Ethan had already spread out our ingredients for the ritual on the cool stone floor, and Will helped me set out the herbs, oils, and incense to sort and measure. Just as I placed the grimoire among them, Ethan used his power to flip the book open and the pages settled to a passage written in Enochian.

“Is this the spell?” I asked Ethan.

He was fiddling inside a duffle bag on the altar when he replied, “It is. I’ll need to speak the words. You can stand there and look pretty while Will assists me. I shall be your Frankenstein and Will shall be my—much larger than normal—Igor.”

Will sighed as he lit the incense and candles and placed them, one by one, on the altar steps below Ethan. When I looked at Ethan again, he was pulling a battery-powered MP3 docking station out of a duffle bag. He set it onto the floor and plugged in his iPod.

“I didn’t think you were serious,” I called to him. “You can’t play that in here.”

“I am always serious,” he replied. Suddenly AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” burst out of stark silence and echoed off the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling.

“Are you kidding me?” I cried, struggling with myself not to chuck the book at his head.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he said as he fumbled with the player and shut it off. The basilica fell quiet again. “That was inappropriate. Sorry!”

I looked across the book at Will for support, but he was grinning ear to ear, trying not to laugh. I shoved his shoulder so hard he almost toppled over. “Stop laughing!”

He caught his balance and put his hands up, unable to hold back his laughter anymore. “It was funny! You have to admit.”

“It wasn’t funny,” I hissed. “It was horrible. You are horrible, Ethan.”

“No,” he said as he fiddled with the iPod. “Classy. Always classy.”

Music blasted once more, this time “Thunderstruck.” Seeing Will laugh made me realize we needed some kind of levity. I had to savor this moment of good spirits and fun, because I couldn’t be sure when or if I’d ever have another one like it. I wasn’t sure when the next time I’d see Will laugh would be.

I finished measuring out the oils and incense needed and placed them in small ceramic dishes. I unwrapped the Naphil heart, which was still as red and bright as when I had cut it from its owner’s chest, as if no piece of it had even begun to decay yet. Ethan gave me a clay bowl to set the heart in and he instructed me to anoint the organ with the correct oils. Then it came time for me to stand in the basilica while Ethan dipped his thumb into three different oils and drew lines down my nose and over my lips. He drew the oil across my necklace as well and then he stepped back.

The music was gone and the only sounds I heard now were the distant cheers of spectators at the Festival of Light and the pounding of my heart. The candlelight on the steps below me cast a golden glow in the basilica, occasionally interrupted by beams of light from outside. Ethan lifted the book to read the angelic spell, his voice a haunting echo through the cathedral.

Fear, like ripples in reverse, growing stronger as it spread, took fierce hold of me. I tried to look at Will, but when I did, I was struck by the memory of the first time I witnessed him double over in agony as my overwhelming guilt and grief spilled into him through the ink in his tattoos that bound us together. The angelic magic gave us a connection deeper than anything else in this world, and though its purpose was to alert him when I needed him the most, this magic was also very cruel. I tried to contain my fear, because I knew my emotions echoed into Will and made him feel everything that I did through physical pain. He felt my fear like knives in his gut, and I didn’t want my last action as me—as Ellie—to be to cause him pain.

Will’s gaze captured my own and held it tight. “Eyes on me,” he said. “My face, Ellie. Eyes on me. Don’t be afraid.”

The green of his eyes was so bright and his breathing became more and more labored. Unbidden tears rolled down my cheeks and I watched him struggle to keep standing. He knew that I’d discovered how my suffering affected him physically, and it only crushed my heart more.

“Let me take it,” he murmured. “It’s okay. Let me have this. Let me do this for you.”

I nodded, choking down a fearful swallow of air. I could feel the ancient words taking affect. A light grew inside of me, a warmth that was foreign, but still felt familiar. I could no longer watch Will’s face. The light I felt inside me began to shine through my skin, giving me a glow of my own. I watched the light gather along the spider’s web-work of veins in my skin, replacing my blood with bright gold until I gleamed like a beacon. I fumbled for my necklace, my fingers brushing past the leather cord carrying the Pentalpha, and I found my winged necklace and gripped it tight. I held it between my fingers as if it were my lifeline, my last link to my humanity, even though it contained the archangel grace that would strip my humanity from me like meat off my bones.

The light, my glory breaking free from its chains, was growing too bright and I could barely keep my eyes open. Ethan kept chanting even when I could no longer see him. My body seemed to take on a mind of its own; the magic lifted me off the floor as my hair whipped around my face as if I was trapped in a hurricane. I looked down, forcing my eyes open so I could see what was happening. Ethan lit a match and tossed it into the bowl with the Naphil heart, and the red organ sparked and went up in flames. My body lurched as the smoke from the burning heart and fragranced oils engulfed me. It smelled like cooked meat and flowers from a funeral.