She moved away from me and motioned for Will to prepare. “Let’s work on defense first. Do not use the pole to stop a blade because the blade will sever the pole in two. The partisan is designed to parry an attack by catching and entangling your opponent’s blade with the outer blades of your own weapon.”

Will rushed toward me, raising his sword over his head and sweeping it down in an arc. I pivoted the pole with my right hand as instructed and I lifted the spearhead. Will’s sword caught in the hooklike outer blade of the partisan. Before he could wrench it free, I swung the pole toward the ground—Will’s sword entangled in my own was unimaginably heavy—and he was unable to withdraw on his own. I slipped the partisan free and it became much lighter in my hands. I returned to my ward lightning-quick and thrust the blade toward Will’s throat and stopped. There was no way I’d have defeated him so easily if he weren’t going easy on me. This was only so I could get used to the techniques of using the polearm.

“Excellent instinct,” Madeleine said cheerfully. “You’ve even moved on to offense without my instruction. Well done. Cadan.”

He bolted awake and upright in the sofa so suddenly that one of the legs snapped and the sofa bottomed out. He swore as his butt hit the tile floor.

Madeleine strolled toward him and tapped the side of his head as he scrambled to his feet. “You. Let’s go.”

“What? Where?”

“Ellie can practice using the polearm while you and I say our piece,” she elaborated. “We don’t have much time.”

On their way out the door, Madeleine paused to give me a knowing look and a little half smile. I realized then that her conversation with Cadan was partly an excuse to allow me a conversation with Will. They left and I faced my Guardian once more.

“Are you ready to have a go at this?” he asked, his tone careful and hesitant. “Maybe we ought to take it easy for the rest of the night.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t have time to take it easy. Let’s just do this.”

He shrugged. “As you wish.” He moved faster than my eyes could follow, reappearing right in front of me, swinging his sword. I swept to the side, avoiding his blow, but he’d anticipated that move and was already prepared to follow me. His sword swung again and I lifted the partisan to catch his strike. The human-made metal was devastatingly inferior to the angelic silver of Will’s blade and I could feel it give and whine with each blow, threatening to break. As Will and I clashed, I became aware that he wasn’t using all of his strength. There was no way this weapon could have survived even this long against his. I grew angry, pushing at him harder. I whirled and struck his ribs with the pole of the partisan. He grunted and stumbled, but he didn’t counter my attack right away. He adjusted his grip on the helve of his sword and ducked out of the way of my next blow.

“Quit holding back!” I shouted at him. Didn’t he take this seriously? I had to learn how to use a weapon like this or I would fail. Did he decide there was no point now because I would die? I wasn’t some dead girl walking. I wasn’t precious or finite, and he was pissing me off treating me like so. “Just fight me!”

He shot me a hard look and stepped aside, letting his sword vanish in a shimmering flash. “No. Not like this. Not when you’re angry.”

“You’re making me angry,” I shot back. “We have to use what little time we’ve got left to prepare, and we might as well use the rest of the night to train. Do you think this is a waste of time?”

“No,” he murmured low and harshly, but said nothing more.

“No?” I repeated. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say about everything?”

His green eyes pierced mine. “No.”

I gritted my teeth with impatience. “I know what this is about.”

“Do you?” he demanded. “Do you even care?”

I stared at him, bewildered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He exhaled heavily as he shook his head and dropped his gaze. “Never mind.”

“No you don’t,” I snapped at him. “Don’t give me a noncommittal response when you have something to say. What don’t I care about?”

He whirled back to me, eyes blazing. “Me! You’ve just agreed to throw your life away, just given up the fight, without asking for my help or how I feel. I told you that I won’t—I can’t—let you go and you don’t care if you’re taken from me.”

My anger and shock had fled, replaced with only an immeasurable sadness. “I do care. God, I care so much. I know how much it hurt you when you thought I was gone after Ragnuk killed me—”

“I don’t think you do,” he said quietly. “You are all I know. If you fall, then I fall.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “I won’t let you talk like that.”

“I have done one thing for five hundred years,” he said. “And that’s protect you—fighting alongside you, being with you. You’ve shown me how to live, how to be human. When you were gone for decades, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know anything else. I have nothing without a purpose, without you.”

I felt defeated. “I don’t want to die either. I’m terrified of what will happen to me if I die an archangel. But this is so much bigger than you and me. We both came into this knowing and understanding the cost: enduring every adversity that comes with war. only we’ve had to experience this for hundreds of years and the end is so close. We can finish this once and for all for everyone. Countless lives depend on us—on you and me.”