“It’s a death sentence,” Vin said quietly, but Mallory made an impatient ‘hush’ sound.
“There’s a reason no attempt has ever been made to completely destroy him, Alice,” Mallory continued. “It’s simple: it’s because it could destroy everything. All of us. All of you, even. Lucifer has always been allowed to remain because he was imprisoned, both by us and by the balance. Everything that spun out from that was... manageable.” He smiled sadly. “And Lucifer always knew, I think, that we would never risk trying to destroy him completely. He knew what could happen.”
“Mad,” said Alice.
“Perhaps...”
“No. Not ‘mad.’ Mutually assured destruction. Equilibrium strategy. The balance.”
“This time you’ve lost me, Alice.”
“It’s game theory, right? All that stuff?”
“Strategy? You’re lecturing me on strategy?” Mallory stepped back and looked her up and down. “What happened to ‘I’m a librarian’?”
“Spend long enough around books and some of it sort of sinks in,” Alice said with a shrug. She was aware that Zadkiel had cocked his head on one side and was looking at her with a thoughtful expression. “What?” she asked, suddenly embarrassed. She felt like a five-year-old crashing their parents’ dinner-party.
“Perhaps Michael’s right about you after all,” said Zadkiel.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve given me an idea.” He nodded to A’albiel, who nodded back and walked away. He grew faster and faster as he went, until he was almost running. Zadkiel watched as he disappeared through a door at the base of a tower. “We’ve always played by the rules of engagement. It’s time to change the game.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Zero-Sum
TO SAY THE stairway was unevenly-lit would have been an understatement, thought Alice. There was the occasional candle stuck to the wall here and there, and the odd little window along the way, but it really wasn’t much to work with. Thankfully, there was a thick, braided rope running around the outer wall in soft swags by way of a handrail, so she clung to that and followed the sound of footsteps ahead of her. It wasn’t like she could get lost, after all; it was just a case of climbing until they ran out of steps.
If she never saw another staircase – up down or sideways, it didn’t matter where it went – it would be too soon, as far as she was concerned. And then she remembered that she was being taken to see Michael, and all of a sudden, the idea of walking up stairs for the rest of her natural life seemed quite appealing.
At last, there were no more stairs. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, and her legs felt like someone had taken hold of her ankles and shaken her. Hard. It was with no small satisfaction that she heard Vin panting behind her. If even Earthbounds found that climb hard going, she wasn’t in as bad a state as she’d thought. Mallory and Zadkiel – naturally – looked as if they’d gone for a twilight stroll. Alice shot them both a dirty look, but neither noticed.
The stairs opened onto a small landing, and a door. There was a slightly larger window than the ones which had almost-lit the stairs – an archway cut straight into the stone – and looking out of it, Alice felt dizzy. The sea was so far below now, even the streets on the island looked distant and small. The staircase they had just followed, according to Zadkiel, had been built by some of the first monks there, expressly at Michael’s command.
“His command?” asked Alice.
“He appeared to them in a vision,” said Zadkiel. “At least that’s the story they told.”
“And the real story?”
“He sauntered into the refectory one day, sat down and put his feet up on the table and asked when he could expect his room to be ready.”
“Bullshit.”
“I was there, remember,” Zadkiel said with a smile. “And here we are. Secret staircase, secret room. Not even the current monks know where this one is – not that it’s stopped them from looking.”
“But there was a door. It was kind of... oh.” Alice suddenly remembered who she was talking to. “You.”
“Me.”
“Have you ever said no to him?”
“To Michael? Why would I? He’s my commanding officer. More than that: he’s my friend.”
“You need to pick your friends better,” said Alice as the door opened.
“And you still need to learn some respect, child,” said Michael from the other side of the doorway.
He was standing in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips and his wings open, watching her.
And she had absolutely nothing to say. All she could do was stand and look at him... at the face which had followed her through her dreams and her nightmares for months. A face which had haunted her in every crowd and made her look for eyes filled with fire. Eyes which peeled back everything she was and saw beneath it all.
Michael was watching her and she was afraid.
And he knew it.
“That’s it, is it? You won’t respect me, but you fear me?” He laughed, and his laughter bounced off the walls, filling the room with sound. “Well, it’s a start.” He beckoned her into the room, and her feet obeyed, stopping in front of him. He walked around her in a circle, slowly surveying her, and she could feel his mind crawling over the surface of her own, weighing and measuring and examining everything he found.
“I’ve been following your progress, Alice. And what progress it’s been,” he said. “You’ve been busy. I heard about Murmur. I was impressed. Not as impressed as I might have been if it were say, Purson, but I hear someone else took care of that.” His gaze flitted to Vin, just inside the doorway, who gulped audibly. Michael gave up on orbiting Alice, heading instead for Vin. “You again. You think I haven’t been watching you, too?”
Vin held his head up and met Michael’s gaze, but said nothing. The Archangel narrowed his eyes. “Hmm. Still have spirit, I see. I remember why I liked you. Yes. You can stay. And you...” He spun back to Alice. “What am I to do with you? I take it that you’ve considered my warning? I told you to think about your priorities. Your place in the world. Have you?”
“You tell me.” Alice’s voice shook a little more than she would have liked, but she still sounded confident enough. Sort of.
Michael threw back his head and laughed. “You hear that, Gabriel? Isn’t she infuriating?”
It was only then that Alice realised there was someone else in the room. Another angel, this one leaning against the far wall, close to a table heaped high with papers and scrolls which spilled onto the floor around it. His wings were clipped, shortened, and the feathers were not the same shining white as Michael’s, but the scruffy grey of Vin’s. And his eyes, when he locked them on her, were full of fury.
“Hello again, Alice,” said Gabriel. His voice could have cut glass. Alice shivered. Even more than Michael, this was what she had been dreading.
After all, it wasn’t every day that you got an Archangel demoted. Especially not one as vengeful as Gabriel.
A sudden crack of lightning outside the windows lit the room as Gabriel glowered, but Alice didn’t move. She didn’t know what else to do. If she flinched, Gabriel would see just how afraid of him she was. And that was not going to happen.
“Good girl,” said Michael, straightening his shirt sleeves. “Alice, you never fail to impress me. Infuriating you may be, but impressive.” He made a sound that might have been another laugh, or perhaps not. “Gabriel, behave, or you’ll go back to the dungeon. And I don’t think any of us want that now, do we?” He waved Zadkiel and Mallory into the room. “Mallory.”