ears and saying I can’t hear you. Anything to tune out the idea that anything could go wrong at all.
I knew it, and yet I couldn’t help myself.
“Nothing will go wrong,” I said, my voice rasping despite myself. “How much have we gone through together? I know everyone thinks there’s a chance everything will fall apart, but I can’t let go of the Oracle’s words. She told me everything would be fine if we made a leap of faith, but maybe she meant more than one. And even if we have to take a thousand leaps of faith, I’ll happily jump every single time.”
Tascius nodded slowly, his eyes dark.
“Every. Single. Time,” I added, pushing my index finger into his chest to make my point. “For every single one of you. I would do the exact same thing if you were gone, Tascius.”
For good measure, I flipped my hand over, displaying the mate mark on my wrist that looked like a halo with spears of light emanating from it. The thin moonlight chain ran straight from me to Tascius. “Can you see this?” I demanded.
“The mark? Yes,” he said, looking nonplussed.
I shook my head. “Not just the mark. There’s a chain coming from it, linking me to you. I see them for Azazel, Belial, and Lucifer, too. As long as I can follow that chain, everything will be fine.”
Tascius leaned down to kiss me, his lips soft, warm, and reassuring against mine. For a moment I forgot we were standing in the Ninth Circle, that danger lurked all around…
Then a raven shrieked overhead, sounding more like a chorus of birds than a single one. Azazel wasn’t happy with us lingering here.
Tascius broke away with a rueful smile. “Let’s take this home.”
I nodded and let him lift me into the sky again, resolving to pour more magic into my wings tonight. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn’t, but I’d go insane if I had to be carried everywhere.
A flash of white and gold caught my eye as we reached the Seventh Circle. Michael was lounging on the roof, taking in all of Dis with great interest.
Tascius and I touched down near him, and then I remembered- Tascius was supposed to be training with him again as soon as we’d returned. I felt a pang of annoyance that I had to share him with the archangel all the time, but, as I reminded myself, it’d been my idea in the first place.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was losing him. That I was losing everything, and I just didn’t know it yet.
I pushed the feeling aside. Having faith in us was the priority, not dwelling on things that hadn’t happened yet.
But while looking at Michael’s golden wings, his Heaven-perfected flawless visage, a question sprang out of my mouth.
“Why was Gabriel able to hold the Sword?”
I didn’t understand. Gabriel had been full of rot and corruption, self-serving, evil… and still the Sword had allowed him to hold it. It could’ve chosen to incinerate him on the spot. It could’ve filled him with so much light he would’ve exploded from the intensity of it like a supernova.
Michael looked over at me, a vague sort of interest kindling in his eyes. “Who the Hell knows? Maybe it was one of God’s little jokes.”
“God’s… jokes?” I asked blankly. What about this could possibly be a joking matter?
“Yeah.” He shrugged, dislodging a lock of blond hair. “Like the platypus. Who else would come up with something like that?”
Was he capable of taking anything seriously? I was almost convinced steam was about to gush out of my ears when he laughed, taking a swig of whiskey as soon as the sound died out.
“I have no idea, sister. When I had moments of consciousness down there in that hellhole, I asked myself the same thing thousands of times. Why was Gabriel given something he wasn’t worthy of? Beats the fuck out of me. And for all the time I spent thinking on it, all I came up with was that maybe it was supposed to be here the entire time. He was just the messenger boy.”
My breath caught in my throat. The vision of the Chain and its web-like structure sprang back to my mind, everything connected above and below.
Maybe it was just another link in the Chain. The Sword was only here because Gabriel betrayed God and his own brothers, and because he raised me from death on a selfish whim, and because he pushed me