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"You don't have to tell me twice," Sarah said, holding up both hands. "Let me know if I can help."

"You can help me with a binding spell on the window,” Amelia told Sarah. “I want it woven into the frame, so nothing with claws or a demon's pedigree gets an easy way in again."

"You make it sound so easy," Sarah said, crossing to her side and eyeing the glittering wreckage on the sill.

"It is easy. For me." Amelia smirked, holding out a hand for Sarah's. "After the night you’ve had, you're going to feel like you ran a marathon in heels."

"Lovely. Can't wait." Sarah took her hand, lacing their fingers without missing a beat. "What exactly am I powering, here?"

"The binding. Remember, we don’t want hellhounds to use your bookshop as a chew toy." Amelia's eyes had already gone distant, tracking something only she could see in the air around the frame. "Focus on the glass. Picture it whole. I'll handle adding a ward that bites back."

Sarah huffed out a laugh, but she closed her eyes and got to work. "Perhaps you’ll feel fresh as a daisy," Amelia murmured as magic left Sarah and began weaving itself into the window. "Showoff."

"You started it," Sarah shot back without opening her eyes. The glass began creeping back into the frame piece by piece. It sealed itself with a faint, satisfied hiss.

"I always start it. It's the best part of my job." Amelia's voice had become distracted. "Almost there. Hold the picture a little longer, so I can finish the seal. Or we're doing this twice, and I will absolutely tell everyone whose fault that was."

"Bully," Sarah said, her jaw tight with concentration.

When the last shard slid home, the gold light from Amelia’s ward sank into the wood as if it had always belonged there. Amelia let out a breath and stepped back to admire their work. "Nothing is getting through that without losing a limb. Demons, hellhounds, your ex... whoever. It’s solid as a vault."

"You say the sweetest things." Sarah flexed her fingers and shook them out.

"I'm a delight. Now go make yourself useful elsewhere before I put you to work on something harder." Amelia waved her off toward the back of the shop.

Sarah drifted toward Abraxos. “I don’t think that bookshelf can be saved, Sparky.”

“I can have Araton help me repair it, Little Guardian. You need all the shelving you have in here,” he offered.

“If there’s time. For now, let’s put it aside and move on.” She began directing him on where to put the kindling and displaced books.

She was a fierce little thing, giving orders about broken furniture with the same straight spine she'd just used to repair a window with her magic. He caught Amelia on her way to the next dead spot. They were far enough from Sarah and the others so they wouldn’t be overheard. "I've translated every book Heaven keeps on a shelf, and a few it's tried to burn," Abraxos said. "I've never seen that mark on her hand. You have. I watched your reaction when you read it."

"You watch a lot of things, angel," Amelia replied.

"What does the Guardian's mark mean for her, witch?" Abraxos pressed.

Amelia looked past him at Sarah, who was working with Izzy to straighten two crooked shelves. Something crossed the witch's face that put six thousand years of his hard-won calm on thin ice. "That's not mine to tell you,” she told him with a shrug. "It's hers. She comes to me when she needs help. I tell her what she needs to hear. I will always be here to support her. She’s not alone in this."

"Amelia—" Abraxos started.

"Ask her yourself. But make sure you can handle the answer. This isn’t something you can help her with," Amelia cut him off, patting his arm once like she was sorry for him. "But don't come at me for her secrets."

“Fair enough. I can’t stomach the thought of her suffering,” he admitted.

She gave him a sad smile and then walked off to finish her wards. Across the room, Sarah laughed at something Izzy said. It was a quick, worn-out sound that was real for as long as it lasted. He'd promised her he wasn't going anywhere. He'd meant it down to his marrow. He was only now starting to understand that it was far more complicated than he ever could have imagined. And it was too late to walk away.

CHAPTER 4

SARAH

Sarah glared at the infuriating angel as he worked. "Let me make sure I've got the brochure right. I survived the demon tarhounds and whatever the relic did to me. And the prize behind door number three is house arrest in Angel Disneyland."

Abraxos didn't look up from the crate he was packing. "It's not house arrest."

"I've got a six-foot escort. I’m on the no-fun list. And a curfew set by a male with wings." Sarah dropped her grandmother's journals into a canvas bag, one at a time, because if she slammed them, she'd never forgive herself. "Pretty sure that's the definition. They put it on a brochure."

"Consider it house arrest with good wards, better coffee, and a sexy male." He folded the last of the Watch-pieces into black cloth. The Tellstone went dark and quiet as if it had finally run out of things to say. "You can hate me on the way to the Garden District. We're not doing it here."