thought, and even as I tried to concentrate on the door and the people inside and what was to come next, I struggled to keep everything straight in line.

“Who’s there?” someone called from behind the door.

“Please, I’m looking for the Grand Mod, I really need to talk to her,” I called out. The door opened a second later, and a woman who looked exactly like Alana opened the door. She had the same identical blue eyes and kind face, but her hair was down now, and I thought I could see a beauty mark on her chin.

“Alana?” I asked, squinting up at her.

“Oh, no, that’s my twin. I’m Eleanor. Looks like you’ve all been in a bit of a struggle. Is everything alright?” she asked, concern etched in her face and voice. Though she sounded like Alana as well, her tone was much kinder and softer.

“Please, Alana told me to come here,” I begged, looking up at her as my legs gave out beneath.

“Ama,” Jo called out, alarmed. Eleanor tsked and said, “Well, if Alana sent you here, you must be true to Azazel. Why don’t you come in.”

Bond grabbed me up in his arms and carried me inside, and Eleanor directed him where to lay me down. Before I finally gave out, I found myself feeling a mild surprise at Bond’s strength. He’d always been a lanky kid, but before I could ruminate on this new feature of Bond anymore, I was out.

 

In my dream, I was soaring high in the sky. I could feel the sun burning on my back. The forest raced below me, and there were a few deer grazing casually here and there, some other wild animals. A bear searching ravenously for sustenance. A wolf enjoying her kill. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just trying to clear my head. My mind was always muddled after any run-in with a demon. That woman’s face bubbled to the surface. A name tagged itself to her image: Marie Ronson. Unexpectedly, a dark, cold hand clenched around my chest, squeezed the air from my lungs. I coasted down to hide among the branches of a tall tree, the familiar feeling robbing me of breath and something dark and resentful bubbled up in its place. I tucked in my wing, feeling the absence of my other a little too much, and that dark, resentful thing grew larger, spread beyond my lungs to my stomach and heart. I started to reminisce on the life that had been robbed of me. Every day, every moment I was here on this world, I strayed further and further away from the warmth and light.

Looking up, I saw a vast blue sky with wispy clouds, lazily floating on. I’d watched this sky from the day I was born so many years ago, and nothing about it had seemed to change, seemed to age, and yet the land was so different. If I stayed on the ground for too long, I could feel the restless souls of the stranded departed calling out to me. Even as I sat within the tree, that grew from the ground, I could feel them searching for me. Before, I used to take the time to help guide them along, but now . . . now I’m just tired. There were so many souls, too many to count, just as I had said before, while people were still young. The people . . . creatures I was born to protect.

The people were so different. Over the years, like the land, they had changed. I’d even noticed, collectively, that they, too, harbored ghosts. The ghosts of the people I killed haunted my mind. Faces flickered through my mind, one right after the other, and though I wished they were random, I remembered each one as clear as the first time I’d seen them. Their names paraded by, and behind each name, a life I destroyed. It wasn’t until the last decade before I realized that not every single person I killed wasn’t an actual demon. Most of them were just humans that had become possessed, and this Marie Ronson was just another human who had been tainted by the Fallen, the demons.

My chest tightened as I remembered her last words. It had actually been her, the real Marie Ronson, begging me not to take her life. I wondered vaguely about what kind of child she had. Was it a boy? Was it a girl? Were they young? Old? Did they look like her? Or did they have more of the father’s face? Were they happy? Were they sad? Of course they were probably sad. They had to have been sad. Humans possessed by the Fallen oftentimes made life worse for those around them. Maybe I had done them a favor by killing her. But that probably wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t often people felt absolutely nothing when their mother died.

Maybe I could have saved her . . .

Tucking that thought away instantly, I forced myself to think about all of what I was doing and the goal waiting for me at the end of it all. After all the killing, after all the blood on my hands, I would finally get it back. That’s just what I had to train myself on to, because if I didn’t, who’s to know if I won’t be overcome by the sins that dirtied my soul?

But even if I had both of my wings, I couldn’t go back now.

I curled up on myself, that sad, resentful thing suddenly overpowering me. I was crushed. I’d tried for many years to escape the thoughts that came to mind, but in my listlessness, that bitter time after I’d killed someone, I couldn’t deny that I had killed another creature I was sworn to protect. Sometimes it surprised me that none of the Destroyers came to bring me to retribution, but Omnis was mysterious. If my punishment were to be so permanently outcasted, then so be it. I was only digging my own grave at this point. Why was I still searching anyway? I couldn’t go back to my family, not after all the blood on my hands, soaking into my soul. I couldn’t go back to him. Would he even recognize me after all this time?

My heart clenched painfully. Thinking about him brought me more pain than anything I’d ever suffered at the hands of any Fallen. Thinking about him made me feel even more shattered and incomplete than the empty space on my back. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t I just go back home and be with my people, be with my family? I would trade every waking moment of my life, both ethereal and earthbound, if it meant I could at least see him, glimpse him just one more time.

As I sank beneath the water of my mind and slipped into the darkness, something disgusting and tainted probed its way through my soul, intruded on my mind and entered through some door I had no idea ever existed. Outwardly, I was in a trance state, gazing absently at the horizon. Inwardly, the waters I floated in were rustling gently, disturbed by the knocks reverberating against the door to my soul. No. Doorways to souls did not exist. Souls were sacred beyond measure, so a door wouldn’t just exist, especially not on my soul. I shut the knocking out of my mind, the water feeling cold and frigid. There was a presence on the other side of that door, and I could feel it, desperate to get to me. Someone was waiting for me at the end of a very, very, very long hallway, demanding my attention. The more I ignored it, the louder the knocks grew, and I was already too far in my own head and my own darkness to distinguish mine from theirs. Who was this? Who was this knocking at my door while I felt sorry for myself? That was an interesting thing about this seemingly mortal emotion: it wanted to be alone. I just wanted to be alone in this darkness; I didn’t want anyone to see me, not even Omnis. But soon, those knocks turned into loud, insistent bangs, and I couldn’t ignore it. Before I had a chance to silence the intruder on the other side, the door burst wide open.

My head snapped up, that familiar fury rising within me, the completeness of it acting as a beacon to the source. I let out a loud and furious cry, shooting out from the tree, my body carrying me to the creature that dared to try to infect me, command me, control me. I was hundreds of feet above the ground, then, my remaining wing propelling me to the intruder. I could feel it calling out to me, crying out to me. My wing was in danger—my other wing—I could hear it beckoning to me, desperate to be whole. Some wretched, horrid creature was trying to take it. No, not again. I would not allow my wing to fall into the grimy, slick hands of the Fallen. No.

I was blind now, my eyes igniting, my vision engulfed in flames. My body following my soul to the half that was missing, navigating me through the air to the single point that mattered the most. My wing was nearby, and it was calling to me through the darkness and grip of the Fallen. It was close; I was getting closer, closer, closer. I tucked my wing against my body as I spiraled down and down and further still until I crashed through a building. Feeling nothing but rage, my vision burst into a violent haze of red as I stood before the fiend who had the audacity and arrogance to lay hands on my precious wing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I bellowed at the top of my lungs as I stood before this familiar Fallen. I had come across him years and years ago, in the time of the age when humans embraced my kind. I could feel the presence of my wing just behind me, but I was lost to my own fury as I focused entirely on the Fallen before me. If it was here it would find its way to my followers soon enough.

“How dare you?” I roared, my rage nearly unfathomable as recognition bolted through me. Still blind with rage, my soul remembered exactly who this Fallen was. This one was especially slimy; this one was the dirtiest of the bunch of earthbound Fallen. This one now paraded around as me, gathering clandestine followers to further feed his own soul.

“Abraxas,” I hissed, as one of his tentacles shot out toward me. I grabbed it up in my hand, allowing it to wrap around my arm as I yanked him close to me. The flames dimmed from my eyes, allowing me to see and behold this monster for what he truly was. On a heap, piled at the his hooves, was the body of a man who had passed decades ago. I wrinkled my nose. He was likely burning. Humans decomposed more slowly when the soul was still attached to the body.

“Azazel, I knew you were somewhere in this world,” he crooned, standing before me and wreaking of all the souls he’d taken. “I’m surprised it took me this long to finally find you.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance, you vile vermin,” I spat, an arm shooting up to block another tentacle that shot out from the side.

“Was that before or after Astaroth struck you down?” he sneered. A roar of divine fury shot out from my mouth as I propelled myself straight upwards, grabbing his head between my hands and pulling sharply backwards and down as I landed behind him. His neck snapped cleanly. The sound was much louder without flesh to muffle it, but he still chuckled, said, “You know you’ll need more than that to kill me. Or have you lost your touch, Azazel?”

“The only thing I’ve lost is my sense of mercy,” I snapped, pulling my arms over my head and forward. His body flew before me and landed exactly twenty-five meters away. He rolled a few times before straightening and raising his hands to snap his head back into place.

“You tried to rip off my head, didn’t you?” he asked, faux hurt in his voice.

“I will give you an honorable death,” I stated as I readied myself for his attack. “Charge in earnest before you perish.”

“Now, Azazel, don’t embarrass me like that. At least use that divine flame of yours,” he roared, the jaw of the skull unhinging to reveal an endless mouth filled with rows of teeth. He let out a loud, angry roar and he shot across at me, a sword materializing in his hands.

“Only if you are worthy,” I whispered, feeling the warmth pull from my limbs. Abraxas was before me in less than five steps, his tentacles hurling him even closer. His movements may have been beyond that of normal humans, but those five steps were more like a slow, deliberate crawl. He was above me, sword posed to pierce straight through my skull. The time it took for him to move even from the ground to above me, I could have killed him in three completely different ways. He came down with the force of a falling meteor, but I stepped slightly to the side, the blade barely grazing my skin. I grabbed the hilt of his sword and spun it around as he continued to fall. Using the force of his own motion, he impaled himself in the belly, and everything grew silent.

“You really are of Omnis’s last Trinity,” he choked. “You, too, will fall.”

His body erupted into flames an instant later, and I whispered, more to myself, “I already have.”

I could hear the faint cries of hundreds of souls as his body burned slowly, releasing each of the people that had been sacrificed to him by the false prophets. My heart ached, thinking about the torture they must have endured being trapped within that monster. It brought my heart to even more sorrow thinking about all the other Fallen I hadn’t hunted down. They could harbor hundreds of souls within their bodies, feasting on their essence until they disappeared from existence. That was the worst fate any human could truly suffer.

I stared solemnly at his burning corpse. I glanced over to the heap on the floor, and walked to him. He was face down, and it was evident he was decomposing, but he was doing it very, very slowly. Crouching down, I picked up his head by the hair, my eyes grazing over the symbols carved onto his forehead. There was still dried blood on it. Prying open his an eye with my free hand, I asked, “The soul that inhabited this living body is still bound, yes?”

The eye flickered gently, the slightest indication that something was alive within. Sighing, I turned him onto his back and bit down on my thumb hard enough to draw blood. I squeezed a few drops of the marks, and they cleared away instantly. The man seemed to exhale then, and his eye rolled shut peacefully. Standing, his body quickly rotted away, the flesh dissolving away
until there was nothing but bone left.

Standing, I looked up, and at the hole in the ceiling and the light that spilled through. It looked so far away from me than. I was in the darkness. It was then that I remembered I’d lost my wing. I looked over toward where she had run—the demoness who had stolen my wing– but I didn’t have the energy to find her, not after thinking about my failures.

I would find her again soon.

 

I was enshrouded in darkness then, the memory of that event ending, I assumed. Through this darkness, though cold and lonely, someone’s voice echoed in its confines. He reminded me of who I was.

“Ama, where are you?” Vance called to me. “Where are you?”

“Vance?” I called out, “Vance?”

I was . . . awake . . . I knew this because I could feel that my eyes were open. Even as I looked around, still there was nothing but this darkness. I could scarcely feel my body or limbs, but I knew I was awake. I was awake, and I was very alone. It was all just darkness, as if I was existing between realities.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m right here,” I answered, suddenly desperate to feel that I was existing somewhere.

“I’m right here.”

An odd sensation overcame me then. A sensation as if I’d suddenly materialized, and actually opening my eyes, I was in a familiar room. There was a dresser planted on one side, covered in various papers. It was a makeshift desk, a chair on wheels placed neatly beside it. There was a TV in one corner, opposite of the window. It sat on music books and old textbooks. A few shelves held some books and some trinkets. Crème carpet on the floor and warm, rusty walls with bursts of different handwriting here and there. There was a mattress low to the ground laying on a couple wooden pallets painted black, and on it was that  beautiful man. I was in Vance’s room, and I seemed to glide closer to him, sinking close to the ground to be near him.

He was asleep, calling out to me from his dream.

“Vance,” I whispered, my heart aching as I realized how much I missed him. “Oh, Vance.”

“Ama,” he said back to me, turning in his sleep to face me. “Ama, you’re in danger.”

“What do you mean?” I whispered, reaching up to stroke his face. I was shocked to see that I couldn’t see my hand. When I looked down, my body wasn’t there. Even more confused, I crawled around him to the mirror in the corner.

“What the hell?” I said aloud, seeing nothing.

“Ama, you’re in danger,” he repeated from his bed, speaking as if he were awake. “I need to protect you.”

“Protect me from what? From who?” I asked, scrambling back toward him.

“He’s there with you,” he said back. “I need to protect you.”

“Vance, who are you trying to protect me from?” I asked again, resisting the urge to touch him.

“He’s right there. He’s going to hurt you. I have to protect you,” he repeated, his face taking on an anguished look. I couldn’t really tell if he was dreaming or if he was actually trying to tell me something. “He’s right there, I need to protect you.”

“Who, Vance?” I shouted, frustration boiling over.

“Pythius,” he whispered, his eyes popping open. As soon as his eyes opened, I was suddenly waking back up into another body. I was back at the Ninth Branch, but I was in someone else’s head this time. I was in a few different people’s heads, actually, because I saw myself from multiple different angles. My hair looked really good. It was odd seeing myself from so many different perspectives. The moment I saw myself from the Azelians’ eyes, was the same moment the mark glowed brightly, and then I was grabbing at my face. I was staring at myself through Alana’s eyes and everyone else’s. I was angry. I was intensely angry and ready to attack myself. The rage I felt burning inside of me was barely contained by the twenty or so bodies I was distributing myself through.

I knew what was going on, fascinated by the evident dissociation but not quite able to fully understand it. I was Amor, reliving Azazel’s memory of finally meeting Amor. Watching myself, I was mildly amused by my feelings as Azazel. It was as if she were watching a child stealing a cookie from the forbidden jar, but it was my wing and Azazel was the jar. Through Azazel’s eyes, I could see the outline of the wing—my wing—from the back of my back. It was massive and beautiful and luxurious, and the perfect match to the one I had on my own back—Azazel had on her back. I could even see the reddish glow emanating from it.

Speaking through Alana, I told her—myself—that she wouldn’t escape and how fiendish I—she—was. How could she? How dare I steal not just her wing, but her very mark? The most revered emblem that marked me as one of the six Destroyer Angels. My anger was renewed thinking about the arrogance she possessed.

“Azazel, I am not your enemy!” she screamed at me as she turned to run. Through the bodies of Hakima, Simon, Brandon, and Amal, I converged on her slowly. It was difficult to manage this many bodies without completely possessing them. I could feel each of their individual souls swaying gently to the breeze of my will. They still had the option to refuse my will, but they didn’t know if they wanted to. She managed to wiggle out of their grip and hurried up the stairs.

I didn’t want to injure anyone, so I let her be.

Instead, with a steady hand still hovering over their will and souls, I placed most of consciousness in the golem they had crafted from the earth. She was easy to maneuver and control, especially since I’d left my blood in the clay. Through the golem, I grabbed her up in my arms and squeezed hard. I would crush her to death. If she died, she would relinquish my wing, and I would be complete, and I would be able to return home. She bucked wildly and uselessly against my arms, but then something odd happened. There was a disturbance among my followers as I crushed the demon in the golem’s stony arms.

“My lady, please!” Alana’s soul called to me. I paused a moment and turned some of my attention to Alana. She had been swaying rigidly to my will, and I peered into her soul, curious.

What is it, child? I asked her softly.

“My lady, she is not what she seems!” her soul cried to me, struggling against the breeze of my will, which quite suddenly made me realize that it was not a breeze, but a roaring wind.

Immediately, I recoiled back into myself, relinquishing my grip on all of them, a rush of mortification and shame cascading over me. I hadn’t been persuading them; I had been controlling them. A chill shot through my spine. That sort of control was a tactic highly reminiscent of the Fallen. I would not allow myself to sink to that level, but just as I was about to release my grip completely, there was a sharp, horrible pain smashing to the side of my face.

I zeroed in on who had experienced the pain most, and found that the wretched demon’s accomplices had now infiltrated the home of my followers. It was Marco, who was a kind man with a gentle smile that had no need to feel the pain this monster had just thrust upon him. Through his eyes, I saw the three creatures the monster had brought with her. The monster’s hand was shaking now, still curled in a fist. Guilt dissolving, my will permeated each of their individual bodies as I bore down on them with a renewed fury. How dare they hurt these children? How dare they harm the precious souls who entrusted themselves to me? How dare they? How dare they? How dare they?

“How dare you?” Azazel roared, realizing my presence in her mind and memories and turning on me without warning. This time, however, she didn’t kill me in my dream like she normally did. It was as if, instead, she pushed me out of her mind with both hands.

My eye shot open, almost feeling her hands on my chest. Sitting up quickly, I was gasping, having held my breath in anticipation of the death that came from the departure of the dream. I ran my hands along my own body, trying to make sure I was me, make sure I was in my body and not in twenty others or in an angel. My head throbbed a second later, but at least I knew I was me. I fell back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to steady my heart and my mind. That was. . . that had been something else. Something completely different and completely terrifying. I thought my episodes had been horrendous and frightening because I always lost my sense of self. This . . . I was someone else. I wasn’t me. I had quickly lost myself to her, as if she’d somehow pulled the carpet beneath me and sucked me into the gravity of her being. Not only that, I’d lost myself in her rage. It was inhuman, it was something older than time fathomable to humans. It was almost as if it became endless the moment her follower had been harmed. There was a distinctly maternal feeling she held for her followers. Was this what a mother’s love was like? Everything was confusing. Logic seemed to have left my reality when I had entered hers.

“How are you doing?” someone asked timidly beside me. My eyes snaked over to the source of the voice, suddenly too tired to be scared. It was Alana’s twin, Eleanor, sitting in a chair in the corner.

Sighing and rubbing my eyes hard, I said, “I’m very out of it.”

“You have been out for a while now,” she offered. “You must be hungry.”

“How long?” I asked, not moving.

“Since yesterday. It’s three o’clock now.”

“Ah. I guess I’ll eat,” I muttered.

“I’ve got some soup in the kitchen, just give me a minute and I’ll get it for you.”

“Yeah, sure,” I breathed. Looking around, I was in someone’s bedroom. It was plain and ordinary. The walls were bare save for a single tapestry that looked exactly like the one in the basement of the Ninth Branch. There was a simple rug in the middle of the floor and two windows on either wall of the room. The curtains were drawn on both, but on the side farther from me, there was crack just big enough for me to see that it was dark out.

My phone began to buzz, and I picked it up to see that it was Vance. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, briefly remembering the dream I’d had of him.

“Hello?” I asked, putting the phone up to my ear.

“Ama, are you alright?” he asked hurriedly. A smile slide across my face, hearing the concern in his voice. I said back, “Yeah, I’m okay. Why, what’s up?”

He breathed a sigh of relief, said, “Nothing, I just had a really weird dream.”

“Oh, yeah? What was it?” I mused with a small smile, curious to see what he’d seen.

“It was just a dream,” he said as I visualized the face he made. I could see him making a certain, dodging expression, but I nudged a little more and said, “Come on, tell me about it. You seemed so concerned.”

“It was nothing.”

“It must have been something. We wouldn’t be talking now if it was nothing.” He was quiet for a moment, and I whined gently, “Please?”

He sighed, giving in to my whine, and said, “I don’t know. It was kind of scary. I saw you on the ground in this weird desert. The sun was, like, red, and you were covered in blood. You weren’t breathing, and I started freaking out and I tried to bring you back to life, but you wouldn’t wake up. Then this guy came out of nowhere and he looked like me, but different. It was weird, and he sat down next to me and said that this would happen one day, and that I needed to protect you if I didn’t want it to happen.

“Then he told me to tell you to be careful because someone named Pythius was near you, that he was going to do this to you,” he added. I hadn’t noticed that my hand had been gradually growing tighter on the phone until I forced myself to release the tension on my shoulders and unclench my teeth.

“Pythius?” I asked nonchalantly, feeling a ball of dread winding itself tighter inside me.

“Yeah,” he laughed nervously. “I don’t know. It was a really weird dream and I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You’re okay, right?”

I breathed out silently and said, “Yeah. I’m okay. I’m feeling better now.”

He paused, then asked quietly, “Ama, is everything okay?”

I opened my mouth to respond but found there were no words coming out. Closing my mouth, I tried to think of the right words to say, but everything just seemed wrong. To tell him I was okay and doing fine felt like an outright lie, but I felt in telling him the truth, I might be putting him in danger as I was doing with Jo, Evelyn, and Bond. A memory shot through my head, of flames and devastation directed at those them from Azazel. I was silent on the line, and he said after a moment, “Ama, remember how you called me your best friend?”

I smirked silently to myself and said, “Yes. Vividly.”

“Being your best friend means you tell me all your deep, dark and dirty secrets, remember? We don’t keep things from each other.”

“I do remember that,” I sighed, but I couldn’t break the silence. Despite how much I wanted to tell him, spill it all out like some disgusting poison, my throat closed and I was silent.

Instead, he said, “As your best friend, and I’m assuming I’m your very best above the rest, if you need me, I’ll come to you, no matter where you are. I’m serious. I want to protect, and if I can’t do it here, I’ll come to you.”

I pursed my lips, feeling my heart swell, and finally, I said, “I need you to be exactly where you are, which is home, safe, right?”

I could hear the smile in his voice, “There you go, worrying about others when you should be worrying about yourself.”

“And how do you know I need to worry about me?” I countered.

“I know you, sweetie,” he said simply, smirk present, “I can hear it in your voice.”

There was a rush in my heart, and I said without thinking, “Let’s do something when we see each other next.”

“Whatever you’d like, sweetie.” At that moment, someone cracked open the door, and I said, “Hey, Vance? I’m gonna go, okay? I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

He paused, then said, “Promise?”

“Promise,” I said. This would be a promise I would keep, no matter how long it might take. A creeping feeling told me it might be a while before I could call him again, but I didn’t care. I would wait for however long it would take before I could hear his voice again. I decided then that no matter what, no matter what, I would see him again.

“I’ll talk to you later, Ama. Be safe, okay? For me at least,” he said with a small, sad sounding chuckle.

“Don’t worry, hun. I’ll be alright,” I said with a confident smile. “I’ll talk to you soon. Be safe.”

And with that I clicked the phone, and Alana’s twin, Eleanor, came in with a tray of food. I could smell it from where I was sitting.

“You didn’t have to get off the phone,” Eleanor said, setting the tray down on a small side table. I sat up slowly and shrugged, said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked, sitting down on the ground beside the bed.

“Feeling better, I guess,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My head hurts like hell but it’s not something I can’t deal with.”

“Looks like you got a concussion. How did that happen, Amor?” she asked, looking at me curiously.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, breaking off a piece of bread and chewing it thoughtfully. I didn’t intend for the question to be aggressive or defensive. It was just a question, and thankfully, she took it as such and responded, “Your friends told me.”

“Are they here?” I asked.

“No, not here in the house. They’re in a little cabin near the house.”

“Why?”

“There’s something about them. That’s what Aggy says, anyway?”

“Aggy?” I asked, dipping a piece of the bread into the soup.

“Agatha. She’s the Grand Mod of the Ninth Branch.”

“What’s a Grand Mod?” She looked off for a second and asked again, “How did you hurt yourself?”

I looked down at the soup and the bread and thought carefully about what to say. In my dream, Alana had trusted me. She had trusted me enough to go against Azazel. I couldn’t see why Eleanor wouldn’t, especially since she’d let me into her home and taken care of me. I took a deep breath and said, “I slammed my head against the statue in the Ninth Branch.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked coyly.

“It, um, moved, and grabbed me,” I said slowly, watching her reaction. She was silent and expressionless, watching me steadily as I watched her.

“Why would the statue move?” she asked blandly.

I didn’t know how to interpret her question, so I just stared a moment longer, trying to understand what she was trying to ask specifically. “Because, it was magic,” I said even more slowly. “It was a magic statue.”

“So, a magic statue grabbed you. Why did this magic statue grab you?” she asked, still expressionless and staring. I made a face and looked off, hearing how stupid that sounded.

“Uh, I don’t know,” I mumbled, looking into the soup. “She thought I was a bad guy.”

“She?”

“Azazel,” I sighed.

“The angel?”

“Yes, Azazel the angel grabbed me through a magic statue because she thought I was a bad guy.”

“But you’re not?”

“No,” I whined, looking up. “I’m not a bad guy, and yet she keeps killing me. Or hurting me, I guess. She kills me in my dreams, and now she’s trying to kill me in real life,” I groaned, blowing out a puff of air. “I don’t know, maybe I am a bad guy,” I mumbled, thinking about how my friends were off in some cabin that could probably just be a tool shed and how they could be in danger now but I was so exhausted from everything, I just wanted this to be something safe.

“No, you’re not a bad guy. You’re just very much misunderstood,” Eleanor said, her voice suddenly soft. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“Where?” I asked warily.

“I’m going to show you the answers you’ve been looking for,” she said, standing. “I see you’ve been through a lot, Amor. You’re the first to get this far.”