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“Your past experience notwithstanding,” Naamah said, nodding at my glass, “this is perfectly fine for you to drink now. Believe me, it’ll help.”
I brought the glass to my lips and took a sip. The liquid prickled and warmed as it slid down my throat, the taste sweet with an edge.
Unlike last time I’d ingested amrit, it didn’t go straight to my head and fuck up my entire system. Instead, it only gave me a slight buzz, like a good wine. All right, this I could handle.
Naamah had summoned a glass for herself, too, and was sipping from it, her gaze on me pensive. “I know you’ll be impatient and want to storm in wherever he’s being held, but we only have one shot at this, and it must be well prepared. I’ve done the preliminary prep already, as much as was possible before he was even captured, but there are still a few wrinkles we need to iron out.”
My fingers tightened on my glass. “I don’t even know where they took him. Maybe in Derdekea’s dungeon? Or Dahariel’s?”
Naamah clucked her tongue and shook her head. “He won’t be with Dahariel. A smarter angel would have kept a demon invader under lock and key in his own mansion, made sure to have found out what kind of security leaks the demon took advantage of, and then patched those leaks before alerting his superiors, lest he lose his position of power as punishment for neglecting to keep his territory safe. But Dahariel is… How to put this delicately?” She tapped a finger against her lips and pretended to ponder the question. “He’s not the fastest flyer in the squad, if you catch my drift. He’s also a loyalist through and through, and he’ll have reported this to Raphael right away. Probably thinks he’ll be praised for catching a demon in his territory.” She shrugged. “He might be a seraph, but power, alas, does not equal intelligence.”
I raised my brows, impressed by her insider knowledge. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised—this was what Naamah did, and what she excelled at. Hidden behind her reputation as an eccentric troublemaker was a keen sense of reading people, as well as a vast network of spies and informants. And if she’d indeed organized Azazel’s stay here in Heaven over a long time of meticulous preparation, she’d have made sure to gather intel about all of the important angels in the territory he’d be hiding in, since that would be most likely where he’d be caught.
“No,” Naamah said, pulling me out of my thoughts, “Azazel will be in Raphael’s grasp. As soon as Dahariel told him, he’d have seized control of the situation and taken Azazel to a location close to his home. And he’ll keep it very quiet. I haven’t heard a peep about this before you told me just now, which goes to show how tight a lid Raphael is keeping on this.”
“Why?” I’d have thought the discovery of a demon trespasser in Heaven, which had never happened before, would be the biggest news ever, spreading through the gossip grapevine like wildfire. “Isn’t this something that concerns all of Heaven? I’d imagine the other archangels would be interested in getting to the bottom of this.”
“Oh, they absolutely would.” Her grin let her eyes sparkle. “Which is precisely why Raphael won’t tell them.”
“Huh?”
“Politics, my dear.” She took a sip of her drink. “It’s all about optics and reputation and controlling the narrative. What does it say about the competence of an archangel when the only case of a demon ever sneaking into Heaven happened on their turf? What I told you about Dahariel also applies to Raphael, with the difference being that Raphael is a whole lot smarter than Dahariel. Which means Raphael wants to make sure no word of a demon infiltrating his territory will make it to the other archangels before he has found out how that demon did it and can fix whatever needs fixing in his security measures. Otherwise, the other archangels might have cause to remove him from his position.”
“They could do that?”
She nodded. “Holding a certain rank is not just about power. With an archangel in particular, their standing and claim to their position can be dependent on how well the other archangels accept them. Not to mention Metatron and Shekinah may step in to calm an uproar about hierarchy.”
I raised my brows and pressed my lips together at that. The two topmost angels in Heaven—even more powerful and influential than the archangels—rarely showed themselves, let alone got involved in day-to-day dealings of politics and such. From what I’d heard, they’d been directly appointed as God’s proxies once upon a time, before God had withdrawn somewhere beyond reach. Rumor had it that God was still in the realm of Heaven, his divine energy flowing through every part of this world, but that he’d retreated to a closed-off dominion that not even Metatron and Shekinah could enter.
They’d been ruling Heaven in his stead for millennia, kind of like the supreme power couple. I’d never met them, and I’d rather not draw their scrutiny.
“So, if Raphael has Azazel in his dungeon,” I said, bringing the conversation back to the important aspects, “how do we get him out? I can only imagine how tight the security will be.”
Naamah laughed. “Oh, honey, we don’t have dungeons up here.”
I blinked at her.
She gave me an indulgent smile. “I like how much of Hell is still in you. No, there are no dungeons in Heaven because angels, in general, are not a rule-breaking bunch. The few transgressions that do happen do not warrant anything like jail time. We punish our own by revoking privileges, demoting them, and giving them the most god-awful tasks.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. She was…right. In all my time up here, I’d never heard of anyone being sentenced to a prison of any sort. But punishments relating to rank were quite common.
“Anyway,” Naamah continued, “I have a good idea where Raphael would put someone he’d want to torture for information without it drawing attention—his soul stables.”
“What?”
She tilted her head. “Think about it. Buildings with thousands of individual rooms for each soul in his care, and every chamber is magically sealed and soundproof in order for the afterlife projections not to interfere with each other. It’s the best place to stuff a demon whose screams of pain from the interrogation you need to hide because you want to keep his existence on a need-to-know basis.”
I winced at the mental picture she’d painted, my heart unable not to feel the suffering I could all too well imagine. I swallowed hard. “You seem so detached, the way you talk about this.”
“What good would it do to let my heart bleed right now, Zoe?” Her features were hard. “What use would it be to him if I let emotion fuck up the clarity I need to plan the necessary steps to free him? He is much better served by cool detachment that gets the fucking job done than by my weeping.”
I took a deep breath, letting her words hit the parts of me that were about to fall into panic yet again, allowing her rebuke to harden me. “You’re right.”
She gave a single nod of acknowledgment. “I strongly suspect Raphael keeps him in one of his stables somewhere, but I don’t have confirmation of where exactly. I have loyal people in Raphael’s employ, and things are set up for distractions and weakening security if I give the signal, but we need to know in which stable Azazel is being held. That was one of the wrinkles I still needed to iron out in my plan, but what you told me earlier should facilitate that.”
I sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
Leaning forward, she pinned me with a look. “You said they think you apprehended him?”
