not escape Bryony’s notice. She now had no doubt regarding his guilt. This was the angel who’d bound Raphael—the angel who’d killed the source of all medicine—but right now, he didn’t look like an angel. He looked like a man. He was so colorful, so bright, so musical in his movements and everything he did. It didn’t seem right that such a person should be afraid.
“Darling . . .” Azazel began, but his voice petered out when Bryony pointed the tip of the scythe at him.
She should have killed him. She should have plunged the blade into his heart before she could have second thoughts. She should have aimed it at his immortal soul, wherever that was. But all she could manage to do was ask, “Did you?”
Azazel took a step backward. “If you understood what he’d done to me . . .” He paused and fought back a smile. “I’d say Raphael was no angel, but the idiom hardly applies in this case.”
Was this what Michael felt whenever he confronted a god he intended to kill—this weight? Azazel was lucky on several counts. He’d lived with Bryony for days and never harmed her. She’d gotten to know him. Even in his angelic body, he looked halfway human. And he was not an ophan. “What are you anyway?” She let her curiosity get the better of her.
The angel cocked his head.
She clarified. “You’re not one of the cherubim or seraphim. You’re not an ophan. What are you?”
“Oh.” He relaxed a touch, but one shift of the scythe sent him back to his stiff, soldier’s stance. “One of the ishim, I’m afraid. Only a lesser angel, you see? No great threat to you or anyone else.”
From behind Bryony, Loki laughed derisively. “Azazel, the grandfather of war, not a threat? That’s hilarious. So how did you manage to subdue and bind an archangel if you’re mostly harmless?” Bryony could almost hear the question he stopped short of asking—And how were you able to beat me?
“I had help, darling.” Azazel seemed unable to suppress his personality, even when he feared for his life. “And I’m not entirely without talent.”
“What did Raphael do to deserve it?” Bryony asked. She, of all people, understood that reputations were not always accurate.
Azazel stood before the fire and shrugged. “I only repaid him in kind, you know. Of all the watchers, I alone received Raphael’s special treatment. The archangel had strict instructions on how to deal with me, and he obeyed to the letter. If only you knew what it was to be bound. I cannot begin to describe it.”
Loki interjected. “Did you forget who you’re talking to?”
“Not in the least, Jötunn. I hoped you might be able to empathize. We’ve so much in common, you and I. Our children died at each other’s hands. Our bodies were bound in torturous prisons. We were both unfairly punished for our mistakes.”
“I was unfairly punished,” Loki growled, but he stayed behind Bryony. “I was partly responsible for the death of one god. How many wars would not have existed without you? You want to talk about the Vikings? Every weapon they used evolved from one of yours. Every drop of blood they spilled is on your hands. Then you had the audacity to bind the Angel of Healing. How many people do you think died prematurely because of that? I can name three for you right now if you want to know. So can she. You gave mortals weapons, and then you stole medicine from them. You’ve been stacking the deck against them from the moment you arrived in their world. And you don’t think you deserve to suffer for that?”
Azazel bowed his head, and Bryony couldn’t help admiring the way his turquoise hair reflected the firelight. “I was trying to even the playing field,” the angel said. “I didn’t mean to stack the deck as you say. We each taught mortals something for their own protection. Every other captain had a useful lesson to impart. What did I have? Eyeliner? My weapon is the essence of beauty. What were they supposed to do with that? So I gave them metalsmithing.”
“You gave them blueprints for blades and bullets.”
“Yes.” Azazel spoke to Loki but kept his eyes trained on Bryony. “The nephilim were hunting and eating them. Humans would have gone extinct if we’d done nothing.”
Loki wasn’t finished. “They’d have been far better off if you really had done nothing. You created the nephilim in the first place.”
“That’s an error I will own.” Azazel glanced down at the dwindling fire. “May I?” Bryony nodded her consent. He didn’t bother with the poker now that his cover was blown. He reached into the fire with his bare hands and rearranged the logs. Then he added a couple more, and the hearth sprang back to life. “We were wrong to couple with women,” he said. “But we’d never met them in the flesh before. We weren’t familiar with love’s pull. Even those of us who married out of obligation to our chief captain fell completely in love with our children. How could we not? Have you seen infant nephilim? They’re irresistibly cute.” He smiled at some distant memory. “Little petals.”
The angel sat, and Bryony felt her grip on the scythe loosen. How Michael had managed to kill all those gods was beyond her, it seemed, and curiosity was getting the better of her. “Were there no female angels?” she asked.
“Not a single one.” Azazel folded his hands in his lap. “And I’ll tell you a secret, but you must swear never to reveal it.” It was an obvious pretense, but Bryony couldn’t help playing along. She nodded and leaned in. Azazel smiled. He was beginning to feel more confident about his own survival, and he was right to. “Darling, there are no male angels either.”
“No!” Bryony gasped in exaggerated fascination. She felt as though she were back in Dragonfly’s galley, gossiping with Rose as they prepped meals together. “So why do you always appear as men?”
“It’s habit mostly. In the beginning, it only made sense. If you’re visiting a hostile country, disguise yourself as someone with power. These days, I must say, the masculine wardrobe is sadly utilitarian, but it’s easiest for me to manifest this body for extended periods. Well, I do try to make the best of it.”
Bryony nodded in agreement. “You do make a beautiful man.”
The angel’s face lit up. “I do! Thank you so much for saying so.”
Loki threw his hands up in disgust. “Well, I see you two are becoming fast friends. I’m clearly no longer needed here, so I’ll be off. It’s late. You know how to reach me.” He bent down and pretended to kiss Bryony’s cheek. In the process, he whispered, “Do not take your hands off that weapon. Beware, Bryony.” He straightened and brushed nonexistent wrinkles from his shirt. At the door, he turned back. “Let me know when you’ve come to a decision, angel. I’ll make my position clear. Unbind Raphael, or you get nothing, and if you harm her, you lose the chance to bargain altogether.”
Then he was gone, or at least he seemed to be. Bryony couldn’t help wondering if he’d become one of the moths that flew in through the open door and fluttered around the electric lights. She liked to think he had. It made her feel less alone.
The room went quiet after Loki left. Somehow, his presence had made it easier to talk. Bryony wanted to close her eyes and pretend it was Rose sitting across from her, telling her all the armada’s secrets. Subterfuge was so much easier than sincerity. But it wasn’t Rose. It wasn’t even human. And worse than that—worse still—it was an angel.
Yet Azazel wasn’t just any angel, was he? He was a watcher. He was fallen. Bryony cleared her throat. “So . . . your big crime, according to the archangels, was teaching? I’m beginning to see a pattern with them.”
The angel managed a smile. “As much as I would love to let you go on thinking so, it isn’t entirely true. Our first crime was insubordination. Our second and most grievous was reproduction. Teaching was hardly the only sin we committed.”
“Okay.” She chewed her lower lip. Angels were such baffling creatures. Could someone really sin if they intended no harm? Sometimes, awful things just happened. Surely the archangels knew that. “No, I still don’t get it. How is reproduction a sin? You couldn’t have known whether your children would be good or evil. I mean maybe you could have raised them a bit better.”
That was the end of Azazel’s discomfort. He laughed, and his laugh was full and mirthful and lovely. “Bless you, child. That is the epitome of understatement.” When he’d caught his breath, he explained. “Angels are born immortal. We were never supposed to reproduce. Birth and death, as you know them, don’t exist in our world. Individuality itself is rare. We naturally operate as . . . How can I put this? Well, have you ever been bitten by fire ants?”
Bryony thought about it and shook her head.
“They’re magnificent little beasts, you know, the way they synchronize. If you come upon a nest, you’ll find them crawling up your leg, gentle as kittens. They get into position without even a pinch. Then the multitude strikes as one. They act with one will, one mind. We were like that. Some of us still are.”
Azazel reached over and adjusted the fire. It was unnerving the way he used his bare hands, but Bryony reminded herself he was partly made of fire. She waited patiently until he resumed his story.
“When our universe collided with yours, it was catastrophic. A number of worlds were involved, it seems—the Jötnar wouldn’t be here otherwise, though they do tend to keep to themselves. I only know how it affected the angels. The rules of our worlds, yours and mine, blended. Immortality found its way to mortals through worship, and angels began to think independently. Some of us resisted the change, especially the ophanim and seraphim. Others leaned in. The cherubim found it easy to manifest flesh. The ishim had a talent for chatting up mankind.”
“Like you’re doing now,” Bryony added.
“Sure, if you like. It was never in question that angels intended to rule this world, but there was disagreement on how to go about it. Most of the seraphim and ophanim insisted we manipulate mankind from our own realm—all disembodied voices and allegorical dreams, you know. But those of us who became watchers were convinced . . .” The angel wrung his hands, and his eyes darted once to the scythe. “Forgive me, darling, it was a long time ago. But we felt a . . . more direct approach was called for.”
“Go on.” Bryony wasn’t about to stop him with righteous indignation. He was giving her everything.
“We watchers originally came to prove our method. We manifested flesh perfectly and bound ourselves to it, certain we would succeed. But we hadn’t accounted for the strength of hunger, thirst, exhaustion. And fear. Some of us were permanently traumatized from just the proximity to mortality. When we failed to thrive, we begged men for help, but they knew us for the impostors we were. They’d already begun to call us watchers when they noticed we didn’t sleep through the night.
“Men refused to help us, but in secret, women taught us to survive. In turn, we fell in love. We loved independently, which was as unprecedented as the love itself. Some of us fell right away. The rest took our time.” Azazel’s eyes glazed over with some haunting memory, and he smiled to himself. “I didn’t love her in the beginning, you know. I thought she was plain.” A burning log crackled and split, but the angel didn’t seem to hear it. He was daydreaming. It was such a human thing to do that Bryony felt uneasy watching it.
After a few minutes, she interrupted his reverie. “Azazel?”
He looked up, jolted from his memories. “Call me Azza, darling—all my friends do. El is an honorific I no longer deserve.”
Bryony frowned at the word friends, but Azazel just smiled and went on. “The moment we coupled with women, we uncoupled from each other. We became individuals. We had children with no idea how to bring them up—to be honest, most of us hardly tried—so our sweet petals grew up lost and angry. Not all of them were monsters, but enough of them were. And they were mortal. I think that was the sin that stuck. We had created mortal angels.
“As punishment, we were made to watch them turn against each other. They fought, and they died. It was torture, watching them die. And the way our wives grieved the loss of their children—we had to watch that too. The epithet watcher came to mean something far crueler than it originally had. Then the archangels came for us. I didn’t see color again until the day Ash freed me and asked me to help him bind the archangel Raphael. As I later learned, Raphael had also been sent to punish Ash for his misdeeds, and Ash holds an even longer grudge than I do.”
After an uncomfortable silence, the grandfather clock chimed, and Bryony jumped at the sound. Azazel stood and said, “Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Let me talk to Ash alone. I’ll ask him to bring your fiancé home as an act of good faith. It seems I’m no longer dealing with you when it comes to the sword.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Bryony said, and she meant it. The angel wasn’t the avatar of evil she’d expected him to be. He was just impulsive, and there had been unintended consequences to choices he’d made long ago. Few people could say they’d never made a mistake or accidentally hurt someone they never intended to hurt. Life was messy and unpredictable. It always knocked the wind out of you if you lived long enough. If only someone had warned the watchers.
The angel reached out and squeezed the tips of her fingers before heading to the kitchen and out the back door. Bryony stared at her hand in disbelief. An angel—a real angel, not a nephil—had been touching her for days. She blanched. A monster had kissed her, braided her hair, done her makeup, and oh god! What was this, some kind of warped slumber party?
She tiptoed into the kitchen and stood adjacent to the open door to listen.
“Ash darling!” Azazel tried to play nonchalant, but he was as bad at that as he’d been at playing Michael.
A second voice grunted. “What on earth are you doing in that body? A bit careless, don’t you think?”
“I’m afraid the jig is up, as they say. We need to return our hostage and regroup. They don’t know where the sword is, and the person who does has made other demands.”
“You mean Loki? Please tell me you’re aware of his involvement in this.”
“Of course I am, darling. What kind of fool do you take me for?”
“I take you for the large, garish variety, personally. Have you been threatened yet?” The second voice sounded decidedly less benign, and Bryony did not like it.
“Threatened? I don’t know what you mean.” Azazel laughed. How strange it was that she could already tell his false laugh from his true one. They were not remotely the same.
The demon king seemed equally unimpressed. “Azza, drop the act and bring her out here.”
“Who?”
This was painful to listen to, and it was only going to get worse. Bryony took a deep breath, squeezed the staff of her scythe, and stepped into the doorway. The person she saw waiting for her with crossed arms and a tapping foot was the last person she would have guessed to be Asmodeus. She had pictured a hulking, massive creature with wild hair and long claws. Instead, he looked . . . well manicured. He had a svelte figure, a shaved head, and delicate features. He wore a black suit with shoes she could only guess would have cost a fortune if he’d bought them. Maybe they weren’t even real. He was far from terrifying, so why did she shrink back when he looked directly at her?
He sneered. “I see you found your fiancé’s sword and made good use of it, you resourceful little thing.” In seconds, he was before her and dragging her onto the lawn by the front of her dress. She didn’t even have time to swing the scythe before he released her again and wiped his hands on his jacket as though she were filthy.
“Temper, Ash,” Azazel sang.
“Let me do my job, Azza. You conjured me for a reason, remember?”
Bryony was stunned, but not so stunned she couldn’t be sorry that Loki was no longer here. However powerful the watcher Azazel was, the demon king did not seem the least bit intimidated by him. Nor did he seem intimidated by the death sword, which wasn’t at all what Bryony had expected. It was like pulling her trump card only to find it had been a deuce all along. She trembled.
“That’s right, I’m not afraid of you or your stolen sword.” Could he read her mind? “I died thousands of years ago, and I’ve seen millions of deaths since then. I’ve even caused a fair number of them. I’m quicker than you are, and if you try to aim that thing at me, I’ll decapitate you before you can even swing.”
Azazel tsked. He seemed more amused than anything. “Such harsh words.”
The demon king was not hearing it. He continued to speak to Bryony. “Had I known you were more dangerous than the nephil, I would have handled you myself instead of leaving you to Azza.”
Bryony’s jaw dropped. “More dangerous?”
“You’ve made a powerful ally, and you have an even more powerful weapon at your disposal. Now stop wasting my time, and tell me what’s going on. Wait. You know what? I’ll just see for myself.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of gold spectacles. Lightning fast, his hand was on her wrist. She heard the slap of skin against skin before she even noticed he’d reached for her. His grip was firm as he balanced the spectacles on the end of his nose and looked down at her. Then he released her. “I see,” he concluded.
Bryony could not keep up.
Azazel patted her shoulder from the greatest possible distance. He was clearly still nervous about the scythe. “Don’t fret, darling. Ash has a particular talent for seeing the past and the future all at once. The spectacles help him to focus. He says it all jumbles together otherwise, and he can’t make much out.”
Ash shot daggers at the angel. “Azza! Stop speaking to her like she’s on your side.”
“But she is on our side. She offered to give me the healing sword at once. It’s her Jötunn who’s hiding it from us. You must have seen that much when you were wearing your clever little accessory. It only just happened.”
The demon king bristled at that. “What I saw was that this woman is a con and has been for years.”
Bryony took offense. “I quit doing that!”
“Only just. I still don’t trust you.”
She wanted to shout, That’s not fair! But it wouldn’t have been true. A gust of wind blew her hair into her eyes, and she pushed it back with a huff. “I’m not lying. I don’t know where it is. I almost died when it was taken. Surely that stood out to you. Here. Look again if you have to.” She offered the demon her hand, but he only slapped it away.
“Death is too bright to make out, so I saw nothing of the kind.”
“You at least saw Michael save my life. You must have.”
Ash winked. “I also saw what followed, if you catch my meaning.” She blushed, and he burst out laughing. “Now who’s the liar and who is the fool? You’ve got to put up a better guard, woman. You’re too transparent.” He stroked his chin in thought and finally made a decision. “All right, I believe you. So tell me what your ex-ally wants in exchange for the sword, and we’ll try to get it for him.”
“You won’t like it, Ash,” Azazel warned. “But you mustn’t take it out on her.”
The demon glared, and Bryony could not have said whether she shivered from the chill or his disapproving gaze. She steeled her courage and dove in. “Loki wants Raphael. He wants you to bring the archangel back.”
Ash closed his sharp eyes for a breath and a half. He didn’t scream or shout. He didn’t destroy anything. He spoke one word in a voice that was terrifyingly quiet. “No.”
Azazel pushed in. “Consider it, Ash.”
“That disgusting proponent of forced marriage is at the bottom of the sea where he belongs. He’s the property of Rahab now, and Rahab is too dead to return him. We couldn’t get him back if we wanted to, and I most certainly don’t. You’ll have to find something else to trade. The answer is no.” The unyielding way he pronounced the word no was louder than any furious bluster could have been. The demon king had spoken, and there was simply no way around it.
“But, Ash,” the angel said, “you know there’s a way. And Raphael is the only one who could begin to right the wrongs done to mortals.”
Bryony took the opportunity to beg. “Yes, please let’s try. What harm could it do?”
Azazel sucked air through his teeth as though she’d just said the worst thing she could possibly say, and Ash let out a cruel laugh. “What harm? You humans really don’t know much of anything anymore, do you?”
“Don’t be so hard on her, Ash.”
“Don’t be so hard on her,” Ash mocked. “Who’s worse, a demon who tells you the truth straight away, or an angel who offers false hope and then lets you down when it matters? What do you say, Ms. Moss?”
Bryony didn’t answer. She found herself leaning on the scythe rather than holding it up. She was so tired. Talking with Azazel had given her such energy, such hope, but talking with Ash was draining her.
The demon went on. “Well, now you’ll hear the truth from me, and you can decide what to do with it after you’ve processed it. I’ll give you three days.” He was resolute. That wasn’t a good sign. “The only way to unbind Raphael is to temporarily raise Rahab from the dead. And the only way to do that is to conjure an angel who either has dominion over death or can defeat it. There are only two. Can you guess who they are?”
She gulped. She could guess one of them easily enough, but she didn’t want to say his name aloud.
“Listen.” Ash stepped closer and stooped until he was face to face with Bryony. “I’ll only say it once. Samael must not be summoned, especially now that you have his weapon. Death will almost certainly follow in his wake, and he’s impossible to control. He does not honor his contracts. The only other option is to conjure the archangel Michael, who is . . . How do the kids say it nowadays? Mad as a hatter.”
The archangel Michael—her fiancé’s namesake—was mad? She couldn’t imagine it. What did a mad angel look like? How did one distinguish them from the supposedly sane angels who went around consuming whole cities?
“You do not want to meet the archangel Michael,” Ash concluded. “I swear to you. You don’t want him to even know you exist.” He straightened his stance and hovered like a ghost about an inch off the lawn. “I’ll leave the rest of the explanation to you, Azza. Hopefully, you don’t regret involving this soft little heart you’ve found, because you are going to have to break it.”
And then he was gone.