“No, I mean that you’re not really demon lord material. You’re a bit wicked, and I think you’re enjoying all this greatly, but you’re not . . .” My hands fluttered for a moment. “. . . not evil.”

She looked insulted.

“You haven’t really done anything truly reprehensible,” I pointed out. “Oh, you talk the talk, but your actions speak louder than that.”

“Name one good thing I’ve done,” she said, straightening her shoulders with a belligerent glare at me. “Just one!”

“I can name three.” I ticked them off my fingers. “You saved me from the thief taker in Paris.”

“I told you then—they were the good guys. I don’t do good guys,” she said huffily.

“Uh-huh. Then you pointed out to Magoth that, with me as a consort, he could leave Abaddon and enter the mortal world.”

“I hardly see how unleashing a demon lord on the mortal world is a good thing,” she said with an acerbic sting in her voice.

“One who is effectively stripped of his powers? On the contrary, that was very clever,” Gabriel said. “And it allowed May to return to me.”

I nodded. “I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that you were the one pushing Bael to expel Magoth for good, which ended up with him permanently out of commission, powerless and ineffective.”

She looked away, but I could have sworn I saw the tiniest hint of a smile. “That was just an unfortunate consequence of a really excellent plan to stab you both in the back.”

“And now here you are, warning us that unless we do something, Bael will claim my bondage to Magoth, with the end result that we see a way clear to freeing me from him forever. An evil person wouldn’t do that.”

“You think not?” She made a little face. “You’ll have Magoth hanging around your neck for the rest of your lives. If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is.”

“Annoying, but not evil. I can live with Magoth whining at me so long as I’m no longer bound to him,” I said quietly.

“So who are you?” Gabriel asked, taking a step closer to her.“You can’t be from the Court of Divine Blood. Bael would recognize that taint to you. You aren’t a Guardian. You aren’t even immortal—or you weren’t until you became a demon lord. Who, then, does that leave?”

Silence fell for a few seconds while she looked at him, really looked at him. Her gaze was sharp as a whip, but amused. She said nothing, just smiled, then went through the door.

“What do you think?” I asked Gabriel when we heard the front door close. “Could it be a glamour to confuse us?”

“No.” He rubbed my back absently while he thought. “I don’t know who she is, but I do know this—she has been a true friend to us, and I will not forget that.”

“I’ll go see if Nora is up to sending me to the Akasha,” I said, heading for the door. “I think I’m really going to enjoy this visit.”

It took almost five hours to accomplish our goals of sending me to the Akasha and negotiating my freedom from Magoth. Aisling, Gabriel told me later, had wanted to be there to watch Nora conduct the banishing and resummons, but Drake refused to let her out of bed, and I doubt if she argued that point too much.

Gabriel was waiting for me when Nora resummoned me. I fell straight into his arms, clinging to him while I tried to forget the miasma of despair that filled the Akasha.

“Little bird,” he murmured into my hair, his hands busily checking to make sure all my pertinent parts were where he had last seen them. “You are shaking?”

“Just with happiness,” I said, letting him fill me with dragon fire.

He stiffened, and I felt a cold whoosh behind me.

“It’s about time,” Magoth snapped, glaring at the three of us. “Where is this foul document I must sign?”

Gabriel gestured toward the table. Magoth swore a colorful variety of oaths as he read over the emancipation papers. He gritted his teeth, but he signed them, snatching the knife Gabriel held out, and making a small cut on his thumb. He pressed a bloody mark next to his name, and threw it at me. “There. I am free of your ingratitude at last.”

“Not quite yet,” Gabriel said, and slid another paper toward him. “There is this you must sign, as well.”

I craned my neck to see what Magoth was supposed to sign. “A divorce decree?”

Gabriel winked at me. “May will be my wife, and no other’s.”

Magoth rolled his eyes, but signed the document with only a few testy words.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” I murmured to the love of my life. “I’m not a mortal who holds with such conventions as marriage.”

“I know. I just don’t like him referring to you as his wife,” Gabriel said. “Besides, my mother wishes us to be married in front of her people, and this will make everything easier.”

“Done,” Magoth snapped, slamming down the pen and knife. “Now you owe me one thing.”

“We just gave you your freedom. What could we possibly owe you now?” I asked.

He growled. “You will tell me where that betrayer Sally is. She will pay for her perfidy—of that I swear. Tell me her whereabouts that I may exact my lengthy and incredibly unpleasant revenge upon her.”

“I think she said something about going to Los Angeles,” I said without once blinking my eyes. I looked at Gabriel. “Didn’t she say Los Angeles?”

“Yes,” he lied, also without the slightest hesitation. “That is what she said.”

“Then that is where I will go,” Magoth declared, his face tight with intensity. “Los Angeles! The City of Angels will weep by the time I am through tearing it apart to find her! Good-bye, former wife. I will return to deal with you once I have meted out justice to Sally.”

He was gone with a dramatic flourish that would have done a Shakespearean actor proud.

Nora had been silent during the entire conversation, but she looked thoughtfully at the door now, and said, “I’m afraid to ask, but why is he so angry at the demon lord Sally?”

“Probably because I told him Sally was behind everything, including convincing us to banish him.”

She regarded me from behind her red-framed glasses, her eyes unreadable. “But that is not the truth.”