Lucie

"Good to see you," said Caprice, looking at each of us in turn. "Human. Lazarus."

Vinny blinked a few times before his expression cleared. "Oh. Lazarus. Funny. Anyway—what are you doing here? In my mom's wine collection, too?"

I watched with slight fascination as Caprice's wings retracted into her shoulder blades, the feathers folding in on themselves as they disappeared spotlessly into her warm, olive-toned skin. Something about the sight, the mechanicalness of it, twisted something within my chest. She lowered her gaze to the mess of glass and wine she'd made on the floor, heaving a long sigh. "Do you know how many souls I've had to take care of today? It's tedious, all these people dying. I was going to discreetly grab a drink to ease myself, but it seems my motor skills have failed me."

Vinny's expression drooped. "Was that her Cabernet?" he took a wary step forward, and after closer inspection, let out a groan. "God, it is. She's going to end me."

"Oh," muttered Caprice in reply, her eyes trailing Vinny as he went in search of a mop. "So it is expensive."

"It was," I corrected. Reaching underneath the sink, I handed Vinny a container of floor cleaner. He went silently to work, and I thought about helping him, but was too lazy to. "You could've gone anywhere for a drink, your own club, for instance," I said, directing my gaze at Caprice. "Why here?"

"But you already know why, don't you?" taunted Caprice. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear, levelling her stare.

I leaned my chin into my hand with an exhale. "Ah. So you know about Cian, then."

Vinny slowed his mopping to listen, watching us with intermittent, sharp glances. There was no reason for him to be furtive, as no one had told him he wasn't part of this conversation, yet he was anyway.

Caprice's tone sobered when she spoke next, her arms folding across her chest. "I noticed you both pull up to the Destiny. It's not far from my club, and Cian's monster SUV is kind of hard to miss."

I didn't disagree with her.

"And like I've said before," she went on, "I've got eyes and ears everywhere. I've known the fallen angels flock to that place for a while, so I knew there was some funny business going on."

"How much do you know?"

"Not enough," Caprice replied. Her dark tattoo winked at me from her shoulder, just above the deep red neckline of her crop top, just below the broad velvet of her choker. Honestly, Caprice confused me. She was hundreds of years old, looked like a woman in her late twenties, yet dressed like some of the kids did at Bay Area High. She even pulled off the grunge style better than I did, which was unfair in around a million ways. "Care to enlighten me?"

I couldn't keep the sudden bitterness out of my voice. "That's what you showed up for, then. What do I look like, your personal encyclopedia? I'm not like everyone else in this city, Caprice; I'm not your damn chess piece."

Vinny tensed, his knuckles going white against the wood handle of the mop. "Lucie," he said, too meekly for it to mean much.

"I'm not interested in playing games with you," Caprice responded, not an ounce of her composure compromised. In fact, there was even a taste of a smile on her lips, as if this amused her in some odd, inexplicable way. "Believe it or not, the last thing I want is to see Cian in trouble. He's been in enough of the stuff ever since the Order put wings on his back. As a fellow angel of death, it's my job to take care of him—"

My hand slammed down on the granite. Now, Caprice's expression flickered. "Don't act like you care! Don't act like you or the Order has ever cared! They took his wings and they abandoned him. That's the only reason he's in this mess."

"I'm sorry," the death angel began, her voice wrapped with a deadly chill, "but who was the one who saved him when that demon venom was slowly killing him? Who checked on him, even after his wings were gone? I did. I do care, and the Order cares, or they would have exiled him a long time ago. I don't know where you think my loyalties lie, but I'll tell you this—I'm far from against you. I'm far from against any of you."

"Just tell her what happened tonight," Vinny chimed in. The mop was now stained red with Cabernet, the glass shards of what had once been the bottle swept into a neat pile safely away from anyone's feet. He leaned his weight against the mop handle, suddenly appearing quite weary. "She may be able to help somehow."

I hesitated. I didn't know Caprice, not really, didn't know if her help would be any use at the moment. After all, who could do anything? Cian was in the fallen angels' grip, and by now, he might have already been gone.

I tapped a nail across the granite, the overhead light fixture a white blot reflected in its surface.

There was no sense in not giving it—giving her—a try.

My voice was low, strained from my previous frustration. "He just said we were meeting with Nick; I didn't know what he was going to do. We went in the concert hall, where there was a banquet going on. Nick came on stage, and that's when I started to realize something was wrong. He said tonight was the night Cian would make his final decision."

Vinny breathed out, letting his eyes flutter shut as he thought. "How long do you think Nick was manipulating him?"

"Since he showed up at Felix's," I said. "Must be. And when Cian didn't act fast enough...he went after you, Vinny."

"Yeah," Vinny agreed, itching at his wrist, where the parchment-like hospital band had been tied just a few days before.

"Cian was still taking too long for him," I went on, and before I spoke next, I paused, lifting my eyes to Vinny's. It dawned on me that he hadn't been there. Hadn't seen Eden walk up to the stage with her head held high, her fate sealed and her lips shut. He hadn't seen the girl who had once been his best friend bleeding out in front of the audience, hadn't seen the cruel look of pleasure twisted into Nick's malevolent face. "So he...he killed Eden. It seemed to wake him up, and he left with him before I could say anything."

The room sunk into silence, except for Caprice's confused blurt: "Eden? Who's Eden?"

Vinny was a ghost again.

It was as if he'd stepped out of himself, his shoulders slouched, his fingers trembling. His eyes were round and unblinking, oceans of vivid blue grief underneath furrowed eyebrows. I thought for a moment that I'd lost him, but it wasn't that. It was his loss. He'd lost Eden. He'd lost a bit of himself.

I reached for his hand, just to prove to my reluctant mind that he was still there. Relief flooded me when I felt his tangible fingers in mine. "Vinny..."

"I know what she did to me," he said. "I know what she did, I know—everything. So why does it hurt like this?"

"You don't have to explain."

"I can't," he murmured. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't."

Caprice was watching the exchange with a strange expression, as if she were on the precipice of something like sympathy but not quite there yet. Finally, she said, "You need a moment. Lucie and I can talk outside." Her eyes quietly asked the question. "If that's alright with you."

Vinny's eyes met mine, only for a moment. Then he shook his head, his fingers going rigid in my grasp. "No, I don't need a moment—"

"You need a moment," Caprice repeated. "Don't be stupid for the sake of something as trivial as pride."

Vinny swallowed, hard, as if the motion hurt him. I offered a rueful grin, ruffling his hair as Caprice made her way out the side door. "I'll be back soon. I'm sorry, Vinny."

I started to follow Caprice away from the kitchen, but Vinny tightened his grip on my hand, pulling my arm taut. Turning, I looked back at him. His voice was vacant, a home long abandoned. "Tell me everything she says."

I hesitated, but gave him a nod. He let me go.

Outside, the night air was sticky, the humidity clinging to each inch of my exposed skin. Caprice was leaned back against the brick of the house's exterior, tapping one foot impatiently against the grass. Everything around me seemed doused in shades of gray, blue, and black.

Caprice's eyes were dim when she looked at me, a frown at her lips. "Look, I know my little one," she began. "I know he's not going to let Nick do whatever it is he wants him to do."

I took a seat on the door's threshold, holding my knees against my chest. I acted like the name little one didn't leave a sour taste in my mouth. "What are you insinuating?"

"I'm saying we need to find a way to reach him."

I scoffed, watching a beetle waddle its way through the grass stalks. "We can't go on a huge rescue mission, Caprice. Their demons will kill us without a question. We're not strong enough."

"You're a terrible listener."

"I am not—"

"I didn't say we need to rescue him. I said we need to reach him," Caprice told me. She paused, glancing down in my direction as she picked off any grime underneath her nails. "Something tells me he doesn't want to be rescued."

I held her gaze, the lightbulb flickering on inside of my head. "Or he wouldn't have gone in the first place."

Caprice's lips slid into a grin as bright as the moon above our heads. "Precisely," she commended. "Now you're catching on."

I got to my feet, slipping my hands into my back pockets and rocking my weight from heel to heel. My blood was suddenly electrified beneath my skin, each cell alive with a new buzz that hadn't been there before. I didn't feel nearly as hopeless as I had before, and yet, I wondered how I hadn't thought of this earlier. Of course Cian had a plan—I'd never known him to be blind enough to go into something without examining each and every aspect.

I couldn't fight a grin as I thought of his cleverness. To Caprice, I asked, "Do you have a specific idea as to how we're doing this?"

She rubbed at the back of her neck, her eyes fluttering closed. "See, that's the thing," she started, her eyes opening as she reached to pat my shoulder instead, "I don't have a clue. But I figure—tomorrow morning, my club, coffee, we can discuss this. Because, yes, my little one may have a play in Nick's game.

"But he's not going to win on his own."