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won’t.”
    She hid her wince. “And as for you and Devina, that’s your business.”
    “Damn straight it is.”
    “But I need you to let me help.”
    “Oh, hell no. There’s no place for you in this—”
    “I earned the right to fight by dying in her bathtub. By being in her wall. I earned the right to be in this, Jim.”
    “No fucking way—”
    “I have to fight for the others like me.” That shut him up enough for her to get a word in. “There are more like me down there. And they deserve to be free just like me. So you either let me help you win this, or I’ll go after her on my own. Your choice.”
    “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
    “The hell I don’t.”
    “She can read the book.”
    At the sound of Adrian’s voice, both of them turned to the front door. It was wide-open, and the other angel was parked on the front steps of the house, facing the sunshine.
    Like he knew he’d gotten their attention, Ad twisted around. “If you want to get in and out of Purgatory in one piece, we’re going to need her. Unless you want to spend the next twenty years on Google Translate—and we don’t have that kind of time.”
    “What book?” Jim demanded.
    “The one that might be able to tell you what you need to know.”
    “Purgatory?” Sissy interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

    The archangel Colin sat on the river’s shore up in Heaven, staring at the rushing water. In his dirty right hand, a crystal dagger rested against his palm, and in his filthy left, a bottle of gin. He’d gotten both from Nigel’s tent across the lawn.
    The mess upon his flesh had been from his recent endeavors.
    He took a deep swig of the Beefeater and squeezed the hilt of the dagger even tighter. In spite of his being an immortal, his body could function in the manner of a human if he assumed the flesh he was in the now.
    And that meant he could feel the liquor taking effect, the exhaustion in his bones … and the madness in his mind.
    Of all the ends he had considered in this war, him sitting alone and Nigel gone had not been among them.
    Back at the time of Creation, the archangels had been brought into being as guardians of Heaven and the Manse of Souls. The five of them had been a deliberate balance of qualities, all fingers aboard a single palm, each with a part to play in the balance of function: Byron, who was the soul; Bertie, who was the heart; Colin, the mind; Lassiter, the body.
    And Nigel, the rule-abiding leader of them all.
    Lassiter had been the wild card, and he had not lasted. Distracted by physical yearnings, he had gotten into epic trouble and been banished, lost to a destiny and destination of which Colin was only vaguely aware. On the other hand, Bertie and Byron had been steadfast and true since the beginning, and now, in this moment of crisis with Nigel gone, they were behind the walls of the Manse, protecting what needed tending to.
    Nigel hadn’t lasted, either—and the fact that he had quit was a fall from grace Colin struggled with as much as he did all the rest of this tragedy.
    Had there been signs he’d missed? he wondered. Some tip-off that Nigel had reached a turn in the journey he could not navigate?
    It was impossible not to blame oneself … not to feel as if his own hand had been on that dagger when the silver blood of his beloved had been shed.
    More than half of him was gone now. The very best part of him was gone.
    And the Creator was not prepared to intervene. God had been the first place Colin had gone in desperation. The second had been Nigel’s French marble-topped bombé table with its silver tray of fine liquors upon it.
    Colin took another deep draft from the bottle, the razor-sharp taste slicing down the back of his throat and fanning the flames in his gut.
    His eyes went to the vicious tip of the dagger. Heaven’s ambient light entered the clear blade and refracted off its facets in a rainbow of glorious flashes.
    He had wiped the silver blood