Shemhazai looked critically at the bridge in question as we stepped onto it. It was still smeared with angel guts.
Lilith’s magic was true death magic. Even immortals were vulnerable if she turned the full force of her power against them. When I had drank her blood from the Fountain of Death, I turned myself into a conduit for that power, and I had left no fucking survivors.
“I would have made it past the bridge,” he argued, though his tone was pensive. “I don’t know if I would have been able to take on the rest of them though. How the fuck did you manage that?”
I shot him a sly smile and shrugged. “Have you ever known me to allow someone to touch Lilith and live?”
Lilith gave me an annoyed look over her shoulder, the implication of my words were not lost on her.
“They should have known they were all dead the moment they laid a finger on her.” I couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off my face. “She’s my little deathtrap, after all.”
“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”
—GEORGE ELIOT
Hell was in shambles. We hadn’t lost as many demons as Yahweh had lost angels, but it was still a waste. Lilith fell quiet as we walked through the burning city and made our way back to the House of the Fallen. Shemhazai and Gabe fell silent, and Hypnos took in his new surroundings with the sort of quiet attention someone might bring to a funeral.
Once we were back in the manor, we found the surviving legions of our people already working to bring order back to the wreckage.
Lilith laced her fingers into my hand and tugged me toward our bedroom. My heart sank as I immediately understood why she wanted that to be her first stop.
“Lilith…” I warned, as we followed her to our room.
“Quick, maybe if we hurry, we can get her back to the kiln and save her too.” My little queen’s voice was so full of hope I almost didn’t have it in me to tell her it was too late.
Gabe had been able to repair my soul because I had fought tooth and nail against the natural call of the universe to disperse into nothingness.
Immortal souls did not reincarnate. We were unique, one-of-a-kind beings. Once we were gone, that was it… forever. I had been the exception, not the rule. The combination of Lilith’s blood magic and sheer fucking stubbornness onmy part is what had made saving me possible. The moment Jezebel died, her soul had likely disintegrated into nothing. She was over. Finished. Nothing more than a memory.
We entered the bedroom, and Jezebel’s body was exactly where I had found it before I left for the Fountain of Death.
Lilith spun on her heel, her shroud of shadows curling around her feet. I exchanged a look with Hazai, who looked just as concerned as I was.
“Help me carry her back to Heaven,” Lilith begged, but Hazai pursed his lips.
“She’s gone, sweetheart. There’s no bringing her back.”
“We have to try,” she pleaded, her mossy eyes shining with tears. “Gabe can fix her. He can repair her soul, right Gabe?” She looked at the dark angel hopefully, but his face was taught with remorse. Hazai took a careful step forward and rubbed his knuckles gently over her flushed cheek.
“I’m sorry, Lil, but there’s nothing for Gabe to repair. Her soul isn’t here. She’s passed on to wherever it is demon souls go,” he whispered, and the tears in her eyes spilled forward, staining her little freckled cheeks. I felt my black heart crack in my chest. I was so sick of watching her cry.
“But… she was my friend…” Lilith whispered, and Shem rested his forehead against hers, wiping her tears away with his thumb.
“I know, sweetheart. I know she was.”
She buried her face in Shem’s chest, and I slipped up behind her. “We’ll bury her in the graveyard so you can say goodbye,” I murmured in her ear as she sobbed. “She risked her life to save you, and because of her sacrifice, no one else will ever be unmade at the hands of Yahweh again. We will make sure she is recognized for what she’s done for us.”
I met Hazai’s gaze over Lilith’s shoulder as we held her. We didn’t need words to understand what the other was thinking.
If it was up to us, Jezebel would be the last friend Lilith would ever lose.
We wrappedJezebel’s body in shadows and took her to the graveyard where the sleeping gods had been buried.
Shemhazai grew quieter and quieter with each step. He seemed to be on high alert, and I knew it was because he was unsure of what to expect.
Roughly three hundred years ago, he had returned from one of his usual romps in the mortal realm uncharacteristically angry. Shemhazai would have never admitted it to me, but I had even suspected he might have been severely depressed. He had completely shut down for nearly a decade. After years of prodding, he had mentioned his relationship with Hecate to me briefly but refused to get into anyof the details. Whenever I tried to bring her up, he tended to grow irritable, so I stopped asking about her over the centuries.
Gabe also seemed to be growing increasingly tense. He shuffled his wings in irritation as we walked and kept shooting Hazai dark looks. When we arrived at the graveyard, with Jezebel hovering before us on a bed of shadows, Hypnos cleared his throat.
