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I could very well imagine that Naamah felt something similar now.
I followed her to the small stream and proceeded to wash off the blood and grime until Naamah nodded in satisfaction.
“Here,” she said and waved her hand in front of me.
A tingle of magic coursed over me, and as the wind blew strands of my hair around me, I saw that my usual dark color had returned. Naamah had taken her glamour off me.
“Thank you.”
“You truly did amazing, Zoe,” she said softly. “I know you often don’t believe in yourself, but you successfully pulled off a difficult and dangerous act that would have been challenging for seasoned angels. I’m proud of you. And I thank you for saving my son.”
Heat burned my eyes, my throat clogging. “I’d do anything for him.”
Her smile was gentle as she pulled me in for a hug. “Let’s go back.”
* * *
We’d landed in Derdekea’s compound without issue, chatting loudly and very excitedly about the new cave we’d supposedly explored, and after Naamah had taken her leave, I’d reacted convincingly shocked to the news of the uproar at Raphael’s estate.
Word had already spread, of course, and it was all anyone could talk about. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The wildest rumors made the rounds, from someone pulling off an elaborate prank that went way off the rails to there being an insurgency led by supporters of the long-extinguished group of angels that had killed Lilith.
Not a single peep about a demon escaping, which wasn’t surprising since only a few had known about there being a demon in the first place. It wasn’t until Ithuriel herself came to speak to me that someone mentioned that affair.
Ithuriel questioned me about where I’d been during the escape, and I told her the story of me and Naamah going for a flight, which I’d practiced repeatedly. Naamah and I had gone over this a few times, making sure the details of what we’d say would match up.
And while tension and frustration radiated off Ithuriel in palpable waves, she seemed to believe me. I didn’t want to imagine the pressure she was under to figure out who had helped the demon escape—obviously, it had to have been someone who was privy to the whole thing. Someone from the team had either directly freed the captive or at least leaked vital information to someone on the outside who’d then gone in and managed the prison break.
What worked in my favor here was the fact that no one in their right mind seemed to think I could actually do this. What I’d told Derdekea in her office in order to get on the team was at least partly true—my most recent improvement in fighting skills notwithstanding, people gave me one look and pegged me as weak, clumsy, and all around too good-natured to be capable of a crime like this.
I still had trouble believing I’d done it at all.
When Ithuriel finally left, visibly fuming that she wasn’t one step closer to figuring out how the demon had gotten free, I sank down on the bed in my suite and exhaled the sighiest sigh that had ever sighed. Falling back onto the mattress, I closed my eyes and rubbed my face.
Exhaustion weighed me down, as if someone had replaced all my muscles with lead. The adrenaline had long since waned and left my system, and all that remained was sizzling anxiety, some nausea buzzing in my stomach, and emptiness hollowing out my chest.
I should be happy about getting Azazel out of here, and I was, but underneath that, a deep, aching sadness washed over me. To not have him with me, after I’d just remembered him after all these years…it pulled at my heart. Who knew how long it would take for me to find my mom? How long until I’d see him again, would be able to fall into his arms again?
And now I’d have to walk around Heaven with this huge fucking secret weighing on me, would have to lie to everyone around me—excluding Naamah—for an indefinite time, never quite sure whether the authorities might not still catch on to me before I was ready to turn myself in.
I shivered and rolled into a ball.
God, I wanted to sleep for ages.
I didn’t actually physically need that kind of rest, true, but apparently the yearning for a prolonged mental shutdown in order to return myself to factory settings was a human trait I still held on to. At the very least, it would give me some respite from this strange mix of emotions plaguing me.
I’d only rest for a little bit, I decided, and then I’d start the search for my mom’s soul. In Hell, they had directories for the souls that were brought down, so maybe they had a similar system up here? Though, even if they did, it might take me ages to wade through the paperwork.
Because paper it would be—from all I’d seen so far, angels weren’t big on switching to new tech to improve logistics.
I drifted off to sleep on thoughts of rifling through dusty books and searching records for my mom’s name. Blessed oblivion took me, drawing me into a deep, dreamless sleep…
I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but it felt like I’d spent weeks cradled in sweet darkness when I was jolted awake as someone grabbed me, my mind scrambling to turn on completely.
Before I could even catch my breath, I was hauled off my bed, my arms wrenched behind my back, cold metal enveloping my wrists.
“Wha—” I choked out, my gaze darting around in burgeoning panic at the group of angels who filled the room.
Derdekea, Ithuriel, and two others I didn’t recognize, one of them locking the manacles she’d just slapped on my wrists.
