She watched me and the look on her face told me that she understood what I meant. “This trip won’t be like the last one, will it?” she asked, her voice weighted with sadness.

I was quiet for a moment. I wanted to be honest with her, but I didn’t want to worry her. If I died, I didn’t want Kate’s last memory of me to be a sad one. “No,” I replied.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“I might not come back this time,” I confessed and bit the tip of my tongue to keep my composure. “The best-case scenario is that we find this ring, the Pentalpha, and summon the angel who’s defeated Sammael before. If this angel can’t or won’t fight, then we will need another angel. Me.”

“You’ll become an archangel again?”

I nodded. “There’s a weapon that can kill the Fallen, but only another angel can wield it. But if I do, then all of that power will toast my human body.”

Her lips parted and she shook her head in disbelief. “But if you’re killed, you’ll just come back. You’ll be reincarnated again.”

“We have no way of knowing for sure, if I die an archangel,” I said. “When an angel dies, that’s it. It’s the same for reapers. They just end. Heaven is for human souls.”

A glimmer of hope shone in her eyes. “But you have a human soul.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So we don’t know what would happen to me.”

“At least there’s a possibility that you would come back,” Kate said. “Or maybe you would go to Heaven. I don’t want you to die, though. I’d miss you too much. And I’d have no one left to tease.”

“You’ve got Marcus to harass,” I offered.

She made a little face. “Yeah, but I need my best friend more.”

I smiled at her. “It’ll be okay. Everything always works out somehow.”

“I guess so,” she said. “Will you be you after becoming an angel again?”

“I’ll still be me,” I promised, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

“Wings would be cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Hard to fit through doors, though. And you’d go through shirts like popcorn, like Will does.”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

We fell silent for a few moments. our movie was still going, but neither of us was really watching it. We were both lost in our thoughts.

Kate drew a quivering breath as if she were trying not to cry. “I don’t want this to be the last time I see you.”

“If it isn’t, then the first thing we do when I get back is go shopping,” I said. “And then we’ll go on a trip. I feel like saving the world should get us a week in the Caribbean at least.”

“At least,” she agreed. “We’ll take the boys, lie out on an island beach somewhere, make them fan us with palm leaves—no, their wings. I’ll bet my right boob no princess or A-list celebrity has ever been fanned by wings before. We’re so legit.”

“The most legit.”

Kate’s mischievous grin brightened her face. “You know, with that warrior-servant-thing you and Will have got going on, you could do some pretty kinky—”

“Kate!”

She started laughing so hard that she was gasping for air. “I’m kidding! Well, kind of. But you know I only say this stuff to make your face turn into a tomato, right? It’s a hobby.”

I glowered at her. “I had a strong suspicion.”

She pinched my cheek. “You’re so vanilla. I adore you.”

“I’m going to miss you, girl,” I told her.

She sighed and gave me a soft smile. “I’ll miss you too.”

20

THE JOURNEY TO BELGIUM WAS A LONG AND TIRING one, but as soon as our plane pulled into the terminal in Brussels, I felt a new life and new determination in me. I’d gotten a few hours of sleep during the flight, so I was rested enough to meet the rest of our team right away. Ava and Marcus traveled together and Cadan had to wait until nightfall to fly. We rented a small car and headed to the café where we’d planned to rendezvous before making our first move to locate the Pentalpha. The café was busy and had enough ambient sound that we wouldn’t be overheard by anyone without superfreak reaper hearing abilities. Not to mention, my coffee was incredible.

Ava splayed a map over the table between us. She took a pen and circled a district in Brussels and the town of Liege, about an hour’s drive away. “I know of two relic guardians in Belgium,” Ava said. “Neither of them protects the Pentalpha, but they may be able to give us leads about the identity or location of the guardian who does. Maeghan is local, Berengar is in Liege.”

“Shotgun Liege,” I said quickly.

The reapers all stared at me like I’d grown a third eye.

“What?” I asked, not the least bit embarrassed. “Their waffles are world famous. I’m going to Liege if only for their powerful relics and awesome waffles.”

“I like waffles,” Cadan said.

I beamed at him. “All right. You’ll be on Team Waffles with Will and me.”

Will just shrugged. He accepted me for who I was and he didn’t seem to mind being on Team Waffles.

Marcus gave Ava a pathetic look. “Why can’t our team have a cool name?”

She glared at him before clearing her throat. “Moving on, I can’t give you an exact location on Berengar. You’ll have to search him out yourselves, and it won’t be easy. The relic guardians like to stay hidden.”