Mimi stood stock-still in the middle of the aisle, while all around her was panic and chaos. She could hear someone screaming from somewhere far away. What happened? Where was Kingsley?
Then Jack was at her side, a hand on her elbow. “Croatan! Into the glom! Now! Follow me!”
Thank God she wasn’t wearing her stupid bonding dress in the glom. It made it so much easier to run. Her twin brother was streaking through the darkness like a missile, and Mimi ran to follow him. “Where are they?” she asked.
“They’ve taken Schuyler down to the borderlands, to the gate,” he said as they ran farther and faster down to the deep, down to the dark, down to the place where memory and time are no longer, and there is only the path of fire.
Schuyler had been at her bonding! What had she been doing there! This whole thing was probably her fault! Wait—
“You know about the gates?” she asked. “About the order?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Charles told me. He suspected that after Leviathan was freed, the Silver Bloods would go after the one in Lutetia.”
“And he led them to the intersection instead,” Mimi said, putting everything Kingsley had told her together with what Jack was telling her now.
“Right.”
“But that didn’t work too well, did it?” asked Mimi. No one had gotten what they wanted in Paris.
“Not for them and not for us,” replied Jack, looking grim. The Silver Bloods had been unable to open the gate, and Charles had been unable to trap the Silver Bloods, and now he was most likely trapped in the intersection himself.
They reached the gate. It was just as Kingsley described: six feet tall, welded deep into the crust of the earth. Mimi knew this was just its physical manifestation in the glom, something only they could see. The true barrier was Michael’s spirit and protection that kept the Silver Bloods from crossing. But where was Kingsley? Mimi couldn’t see him—there was only Lucifer standing behind the iron bars. That stupid Van Alen girl was chained next to him.
When he saw them arrive, their former commandant smiled. “Azrael, Abbadon. How good of you to join us.”
Mimi had to fight the urge to kneel.
This was the Morningstar before her. Their one true prince. How magnificent he looked, how lovely. Mimi remembered how she had followed his every command, how together the three of them had conquered Heaven and Earth for the Almighty.
How glorious their triumphs had been! How beautiful they all were, resplendent and soaring to the sun. How could anyone fault them for basking in their own beauty and glory? How could anyone fault them for thinking the glory was their own?
But no—it was his fault they were stuck here; his fault they were cursed to live out their lives on Earth. Paradise was just a dim memory, almost a myth—even to them—shut out from warmth and love of the Almighty forever. If only . . .
They had tried. . . . They had switched sides at the last moment, choosing that clodhorse Michael over their general. But it had been too late. . . . It had been too late, even then, back in the early dawn of the world, when she was still young. . . .
“Release her!” Jack cried. “Now, serpent.”
Mimi looked at her brother, at her twin. She had never seen him so angry, so hell-bent on destruction. They had fought side by side in Lucifer’s army once, and had fought against him ever since.
Jack leaped over the gate, his sword aflame. To vanquish his foe and rescue his love.
Without hesitation, Mimi followed him into battle.