“Yes,” Cadan replied, lifting his chin defiantly. “You’re wrong about this world, about what it has to offer. The humans—”

“The humans are already destroying this world!” Bastian roared. “They are weak, flighty creatures. They don’t deserve to rule this world. They don’t deserve to spread their plague to Heaven! Not if we can’t have it.”

Cadan shook his head. “Humans are inherently good. You and I—we don’t belong here, or anywhere. We weren’t meant to be, and the humans, not us, were meant to go to Heaven. You can’t destroy seven billion souls just because you envy them!”

Bastian’s reaction was volcanic. He vanished and reappeared in Cadan’s face, his fist tight around Cadan’s throat, and he slammed Cadan’s back into the side of a house, shattering the weathered wooden panels. Will threw an arm over me, shielding me. He knew now that Bastian was his father, but neither he nor Cadan knew that they were half-brothers. I opened my mouth, wishing I could say something, but it wasn’t my place. Now wasn’t the time. It would have only made things worse.

“How dare you?” Bastian rasped. “How dare you accuse me of feeling something so vile?”

Cadan swallowed hard. “Because that is all that you are: vile.”

He blasted his power into Bastian—a strength Bastian must never have foreseen, because there was an immense shock on his face as he barreled through the air and hit the wall of a house. He staggered to his feet, gaping at Cadan as his son descended on him.

Cadan stared down at him. “You deserve Heaven even less than that beast you brought back from the bowels of the earth. You only want to destroy everything because you envy the humans their souls and because you’re terrified of death. You can’t have Heaven, and neither can I. None of us can! You want revenge you were never entitled to. This is not right! Annihilating the human and angel races is not right. I can’t allow you to continue. My allegiance is no longer to you. I will defend the Preliator at any cost, even if it takes my life, even if it forces me to destroy you.”

Bastian shot to his feet and threw a punch, but Cadan caught it in his fist, forcing Bastian’s arm down. “I am stronger now,” Cadan said. He kicked Bastian’s chest, forcing him back, and he called a long, elegantly curved blade into his hand and pointed it at his father. “And my act of defiance tonight,” he snarled, echoing Bastian’s words from their confrontation the night we had thrown Sammael’s sarcophagus into the sea, “will be my greatest.”

“Will,” I said faintly, tugging at his shredded shirt. “We should go.”

But he only stared, and I realized he was torn between fleeing and protecting the reaper who called himself his father. I tugged harder, and Will took a single step with me as I backed away.

Cadan lifted his sword, poising it at Bastian, one hand on the hilt, his other palm pressed against the blade to steady it. Bastian drew his own sword from nothingness, a heavier, broader blade, one that looked like it could break Cadan’s in half. Then they both launched toward each other, moving so fast they disappeared from sight for a second, but came together in a lightning storm of silver blade against silver blade. Cloth ripped and blood sprayed as the demonic reapers battled.

Cadan’s power erupted, the inky black explosion slamming into the houses on either side of him, shattering every single window. Shards of glass and chunks of brick and wood rained down on the reapers. Cadan’s wings, with their leathery, batlike design, made him appear sinister, reminding me then that despite how sweet he was to me, he was indeed a demonic reaper.

And then Cadan grunted and doubled over as Bastian’s sword shoved into his abdomen, spilling blood. I hid my face in Will’s chest, clutching his shirt, and he pulled me closer. I couldn’t watch Cadan die. I couldn’t watch any more of my friends die tonight.

“It’s over,” Bastian growled as he forced his blade deeper.

Rage and pain bled over Cadan’s face as he tried to rise, gasping in agony, his eyes driving into Bastian’s. “For you.” In a flash, Cadan slammed his sword into Bastian’s chest—straight through his heart.

Bastian staggered and convulsed as he backed away, clutching at the blade buried in his heart, staring at his son.

Wrapping his hands around the hilt of Bastian’s sword sticking out of his gut, Cadan gave it a strong yank, suppressing a cry of pain, and he tossed it to the ground. His wounds healed. Bastian’s did not.

Bastian sank to his knees as stone spread from his wound, covering his skin quickly. Cadan took hold of his sword and slipped it from Bastian’s chest as his father moaned, folding into himself in agony. I didn’t breathe until Bastian was dead.

Cadan snapped his face to our direction, opal fires blazing in both his eyes. “Will, take her and go!”

My fingers dug into Will’s arm, and it seemed to snap him back to reality. He turned to me and his white wings burst from his shoulders, tearing even more holes into his shirt. He pulled me close and lifted me up, cradling me to his chest. Then he was silent as he jumped into the air. The ground below grew farther and farther away the higher and faster Will took us, and I stared down at Cadan until he disappeared into the night.

28

WHEN WE RETURNED TO NATHANIEL’S HOUSE, WILL and I were still numb with shock, battered on the outside and broken on the inside. So much had happened in only a matter of hours, so much that neither of us could ever have been prepared to face. We sat in the living room, on separate couches, staring at the filthy carpet in silence. Marcus and Ava had left. Our clothes were torn and bloody, and the first floor of the house was all but completely destroyed. Nathaniel was dead. The Demon Queen and the Fallen angel of death were now running rampant in the human world. Bastian claimed that Will’s mother still lived, that she was somewhere out there in the world as a relic guardian. Will had seen Cadan kill his father before his eyes and was unsure if he should have interfered instead of letting Cadan do it. For so long, Will had believed that he had no family, that all he had was me. But now everything had changed. And now I held the secret that Cadan was Will’s half-brother, a secret that ate at me from the inside out.