“Antares,” I begged her and collapsed heavily to my knees and dropped my head. “Please. Please help me.”

Warm fingers lifted my chin and I looked up into the face of Antares, who watched me with interest. Up close, her eyes were like liquid gold. Rivulets of iridescent pearl flecked with chips of ruby swirled in their depths, hypnotizing me.

“You…kneel before me?” she asked, her voice slow.

“I’m desperate.” A tear rolled over my cheek and slipped into the corner of my mouth. A shock of salt on my tongue.

The Grigori Lord stood, pulling her hand away from my face, and I let out a terrible sob. My body shook as I cried, letting out everything I’d held in for days, all of my sorrow and rage and exhaustion. I buried my face in my hands. It was so hard to stay strong every second of every day, but I had to. I allowed myself to be weak for one minute, but now it was time to suck it up and do what I needed to do. When I let my hands fall and looked back up at Antares, she still watched me.

“Gabriel,” Antares whispered. “What has your humanity done to you?”

I pushed myself off the ground and stood shakily, staring right at her face. “Being human has taught me to love and that’s why I’m here. I will do whatever it takes to save him.”

“Why?” the Grigori asked. “Why would you want to save your Guardian if this is what he has made you become? This sorrowful, weakened thing fallen so far from the creature I once knew.”

“I am not weak,” I growled, rolling my hands into fists. “If I were weak I would not be standing here. It is not weak to admit your limitations and ask for help. It is not weak to feel sorrow. It’s human. I have changed since you last saw me, because I have become human.”

“And the rest of humanity? Why do you still fight for them? This world drowns in grief and pain.”

“That’s true,” I told her. “I’ve lived a thousand lives. I know as well as any human how much suffering there is in the world, but there’s also joy and love.”

She shook her head. “The human race is still as it was before the Fall. They have not changed.”

“There’s also hope,” I pleaded. “To hope for a better world—that is why I fight. That’s why I’ve been fighting for so long. The humans are young and imperfect, but they are strong. They would not still be here if they weren’t. This is why I stand before you now. I need my Guardian’s help. And I love him. I can’t save humanity without him.”

She seemed to weigh me with her gaze for a moment before looking at Cadan and then back at me. “You have moved me, Gabriel. Your passion is beautiful in a way that I have never seen up close. If your human soul has taught you to love, then there may yet still be hope.”

“Will you help me, Sister?”

“For the antidote I require a payment,” Antares said.

Cadan stepped forward before I could stop him. “If you want blood, take mine.”

A stab of ice hit my heart. “What? Cadan, no!”

I reached for him, but he tore away. Antares’s face filled with amusement.

“You would sacrifice yourself to save her beloved?” she asked, tilting her head at him curiously. “How you have changed, reaperling.”

“I’ve done a lot of bad in my life,” Cadan replied. “It’s about time I did some good.”

“No,” I ordered and grabbed his arm. “You’ve done enough. This is for me to do.”

“Fortunately for you,” Antares interjected, “you are not the one who can pay me.”

Cadan called his sword, silver flashing in the golden autumn light, and he stepped in front of me. “You will not harm her!”

“Silence, fool,” Antares said, and waved her hand. Cadan’s body was thrown to the side and his back slammed into the trunk of a tree. “Have you not learned your lesson?”

I trembled, but held my chin high. “What do you want?”

Antares beckoned me forward. “For the antidote to heal your Guardian, I want you to free me.”

“Free you?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Send me home,” she said. “To Heaven. Restore my wings, redeem me. I only want to leave this wretched place.”

I wasn’t sure if I had the power to do that, if I even knew how, but I nodded anyway. For the chance to save Will, I’d at least try. If I left her there chained to that tree, then Sammael would eventually find her and kill her. Antares might have never learned about mercy, but I knew it well. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Swear it!” Antares roared, her eyes flashing white gold. “Swear it on your life’s blood!”

I swallowed hard. “I—I swear on my blood that I will set you free.”

Antares paused for the longest moment of my life before lowering herself to the ground. She hovered her palm just over the ground, the tips of short blades of grass brushing her skin, and a light shone brightly. Something slid out of the dirt, something dark and coiled, and Antares broke off a piece. She stood and came toward me and I struggled to see what she had. She held her hand out and revealed something that looked like organic plant material, a root maybe. She nodded to me, motioning for me to take the root, and tentatively, I obeyed. The thing was soft and flexible, but its outermost layer was rough against my skin. It looked so ordinary, so plain and powerless.

“Only the root of a tree that binds a Cardinal Lord can heal reaper venom,” Antares explained. “You need to make a poultice from it and cover the wound entirely. The healing process will take three days.”