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into something else, becoming this chain of, of … feeling that brought me here. I dropped everything for you. I veered left. And I’d do it again in a second. That’s what “feeling” does. It tells you you’re alive , it gives things … I don’t know, proper meaning . You’re still trying to maintain some veneer of independence? Toughness? Do words like that even apply to you? But I see through it, Mercy. I see through you . You’re not that different from me after all, under your armour. Crumbs, Mercy, that’s all I’m after. Just crumbs. It’s not a lot to ask for.’
    Ryan steps forward and tries to catch hold of me again and it’s reflex what I do next.
    I slam up a force-field between us, a seamless web of energy the way K’el reminded me was possible. And Ryan hits it with just his outstretched fingers. A crackle of intense, blue-white light is thrown up at the point of contact and he rocks back on his heels, cradling his stinging fingertips in his other hand.
    He stares at me, wounded, before laughing ruefully. ‘No sudden moves from now on, I promise, if you promise me something back.’
    ‘What?’ I say warily. ‘I suck at keeping promises, remember?’
    ‘Just promise,’ he says, ‘that you’ll take me with you this time. You won’t just fade out and leave me behind again. Just let me be with you, just stay for a while, that’s all I’m asking.’
    It hits me once more, that he’s the sweetest thing. But I don’t move any closer, though I want him more than anything.
    What I want is impossible. And Ryan’s given me the answer to this mess, the only answer that makes any sense.
    The thought of what I’m about to say fills me with an ache so powerful that a terrible sense of dissolution returns.
    ‘You might not need me,’ he insists hotly. ‘You might not want me, but you’ve got me.’
    That force-field, that protective shell I’ve cast about myself, I let it drop. I hold my right hand out to Ryan, and both of us can see that it’s shaking.
    Hesitantly, he takes my fingers, then grips them tight, as if he will never let me go. I have to tune out everything I can feel beneath his skin, everything about him that unsettles every particle of my being, in order to speak.
    ‘It’s the one thing I can’t do, Ryan: stay .’
    He shakes his head violently and I whisper, ‘Hear me out, please .
    ‘I never took Luc’s side in his rebellion against God. I was exiled before I could be forced to choose. So now — call it luck, call it chance, call it accident, because I will never call it fate — I remain elohim . Not demon. I still have a choice. And there’s a way to keep Luc in Hell forever; a way that will mean placing duty before desire the way the Eight always have, and always will. I have to leave, don’t you see? It’s something that part of me yearns for. I’ve been stumbling towards the light for the longest time, and now? I might actually return . I might actually be able to go home. If Luc can’t find me, he’ll always be contained here.’
    Ryan releases me, shocked. ‘You’d just abandon us to him? Aren’t we worth saving?’
    Such a tiny word, us , conveying so many things. ‘But Luc would be trapped forever,’ I say pleadingly. ‘He’d never be able to leave, never be able to turn everything beyond your world —’
    ‘Into a wasteland,’ Ryan says fiercely, ‘the way he’d do here if he ever discovered you were gone.’
    ‘This place is already a wasteland,’ I murmur. ‘ One law for the lion and the ox is oppression . That’s just the way it is. How things were laid down.’
    The words slip out before I realise I’ve uttered them.
    Ryan reels back from me as if I’ve punched him in the throat.
    ‘So just go ,’ he chokes. ‘Throw us to the lions, or whatever. Save yourself, your home. Just forget I laid myself on the line. Forget I spoke, that I pleaded with you on behalf of my entire species .’
    ‘You don’t understand,’ I say