Snowflakes tickled my nose and I reached up with my free hand to wipe them away. My other one was gripping Mr. Tumnus' hand tightly.

Behind me, the door to the wardrobe was open, the thick wall of fur coats being the only barrier between this world and my own. I knew if I wanted to, I could push my way through them and feel their warmth engulf me. I could go back and yet somehow, I knew that nothing would feel as warm as Tumnus' hand did around my own.

'You could go now, daughter of Eve,' he said, softly. 'You should go now, before they get here.'

I looked up at him, smiling at the snowflakes that were melting in his hair and settling on his woolly red scarf. The snow was falling heavier now, the wind catching it and making it look like a flock of tiny white birds, spinning and diving in the air. Tumnus blinked as a flake settled on his eyelashes. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he must have thought better of it in the end, because he swallowed it down, his Adam's apple bobbing inside his throat.

'I think...' I said. 'I think I would very much like to stay here, Mr. Tumnus.'

The faun cocked his head to one side, as if he was listening for something and I could see the icy flakes had settled on his face, looking like tears where they had melted against the warmth of his skin.

The light from the lamppost was flickering.

'Are you afraid, Casey Brogan?'

I squeezed his hand, not taking my eyes from the light that continued to blink on and off.

'No, I am not afraid. Not anymore.'

'Good,' Mr. Tumnus replied, squeezing my hand back. 'It is best not to be afraid.'

He looked down at me, his eyes glinting an inky-blackness in the moonlight.

'They enjoy fear most of all.'

*

The lights were flickering.

On. Off. On. Off.

I turned to stare wildly at Ethan, who was looking up at the lights as they now flashed violently above us.

'Ethan?' I wanted this to be his doing. I wanted him to be causing this. His anger, maybe. His rage. His power.

'It's not me.' He shook his head. 'Casey, it's not me.'

A distant rumble of thunder rolled over head and the walls began to shake, the floor trembling underneath. Dust filtered down from the quivering ceiling, as the first light shattered, followed quickly by the others closest to it, a domino effect of splintering glass and fading light. When they stopped exploding, the ominous thunder remained, growing louder with each passing second.

'It's them,' screamed Juliette. There were sparkling glass fragments in her hair and a small trickle of blood was snaking down her forehead where one had pierced her scalp, making her look more insane than usual. She glared at me, thrusting out her hand and jabbing a finger in my direction. 'The Endorian's sorcery has led them right here. The Angels have found us!'

'Get everyone here!' Blake shouted, his face an odd mix of panic and exhilaration. 'It has begun!'

The room erupted with noise and action, with Blake and Samuel barking orders, and the demon army mobilising as many more of them streamed into the Hall. The commotion raged all around us, everyone seeming to be suddenly oblivious to our presence, and Ethan grabbed my hand and squeezed it, pulling us closer to where Oscar and Addi stood.

Addi took a hasty step back, his eyes widening at Ethan, his fear and mistrust clear on his terror-stricken face. Letting go of Ethan's hand, I hugged Addi into a tight embrace. He felt wooden and tense in my arms, but I held onto him regardless.

'It wasn't his fault, Ads,' I mumbled into his neck. 'He couldn't help it. I swear, he would never have hurt you if it wasn't for her.'

Addi drew back, his terrified and confused eyes finding mine. 'I kn-know. I get it.' His gaze dragged to something over my shoulder. 'Case, what the fuck? I mean... how did you do that?' He swallowed and nodded to the still-smouldering remains of the Naiad. The stench of burnt flesh hung in the air, pungent and strong.

His words plunged a knife into my already-aching heart. It wasn't just Ethan he was afraid of. He was afraid of me, of what I was capable of.

'I don't know,' I said, hearing my voice break as I tore my attention away from the horror I had inflicted, shaking my head. 'I just did it.' I touched his hand, grateful when he didn't pull away, even though his eyes still held a ton of fear and uncertainty. 'Ads, I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry for getting you into this whole bloody mess, but I promise you, it's going to be okay now, we're going to get out of here. Right, Ethan?'

I turned to look at Ethan expectantly, my stomach sinking when I saw the horrible resignation in his expression.

'It's too late,' Ethan replied. 'Juliette's right. They've found us, and by the sound of it, they're about to descend upon this place in a big fucking way. If we try to rip out a hole now, we'll only get sucked right back in.'

'Or they'll tear the dimensional tunnel to pieces and us with it,' Oscar said. 'We've got no choice but to stand our ground.'

'Stand our ground against what exactly?'

Every remaining light began to shatter, filling the air with a shower of needle-sharp raindrops, that Ethan and Oscar prevented from striking down upon us with a twist of their hands, holding the crystalline shards in stasis, before deflecting their course. Pressure popped violently in my ears as the walls and ceiling of the Great Hall began to ripple and judder, what was once solid, softening like melting wax. It held for a moment, everything blurring in front of my eyes, the pressure increasing again until I thought my eardrums might burst. Then, with a violent clap of thunder, the whole dimension seemed to explode inwards. I shrank to my knees, holding my hands up over my head, an instinctive gesture of self-defence as we were plunged into an infinite darkness.

The screams that followed us into the dark were bird-like. High-pitched shrieks of rage and triumph.

I'd heard them before, of course.

In Davey's house.

In Ethan's memories of his mother's death.

The Cherubim were here and this time, there was more than one.

*

The demons' dimension was gone.

Gone were the high ceilings with the sparkling orbs of light. Gone were the monochrome tiles. Gone was the great door big enough to allow the largest of monsters to enter. It was all gone. Obliterated. Ceased to be, as if it had only ever existed as a vague impression of something real in my imagination and with the blink of an eye, I'd wiped it out. Erased it.

Of course, it hadn't been me that had blinked it out of existence. It had been them.

The Angels.

When the awful skin-prickling silence settled in after the storm, I dared myself to open my eyes and look, even though everything was screaming at me not to.

Don't look. Don't see.

Everything was a bright white as far as the eye could see. A stark, cold landscape stretched for miles like an icy panorama, and yet, as I looked closer at the ground beneath me, I realised it wasn't frozen at all, as I had first thought. Crouched on my knees, I rubbed my hand over the patchwork blanket of earth and grass, collecting some of the white soil in my palm and watching as it crumbled back to the ground like fine, cocaine-like dust. It wasn't ice or snow. It was just all white, a bleached tundra of harsh, grassy knolls and ashen vegetation, separated by washed-out scrubland. It was inhospitable and bleak and there was something so soulless about it, that it made me feel cold just looking at it.

The only colour and signs of life came from the creatures who stood on this barren battlefield and the numbers who now stood facing each other were vast – two armies of seemingly infinite mass.

On one side stood the demons, a far greater army than had been gathered in the Great Hall, with Blake, Juliette and Samuel and a few others I didn't recognise, standing at the forefront, a couple of paces in front of their soldiers.

And, on the other, stood the Army of the Angels.

I sucked in a shaky breath as I scanned the sheer magnitude of their forces, consisting mostly of a terrifying legion of Powers, much larger than I had seen in the Vaults, but just as startling, with their molten, scarred faces, muscular warrior bodies and shimmering wings.

Behind them were a wall of creatures I had never seen before. Taller and lither than the Powers, they wore their hair long and straight, a river of spun-silver teeming down to the small of their backs. Their skin was a flawless porcelain, unmarked by age or adventure, and there was an angularity about their bone structure that looked almost alien. They had a haughtiness about their features that only came from those who put beauty above all else and I wondered instantly, if these were the Dominions that Ethan had told me about.

Both the Powers and these creatures however, were nothing in comparison to the monsters that stood among them.

There were six Cherubim in all, towering above the rest of the celestial army, their gaunt, sinister faces and patches of peeling gold skin and their huge wings stretched out behind them. As I looked at them, I could hear the crack of bone as Davey's ribcage was torn apart, could see his heart ripped from his chest, his blood running in between the Cherubim's talons, dripping onto the same rug where I had lain following my New Year's Eve overdose. Time seemed to have slipped by in an instant since that night. A click of my fingers and the days had all but vanished. That life, those people, that Casey. I wondered which one of the Cherubim standing here had done it. They all looked the same to me. I wondered which one had killed Lilith and whether Ethan knew. Slowly rising to my feet, I turned to look his way, to see if he had found his mother's murderer, but he wasn't even looking at them.

He was looking above our heads.

A shimmering umbrella of light hung over Addi, Oscar, Ethan and me. As I studied it, wide-eyed with awe, a spark rippled across its surface like electricity, a flame igniting and sending a judder of blue cascading over its surface, which stretched out from above us down to the ground. My gaze flickered to Ethan, who was looking at the light as if he'd never seen anything like it in his very long life.

'Well, bugger me,' whispered Oscar, his voice gruff and close to my ear, making me jump. 'Okay, even I have to admit you were wasted running drugs for Davey. I always knew you had some obvious talents, sweetheart, but none quite as spectacular as this.'

'What?' I looked questioningly at Ethan, who shrugged in response.

'I didn't do this either,' he said. 'This is you, Casey. You did this.'

Stepping closer, I reached out a hand, barely touching it with my fingertips and flinching as electricity sparked from the glimmering light that surrounded us, the blue flame travelling up my fingers, over my wrist, reaching right up to my elbow. Under my skin, the veins lit up, a network of sparkling sapphire light that reminded me of looking down at the city at night, the streetlights mapping out the roads for miles.

'What is it?'

'A shield,' Ethan said. 'You're doing what Endorians were born to do. You're protecting us.'

'And they can't get through it?'

'I have no idea,' he replied, his face turning grim, his brow darkening as he looked out onto the battlefield. 'I think we're about to find out though.'

I followed the direction of his gaze and gasped, snatching my arm back and stepping away from the shield, instinctively reaching for Ethan's hand again. He grasped it firmly and, I noticed, didn't release the pressure.

Not more than thirty metres away, a creature stood apart from the rest of the Angelic army, its head cocked quizzically to one side as it watched us.

It was humanoid in appearance, although clearly anything buthuman. It stood with its heels together like a ballerina, its arms braced at its side, long fingers splayed and tense. Its bare torso was muscular, but more athletic-looking than the Powers who were more sheer muscle and brawn, and its flawlessly smooth skin was the palest of gold. The only item of clothing it wore was what looked like body-hugging white leggings, seemingly moulded to its skin, showing off the taut muscles in its thighs. Silky, thick, blonde hair was swept back from its forehead and its face was a thing of pure beauty. With large eyes and full lips, it had an androgynous quality to it that was breath-taking. The creature was a work of art, a painting of marbled gold flesh and perfectly-sculptured bone and muscle, but even from within the confines of the Endorian shield, I could sense its terrifying power and found myself moving closer to Ethan's side.

As the creature took one step forward, the distant drum-beat of the First's blood began pounding inside, something primal and instinctive screaming in my veins and all at once, I knew.

I knew.

'Michael,' I whispered.

Ethan's head jerked towards me, the momentary surprise quickly replaced by a nod of affirmation. 'Yeah,' he said, his voice hoarse with what sounded like anger. 'Michael,' he repeated, bitterly. 'Leader of the Divine Council. Commander of the Celestial Army. Messenger and Puppet of the Seraphim. The one who carried out the order to cast out my father.' He paused. Took a breath. 'The one who carried out the order to execute my parents.'

I brushed my thumb gently over his hand and felt his rage as if it was radiating through his skin into mine. I felt his pain too, a deep, burning ache that was eternal.

Michael's eyes blazed an intense scrutiny as he approached, drawing closer to the edge of the shield, and, as he did so, I noticed three other creatures had broken away from the army and were edging towards us, until finally all four of them stopped just a few metres away, lined up in a row.

'The Archangels,' I said to Ethan, not taking my eyes off of them.

The Angel closest to where I stood, stepped closer to the shield. This one was darker-skinned than the others, with black shadows under his eyes like war-paint, and tight wiry blonde curls closely-cropped to this skull. Reaching out, he touched a gold-nailed hand to the shield, which fizzed and sparked under his touch and he snatched it away as if burnt, his lips curling back from his teeth with a hiss of rage.

Oscar chuckled. 'Careful, Uriel,' he said. 'Endorian magic has a habit of burning a bit. Hate for you to hurt those pretty hands of yours.'

Uriel, who was clutching his hand to his chest, sneered at Oscar, his angered gaze sweeping over him with repulsion. He inhaled deeply and grimaced.

'Berith, it appears no amount of time can lessen the stench of your betrayal. So many years in exile and your mutinous intent remains sadly as strong as ever. We believed you had left Lucifer's failed teachings behind you and learned your place. It seems we were mistaken.'

Oscar sniffed dismissively. 'The Council have been mistaken about many things, Uriel. Time could never diminish the power of Lucifer's teachings, and time was all I ever needed to make you believe the lie. I've got to say, you boys have disappointed me, you really have. You're such experts at smothering the truth, I thought you'd have realised centuries ago that I hadn't abandoned your brother.'

Uriel hissed again in a way that was so snake-like, that I half-expected to see scales appearing all over his flawless skin. 'Do not call him that. The Shedim Lucifer gave up his right to be called our brother.'

'He wasn't always a Shedim, as you bloody well know.'

Oscar moved closer to the shimmering shield. If it hadn't been there, he could have reached out and touched Uriel, and the sudden thought of the shield disappearing and there being nothing between us and them, sent a cold stab of fear into my heart and yet I couldn't stop looking at them. I drank them in. Every small detail of their faces. The way they stood. The perfection of their bodies. I almost wished I could reach out and touch Uriel myself and I didn't understand why I would want to, after everything I'd come to know about them, after everything Ethan had told me. The Archangels terrified and yet enthralled me, like a drug you knew you shouldn't touch because the comedown would drown you for days and yet you couldn't help yourself.

'Your language is as colourful as your human attire, I see,' Uriel said. 'You look old and tired, Berith. Surely it is time you gave up this pathetic campaign of yours. Lucifer is dead and any real chance the Shedim ever had of getting close to achieving their aim died that same day, along with the First to Fall and his witch.'

Oscar laughed again and when he spoke, his voice was less-Oscar, more-Berith, a touch of pride in his tone. 'Only they died that day, but their legacy lives on. Your attempt to divert the path of the Seraphim's destiny sadly failed, as you can clearly see.' He gestured towards Ethan, who squeezed my hand harder and I glanced over to see his other fist was clenched painfully tight, the tendons protruding, knuckles white. His jaw was set in a hard line, his expression colder than the bleak landscape that surrounded us.

The Archangel nearest to Ethan suddenly took a step forward. He looked younger than the others, his hair a mess of dark foppish curls, his frame more boyish and his skin paler, apart from a patch of golden hue that stretched across one side of his beautiful face like a gilded birthmark. He came and stood directly in front of Ethan, staring into his eyes and his own were huge pools of sadness as he looked at him. There appeared to be a genuine concern there, a wretchedness that creased his perfect brow.

'Oh, Morning Star!' he said. 'The grief thou dost carry presses thy body into the ground. It is insurmountable. I feel it so.' His eyes glassed over with tears. 'It hath hardened thy heart and darkened thy soul. For so long we have searched for thee. We thought thy light to be all but extinguished, but I see now that thou hath languished in darkness and this pains me greatly.'

I was fascinated by his old-fashioned way of speaking and captivated by the gentle, lyrical quality to his voice. This one seemed different to the others, more vulnerable almost, displaying a touch of emotion that seemed lacking in his companions, who remained aloof and cold and distant.

The Angel reached out with a trembling hand but stopped just short of the shield, where the blue light shimmered strongest as if anticipating his touch. His fingers twitched as if he longed to touch Ethan's face.

'Shining One, how much like thy father thou art before he left us. I see him in thy face. It is as if he hath returned to us. Lucifer was my brother, and I did love him so.'

Silence met his statement as Ethan inhaled slowly, his cheek muscles tensing. He closed his eyes to it all, breathing deeply and, when he finally opened them again, the obsidian blackness was there, strong and dark and deadly.

'You loved him so much that you betrayed him, Raphael,' he replied. 'You and Uriel listened to his questions and pretended you were on his side. You assured him that you would stand with him and then you took your golden knives of righteousness and stabbed him in the back. My father felt your betrayal more than anyone's, because he loved you more than all of them. Don't talk to me of love, Raphael, when the only love you have is for yourself.'

A golden tear slipped down Raphael's smooth cheek and he wiped it away, staring at it on his fingertips as if he had never seen a tear before.

'Thou woundest me, Light-Bearer, but no more than I deserve,' he said. 'It is my greatest regret that I never persuaded your father to think twice on his quest. I did miss him greatly when he Fell, and his death was like a dagger to mine own heart.'

'The death you sanctioned!' Ethan spat, his face twisting with anger. 'Oh, you might not have done the deed yourselves, because no, that would mean getting your beautiful hands dirty, but you all gave the command to have him killed. No order passes through the Council without your unanimous agreement. Did you think I didn't know that, Raphael?'

The third Archangel, who I now knew to be Gabriel, moved to Raphael's side and slid an arm around his waist, pressing a small chaste kiss against his cheek. Gabriel was the taller of the two, broader on the shoulders, with strawberry blonde waves that reached down to his collar bone. Four lines of vivid gold that looked almost like claw marks, stretched from his forehead over his left eye, down his angular cheekbone.

'Dearest, sweet, Raphael,' he said. 'Always the most sensitive of us all. You'll have to excuse him, Helel. He feels things very deeply, much like yourself, I understand?'

Ethan flinched, his eyes widening a little.

Gabriel smiled warmly. 'As you know a great many things about us, we too know a great many things about you. The blessed Seraphim see all.'

'Yeah?' shot back Ethan, nodding to the armies behind them. 'Well, I bet they're fucking thrilled about all this then, aren't they?'

If his language and bluntness shocked or offended them, the Archangels seemed unbothered, in fact Gabriel's smile widened even further.

'Oh, they care nothing for the ridiculous rebellion of the Shedim, but they arethrilled nevertheless, Helel.' He nodded. 'The future is finally open to them. As you have remained hidden to them, so has the pathways set out for you remained hidden to them, but now you have come into the light once more, they can see everything so clearly now.'

Ethan frowned. 'What are you talking about? I know the pathway ahead of me. I've always known it. I was raised knowing it.'

Gabriel leant his head against Raphael's. 'To bring balance, yes, of course, that is your destiny, Helel, but there are many pathways to take to reach that inevitability. The Seraphim see those pathways now open to you and they are satisfied you will choose the right one. They have seen it, and what was once uncertain, is now the truth of it all.'

Beside me, Oscar cackled. 'Sweet bloody Moses, Gabriel. All this time and you still talk in riddles.'

'All this time and youstill fail to accept when you have lost, Berith,' Uriel said.

A strong tension between Berith and Uriel crackled in the air and I wondered if this had anything to do with Uriel and Raphael's betrayal of Lucifer or whether there was more to this story than I knew. Whatever it was, Oscar seemed unfazed by Uriel's taunts, in fact, in typical Oscar-style, he seemed to be getting off a little bit on Uriel's obvious bitterness towards him, almost as much as he used to get off on a bit of naked thigh and nipple tassels.

'I've lost nothing,' Oscar grinned.

Michael, who had remained silent throughout this whole confusing exchange, suddenly stepped forward, his face impassive as he approached the shield. The other Archangels drew back, inclining their heads in deference to their leader, in a gesture that seemed stilted and archaic. Stopping just on front of Ethan, where Raphael had stood just moments before, Michael again tilted his head to one side as he studied him. Unlike his boyish brother, there was not one hint of emotion on his face, just a blank page that portended an unhappy ending.

Of all the Archangels, Michael terrified me the most. Not once had he cast his gaze my way, not once had he even acknowledged my presence, and yet I still felt threatened by him in a way that clawed at my frayed composure. I caught a sense that his indifference towards me was fake, that he was trying really bloody hard to pretend I wasn't even there, while all the time, he just wanted to lean forward and spit in my face. I realised then that I didn't want him to acknowledge me, I didn't want Michael's attention, because I had a feeling his attention wouldn't be pleasant one fucking bit.

'On the contrary, Shedim,' Michael said, making it sound so much like an insult that even Oscar flinched. 'You have lost everything, and you fail to see it. You did always fail to see, Berith. Always so blinkered, always so blind to the truth, but fear not, for the truth is here now and you will see.'

He hadn't taken his eyes off Ethan the whole time he'd been addressing Oscar, and I realised, Ethan hadn't taken his eyes off Michael. They remained there, locked into each other's gaze, locked in some silent exchange between only the two of them that I couldn't possibly understand.

'Helel, son of Lucifer, son of the Cursed, son of the First to Fall, how greatly I have anticipated the day that you would return to us.'

'So that you can kill me like you did my parents?' Ethan's voice was tight, controlled, but I felt his rage inside, like a wave endlessly crashing against the rocks.

Michael's brow rose. 'It is not our instruction to destroy you, Helel.'

'You really expect me to believe that?' Ethan said. 'My father was cast out because of the son he would go on to have. He was killed because of me. My mother was killed because of me. But neither of them was the intended target. I was, Michael. Me. Your agents have pursued me my whole life. I couldn't breathe without fearing one would hear my breath and discover me. I could barely move without feeling the noose around my neck. You bring your whole army to this place and expect me to believe that you're not here to kill me?'

A flicker of amusement passed across Michael's face, the first crack in his porcelain exterior. 'Helel, my Army is not here for you. What is the human saying? Two birds, one stone. We will crush the Shedim, but that is incidental to our true mission. We are not here to kill you, but to grant you your father's place at our side.'

'W-what?' Ethan shook his head, his eyes wide. 'No... you've tried to kill me before. So many fucking times that I've lost count. You don't just suddenly change your mind. You don't get up one day and say, oh, what shall we do today? Shall we try and kill Helel? No, actually, why don't we just invite him over for a fucking party? That's not the way it works, Michael. The Seraphim want me dead, they always have.'

'Correction: The Seraphim wanted you dead,' Michael replied. 'That is no longer the pathway for you. Your pathway lies with us and with you taking your father's place on the Divine Council. That is how you will achieve the balance you were born to create, Helel. That is how you will achieve what your destiny has set out for you.'

'Ethan,' Oscar said, his voice low and full of warning. 'Come on now, boy, you know they're lying. This is just one of their tricks.'

Ethan hesitated, then swallowed, not taking his eyes off of Michael. 'No,' he whispered. 'No, they're not. They're telling the truth. I can feel it. They're offering me a seat. My father's seat. They mean it.'

'Why?' said Oscar, turning on Michael. 'Why now? What's changed? The boy's right. You've spent centuries looking for him. You've ripped apart whole dimensions hunting him. I should know, I've bloody protected him his whole life. I devoted my entire miserable existence to stopping you from finding him. The Seraphim know what a threat he is. You can't tell me they've just decided to forget what he is. Who he is.'

Michael sighed and stepped closer to the shield, closer to Ethan. 'We know who you are, Morning Star. We have always known. Once, your pathway was closed to us. The Seraphim could see only one possibility, one future and that future posed nothing but darkness for them and in turn, led to nothing but darkness for you. I will not pretend to understand human emotion - my brother Raphael is the only one among us who truly comprehends it - but he tells me that loneliness and grief does terrible things to the human soul. It scars in a way that physical pain never could. Your scars have opened up pathways we could never have possibly imagined for you, Helel. The Seraphim have seen this. They see you now in a way they never could before, and they see that you do not have to die today. You yearn for what you have lost. You yearn for the light your father possessed, a light that only comes from the Angels. You know this to be true. We can give you that light, Shining One. We can heal you.'

The release of pressure on my hand was slight, but I felt it as Ethan relaxed his grip, and I ripped my gaze from Michael to look up into Ethan's face, panic hitting me like an air-raid siren tearing me from my sleep. Ethan was staring at Michael, lost in whatever world the Archangel's hypnotic words had conjured up in his head and instantly I saw the uncertainty in his eyes and the pain and the yearning.

Fuck, the yearning.

It wasthere and whatever it was, whatever it meant, I didn't like it and all at once I hated myself. Hated that he might want something other than me. Hated that I could be so selfish and needy and jealous. Hated that I might not be good enough and why the fuck should I be, compared to Archangels and all the beauty and perfection they had to offer?

My heart sank, dragging the dead weight of hope into the depths with it as Ethan looked at each one of the Archangels in turn, his mouth dropping open as if in awe, until finally his gaze came to rest on Uriel, who, unlike the others, was not looking at Ethan, but at me, his mouth turned up in a cruel, triumphant smile that sent chills cascading down my spine.

Ethan blinked, and took a breath that seemed to rock his whole body back on his heels.

He exhaled a short, breathy laugh, exuded a brief glimmer of hurt in his eyes, before slowly turning to face Michael again. Lifting his chin, he gave a wry smile.

'Fuck,' he said, shaking his head in disbelief. 'You almost got me then, didn't you? I've got to hand it to you, Michael. My father always said you had a special way of persuading others to think as you did, even persuaded him at times and I've got to be honest, I thought you sounded like a fucking charlatan to me. You know, one of those fakes that used to go around conning poor bastards into believing they could contact the dead or selling supposed plague cures to idiot villagers. Or you know, like that other one that worked for you, making out he was the son of God and put here to rid humanity of their sins. I just figured you were like that, but you're not.' He laughed again and rolled his eyes. 'You know, if Lucifer was here right now, he'd point his finger at me and say, I fucking told you, son. You're good, Michael, I'll give you that.'

He looked back at Uriel. 'But you... you, Uriel, you're the fucking kink in the chain, aren't you? You just can't help yourself.'

'I have not lied to you, Helel,' Michael said.

'No, you haven't,' Ethan replied, a hint of sadness creeping into his face. 'I know that. I believe what you said. I believe there's a place for me by your side. I believe there's a future where my death at your hands is no longer a possibility. And I don't just need your words to convince me, because I can feel it, Michael. I can feel it. But that's the problem isn't it? That's my curse, right? Because I see, and  I feel.'

Letting go of my hand, Ethan pulled me against him, wrapping his arm tightly around my waist.

'And I feel Uriel's hatred for her and for the baby she carries, more than I feel anything right now. You might have a place for me on the Council, Michael, but you don't have a place for her in this world of yours. And yeah, I do have scars, you're right about that too. But I don't need you to heal them for me, because I have her. I have them both. I don't need anything else, not even your promise of Paradise, because for all its beauty, your Paradise isn't real. It never has been.'

Thunder rippled in the bleak white skies overhead, a disembodied noise that sounded like a ghostly call to arms. Craning their necks as if in answer to the thunder, the Cherubim stretched out their huge wings and screeched, their bird-like screams echoing across the battlefield, as Michael took a step back, his once impassive face now full of a simmering rage.

'I had hoped for better, Helel, but Raphael is right,' he said. 'You are so much like your father. Such arrogance. Such lack of vision. What a pity that you possess his weakness for Endorians too. The witch is an abomination, as is the creature which she carries, but worry not. We shall tear it from her womb, just as we shall tear her from your heart.'

Then, in a synchronised move that terrified me, all four of the Archangels raised their heads to the skies and screamed, just as the Cherubim had screamed. When the lightning hit each one in turn, I turned my head away, pressing my face against Ethan's chest to shield my eyes from the blinding white light. When I looked again, I gasped out loud, clutching onto him as if my legs might give way.

From the back of each Archangel, huge wings of blazing fire beat furiously at the air. I could see the feathers beneath the flames, layers of golden silk amidst the firestorm.

'Casey, look at me,' Ethan said urgently, touching his fingertips to my chin and forcing me to focus on him. 'Don't be scared. Don't give them your fear.'

He smiled, the amber light in the centre of his irises burning brightly. Pressing his mouth against my own, he kissed me hard, his tongue finding mine, before drawing back to look into my bewildered, frightened eyes.

'I love you,' he whispered. 'I love you both. When I say the word, lower the shield.'

'What?' I gasped. 'No! I won't!' I shook my head. 'You can't ask me to do that.'

He kissed me again. 'It'll be okay. Trust me, yeah?'

Taking my hand in his, he turned back to face the Archangels, smiling as he looked at each one in turn.

'Are you ready?' he said to them. 'I hope so.'

The dark, inky shadows snaked down his cheekbones, as he grinned at them.

'Because I'm going to kill you all now.'