The wind gusted through the rose bushes. The trees of the Nightmare Forest creaked in the distance. Sam had been right: it was too loud. Ari must've misheard.
"You told me you planned to destroy it." Sam's jaw tightened as he moved to stand beside Ari.
So she'd heard correctly after all. Bile seared her throat.
Ester clutched the Nanorian to her chest and laughed. The wind carried the sound, tossing it back and forth so that it surrounded them. "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."
"Proverbs 25:11," Sam murmured.
"Good to know." Ari dug her fingers into his arm. "But what does it mean?"
Sam was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. "It means she seduced us with words."
Ester fixed her eyes on Ari. "I admit I didn't have much faith in you. I was afraid you'd give the Nanorian to the angel."
"You knew?"
Ester nodded. "I knew everything. I knew who you were as soon as you stepped foot in that house. You were who I had been waiting for, the only one who could retrieve the Nanorian."
"And Mrs. Hart-I mean, Daniel?"
"Didn't he tell you not to believe everything you hear? You should have listened."
"Daniel was working for you?" Ari frowned. "But he tried to take the Nanorian."
"Nothing breeds trust like a more menacing foe." Ester tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. "My sister placed two enchantments on the Nanorian. I believe Samael told you the first: that no Cruxim would ever be able to find it. The second was that it must be given freely. I couldn't take it from you; you had to hand it to me of your own free will."
"Oh, God..." The blood drained from Ari's face. She scraped her nail over the cut on her palm, again and again. Pain blazed through her, affirming the reality of her mistake. She drew quick, shuddering breaths. What had she done?
"Daniel." Sam raised one shaky hand to his forehead. "Tell me he isn't who I think he is."
"The man who shot you." Ester's reply was sharp as an icicle.
"You?" Sam spoke haltingly. "You had him kill me?"
Ester sighed and turned her back on her nephew. "Your murder was Daniel's idea." She approached the fountain and ran her hand over the edge. "Daniel has proven himself useful." She paused. "Nepenthe can be useful too, if one knows how to use it."
Ari couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.
"The rose on my window ledge...it was laced with nepenthe."
Ester tilted her head toward the starless sky and recited in a clear voice, "I saw a dream and it made me fearful; and these fantasies as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me. Daniel 4:5." She turned to face them, her heavy cloak twisting at her feet. "Your dreams would have shown you things. I needed you to forget." She looked at Sam then, and her expression softened. "I am sorry I had to mislead you, Samael."
"I'm sorry I was so easy to mislead." Sam released a long breath and tightened his fists. "Did you know? About Perides?"
"Oh, my dear Samael. Of course I did."
He stared at his aunt as though he'd never seen her before. "I believed everything you told me."
"Everything I told you was the truth." She waved her hand. "With a few details left out. You made your own interpretations."
"Tell me," he demanded. "Tell me why."
Ester snapped a bloom from a nearby rose bush. "This is the part you will understand."
Sam looked unconvinced. "I wouldn't bet on that."
"But you already do. We Cruxim carry the blood of angels in our veins. Why, then, are we turned away from heaven's gate?" Ester let the rose fall at her feet. She kicked it aside, scattering petals over the snow. "Because in the Heavenly Powers' eyes we are abominations. The mixture of angel and human blood is a sin, and we are the ones unfairly suffering the punishment. Your mother used to believe we had a choice, but she was wrong. It's time heaven paid for their own sins. I know you feel the same as I, Samael."
The wind howled between Ester and Sam. Petals skittered over the snow, crumpled and bruised. They scurried forward and back, mirroring the agonizing uncertainty on Sam's face.
Ari's heart seized when Sam's mask slid into place. "Imagine that," he said. "I do feel the same."
Ari stared at him, horrified. "Sam-"
"How do you plan to make them pay?"
A smile spread over Ester's face. "You already know."
Sam nodded and began to move toward his aunt.
"Sam, don't!" Ari's voice ripped its way out of her throat, thin and panicked. She tried to hold on to Sam's arm.
"Stupid girl." Ester gave a short laugh. "You never knew him."
Sam pulled himself out of Ari's grasp and glanced over his shoulder. For a split second, Ari thought she saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile.
"Actually..." Sam turned to face Ester again. "It's you who never knew me." His body tensed, as if he were bracing himself. "I meant I feel the same as my mother." Then he launched himself forward.
Ester screamed as she and Sam toppled over into the snow. Her left fist clasped the Nanorian above her head. Her right fist swung around and connected with Sam's cheek. He rolled away from her, narrowly avoiding a kick aimed at his face.
"Traitor to your kind," Ester spat. "Just like your mother!"
"Sam!" Ari shouted. "Are you all right?"
"You forget." He grinned. "I know how to take a punch." Sam rose to his feet and, in one fluid motion, drew his angel sword. His grin widened as he settled into fighting stance.
"As you wish, darling nephew." Ester tucked the Nanorian into the folds of her dress and drew her own angel sword. "This is foolish, even by your standards. If I strike to kill, you will cease to exist. You will return to the celestial dust from whence you came."
Ari tried to scream Sam's name-at least beg him to stop-but her words came out a whisper. She thought about throwing snowballs, but she didn't want to hit Sam. The garden fork. Her eyes swooped toward the fountain. The garden fork lay on the ground, moonlight glinting off its handle.
Sam' s hands tightened on the hilt of his angel sword. "You are assuming you can strike me at all."
A growl issued from between Ester's teeth as she attacked. Sam easily parried her wild charge.
He fell back into stance. "Is that the best you can do?"
Ester lunged, and Sam caught her blade against his own. Blue sparks rained down.
"And you have multiple lifetimes of experience," he taunted.
Ari's fingers tingled as she edged toward the fountain. She curled and uncurled her hands in her sleeves. The garden fork winked in the pristine snow. Playful. Questioning. What do you plan to do with me? An idea sparked in Ari's mind. It was stupid. Childish, even. But it was an idea.
Her resolve hardened, and she focused again on the two figures wielding swords.
With an angry cry, Ester thrust her sword straight toward Sam's chest. He spun away, avoiding her blade. She struck the rose bush behind him. Petals scattered over the snow.
"Don't you want to know what happened to your mother?" Ester turned toward Sam. "She died in the Nightmare Forest. Body and soul."
Sam's face paled. "You said I wouldn't see her here because you wanted me to think she chose hell."
"Children are always so quick to believe the worst."
"You said she wanted me to have this sword."
"It was her last wish," Ester said. "How could I not honor it? You are my nephew, after all."
"You used me."
"Samael," Ester crooned. "Dear, sweet nephew. I didn't use you. I broke you."
Sam stared at her. Ari saw the fury in the set of his jaw, the flash of danger in his eyes. She wondered if Ester saw it too.
"My sister didn't make a choice," Ester said. "She made a mistake." A smile laced her words. "Like mother, like son."
"No shame in that," Ari said, and stabbed Ester with the garden fork.
"Ow!" Ester yelped. Her hand flew to her backside. "Why you-"
Sam didn't hesitate-he advanced on Ester. He drove his sword in a series of strikes so fast Ari was amazed Ester could keep up. Their blades sang as they slashed through the air. Ester's eyes grew wide. Her arms strained to hold Sam off.
"No!" Ester bellowed. She kicked at Sam's feet and tried once more to plunge her sword into his chest. Sam blocked her and slashed upward.
With a shriek of pain, Ester dropped her sword. "Are you going to kill me now, Samael?" Blood blossomed through the sleeve of her dress. "Your mother was too weak to do it. Perhaps you are as unsentimental as I."
Sam stared at his aunt. He raised his sword and took a deep breath. Seconds passed.
Before Ari realized her feet were moving, she found herself at Sam's side. She placed her hand on his arm. He released the breath he'd been holding and leaned his body into hers.
"What an adorable couple you two make." Ester's hand splayed over her heart, her sleeve shining with blood. "An Irin with an uncommunicative father, and a self-loathing Cruxim."
"Not this again." Ari sighed and rubbed her forehead.
Ester's smile widened. "Dear me, you still don't know."
"Then why don't you explain it?" Ari snapped. "I'm getting sick of not knowing what the bad guys are smirking about."
"I am telling you what you are, my dear. Think about it: you used a keystone to get here." Snowflakes dappled Ester's hair as she stepped closer.
Oh. Hadn't Charlie said only Shades could use keystones? Ari's breath caught in her throat. She could hear the lilting voice of Mikhail in her head: The girl who doesn't know.
"You are the Shade that my fool sister thought would never exist. But everyone can be corrupted."
Ari forced herself to breathe again.
"I've heard the whispers." Ester frowned at the blood on her sleeve. "The Infernal Order plan to use you." She looked Ari up and down then. "You. A reckless teenage girl with poor judgement and distasteful shoes."
"Are you seriously contemning me because of my shoes?"
"Speaking of those whispers..." Ester spread her arms to the sky, and the Nanorian pulsed red within her fist. "If they're true, I trust you will have no problem surviving this."
The ground began to shake-faintly at first, and then stronger with each passing second. Ari stumbled into Sam. With an earsplitting crack, the fountain splintered down the middle. Nepenthe leaked out, staining the snow in rivers of black. The four stone figures pitched forward. Some splashed into the nepenthe. Others fell face down in the snow.
Ester retrieved her sword and disappeared on a gust of wind.
Confusion muffled Ari's ears. Sam grabbed her arm and shouted something at her. It took a few tries before she finally heard him.
"Run!"
Ari turned and sprinted in the direction of the tower. Rose bushes snagged on her clothes and tore at her skin. She cried out as a vine ripped through her hair.
When she reached the tower door, she threw it open and raced down the stairs. Her hand skimmed the trembling wall.
She came to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Beside her, Sam fumbled for her elbow. His hand shook.
The lacework ceiling rained chunks of stone, which crashed onto the floor in clouds of shimmering dust.
They had to run and pray they made it.
Ari darted across, watching the crumbling ceiling as she ran. Her mind screamed at her to move faster. She veered to the right, avoiding a collapsing beam by inches. A second beam swung toward her head. Too late. Too late. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands flew up, bracing for impact. The ceiling's silvery glow exploded, searing her eyelids. Heat blazed in her palms.
Ari let her arms fall.
The beam lay on either side of her. It looked for all the world as if someone had carved it in half.
Splinters of rock hailed down, pricking Ari's skin like needles. I don't have time to stand here and wonder. She hurtled forward. I have to get out now.
And then, finally, she ran through the door and out into the snow.
Sam paced just outside. "Oh, thank..." His hands gripped her shoulders. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." She coughed as the air billowed with choking dust.
"My apologies." Sam released her and stepped back. "You have to get further away from the tower."
Ari nodded.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out everything else. She ran across the moonlit snow, skidding to a stop only when she was sure she was out of harm's way.
We're safe. We're safe. She gulped at the icy air whirling around her. She could see the tower rising against the coal-black sky, its horde of fallen stars glimmering in the moonlight. "That...was...a close one." When no one answered, she twisted around. "Sam?"
With a sound like rolling thunder, the tower broke away from the cliff. It smashed into the ground in a cloud of glittering dust and debris. Ari felt its impact beneath her feet.
And then she was running again, except this time she headed toward the tower. Or what was left of it.
Her eyes stung from the dust. It coated her skin in a thick, shimmering layer. "Sam!" she shouted, clambering over broken stone. She fought for each breath, even as the dust began to settle.
He had to be all right. A person who was already dead couldn't die from getting crushed by tons of ice and rock, could they?
"Sam! Answer me, you stupid-faced jerk!" Her words echoed in the eerie silence.
She climbed over more broken stone until she stood beneath the cliff's edge. Rose petals littered the snow in heaps, fluttering down like tiny paper hearts. She squinted up at the stone railing. Something clung to it, waving in the wind. The wool coat Sam had been wearing shimmered with glitter-dust.
No. No, no, no. Her lungs felt like punctured balloons. This was all her fault. If she hadn't given the Nanorian to Ester...
She sank to her knees and covered her face in her hands. "Sam," she whispered between sobs. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
Ari spun around on her knees. She blinked, trying to see clearly.
Sam's coat was gone and his tie hung in tatters. Dirt streaked his face. He climbed effortlessly over the rubble until he stood above her.
"What," he asked, quirking an eyebrow, "are you doing?"
With a loud sob, Ari jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him.
Sam laughed. "Another fervent hug?"
"You're ruining the moment."
"I'm merely curious." He pressed his cheek against her ear. "Why are you so relieved to see me?"
"Because you're not as dead as you could be."
He laughed again and stroked her hair. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." Ari stepped back and picked a rose petal out of his hair. "What about you? You were outside."
"I had to go back to the garden." Sam patted his shirt pocket. "I forgot something important."
"How did you get down?"
"Rose vines." Sam held up his shredded gloves. "They drape the side of the cliff."
Ari punched him in the arm.
"Ow!"
"What was so important..." She calmed her breathing and balled her hands in her sleeves. "Never mind. Your aunt said you already know what she plans to do with the Nanorian."
"I do." Sam's features darkened. "She plans to summon the demon prince to whom it belongs."
"Why?"
"She wishes to ask him something." Sam peeled off his gloves and tossed them aside. "When one holds a demon's heart, he must answer any question posed to him with absolute truth."
"And what will she ask?"
Sam shrugged. "That, I don't know."
"And your mother? What happened to her?"
"Do you remember when I said you didn't need to worry about Azza and Thibou anymore?" A crease formed between Sam's brows. "Some things are worse than death."
"You're saying Ester..." Ari couldn't bring herself to say "killed." She wondered if Sam had hesitated with Azza and Thibou the way he had with his aunt. A small voice in her head told her if he had, he wouldn't be standing here now.
"When a soul dies in the Darklands, that's it," Sam said. "It doesn't matter if the soul is a Shade or not. This place is like a cage of tinted glass: no one can see in. Not even heaven." He managed a hollow smile. "Lucky for you, I'm damned near impossible to get rid of."
Ari laced her fingers through his. "Is that a promise?"
"You're a Shade-"
"Stop." Ari rubbed at her eyes. "Just...stop. Your aunt tried to murder us. We escaped. We'll figure out the rest later."
"Will we?" The glitter-dust fell lightly, settling on Sam's hair and eyelashes. He'd never looked more like a fallen star than he did in that moment. Ari supposed they both did: like two luminous bodies pulled into each other's orbit.
And then Ari did something without thinking. She gripped the collar of Sam's shirt in her fist, necktie and all, and pulled him toward her until their lips met. Sam made a noise of surprise, and then he was kissing her back, his free hand tangling in her snow-soaked hair. His lips were warm, just as she'd imagined they'd be. He tasted like midnight on her tongue. Like sharp, silvered moonlight.
He pulled her closer, so close Ari didn't think a breath of wind could have fit between them. His lips trailed over her jaw, her collarbone, and back to her mouth.
He ignited a new fire within her, one that devoured the oxygen from her lungs. Her body was kindling beneath his hands. White heat pulsed through her veins. She'd never felt a burn so intense. So exquisite.
She wanted it to consume her.
The moment changed without warning. Sam tugged his hand away and pressed against Ari's shoulders. "I can't." Each word sounded breathless, as if it had been dragged out of him. His expression reminded Ari of one of Ester's statues.
Humiliation colored Ari's cheeks. She released Sam's shirt and stumbled back. "Oh," she said. "My mistake."
He shook his head. "You don't understand-"
"I should go." She turned, her feet sliding on the petal-strewn snow, and ran.