I glanced at him again only to find him watching me with those crystalline green eyes. “I believe there’s a chance that I will be myself when I’m an archangel again, and that I will survive using the hallowed glaive.”

“I will pray for it,” he said.

We arrived in Jerusalem just before dawn. Will had taken over driving at about the halfway point, so I was able to get a little sleep, but it was nowhere near what I needed. We decided that we needed to rent a room somewhere and rest before we did anything else. The size of the city allowed us to disappear into the crowd and would make it hard for our enemies to track us, so we found an inconspicuous hole-in-the-wall inn that had vacancy. I texted our location to Ethan Stone. After a few hours of fitful sleep, we woke to a fierce rapping on the door. Will got up, rubbing his eyes, to let Ethan into the room. I pulled the covers over my head and hid, but kept one eye peeking over at him.

“Morning, morning,” Stone sang so cheerfully that I wanted to break his kneecaps. He set two large brown paper bags on the little round dining table across from the bed. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I brought you breakfast!”

The smell of food lulled me out from my hiding place. I flipped the blanket over and crawled across the bed toward the bags of goodness. I grabbed one and tore it open. My stomach roared like I hadn’t eaten in days. Inside was a plastic container of eggs and another filled with a salad and a big chunk of bread. “Aw, no bacon?” I asked.

Ethan gave me a reproachful look. “You’re joking, right?”

“Yes, moron.” I pulled out the eggs first. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“It’s good,” Will said approvingly through a mouthful as he dipped his bread into some pasty stuff. “We don’t have a plan of action yet. We just wanted to get here, to Jerusalem.”

Ethan slapped a tourist brochure onto the table. “St. Anne’s Church. That’s where we’re headed.”

I slid it closer so I could take a look. The cover featured a photograph of a beautiful and ancient Roman Catholic church built of gold and gray stone. “Why?”

“Because I paid a groundskeeper to leave a gate unlocked,” he replied. “Also, it’s nine centuries old and supposedly the basilica sits upon the birthplace of the virgin Mary. Also, also, the acoustics are incredible. I’ve been dying to play AC/DC in there for years.”

I chose to ignore that. “So, food now. What next?”

“Shopping for your ascension rite,” he replied and handed me a sheet of paper. “Now don’t go all schoolgirl squealy on me. We’re buying herbs, not shoes. I have a list and you have a list. It’ll be like a scavenger hunt. Now you can go all squealy.”

I glared at him and read the list of ingredients he requested for the spell.

“Afterward, we’ll meet at St. Anne’s.” He started toward the door but turned back before leaving. “Don’t show up until after ten or eleven, okay? Everyone in old City will be down at the Festival of Light, so we shouldn’t be bothered. We don’t want anyone wandering by while we’re trying to shove an archangel into that skin of yours.”

Then Stone was gone.

I sat on the bed, gazing blankly at the ingredients list in my hands. Will eased down beside me, took the sheet of paper from me, and set it aside. He took my hands and held them in his. My small, slender fingers fit perfectly through his callused ones, like puzzle pieces. My hands moved over his, my fingertips tracing the lines in his palm, and then I drew his hand to my cheek. I had a horrible thought that I wouldn’t remember or care what his skin felt like against mine once I ascended. I wondered whether, if I touched him for as long as I could, the feeling would be burned into my memory and made permanent, with no force on Earth or in Heaven able to chip it away.

Will felt my sorrow through our bond and pulled me close. “We’ll make it through this. We always do.”

“We’ve never been through anything like this before,” I whispered. “Never anything so uncertain.”

He was quiet at first, thoughtful. “Facing the unknown is a part of life, something humans have done since their creation without any special powers. They’ve survived by sheer will and heart. You have both of those things, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. We don’t know what exactly will happen tonight, but you have the will and the heart to make it through anything, even through this. I believe in you.”

“But why do I have to lose who I am in order to save the world?”

He lifted my chin so I couldn’t avoid his firm but gentle gaze. “If you forget who you are, I will just have to wake you up again as I’ve always done.”

I bit my lip and before I could say anything back, he kissed me and I wasn’t afraid anymore.

By nightfall the light festival, which Ethan had mentioned would serve as a distraction for us, was in full swing. From the top of the Mount of olives, music thrummed like thunder and laser lights danced across the low-hanging atmosphere. Thousands and thousands of people were in attendance, pouring through every street past imaginative displays of galloping horses made of light, shadow monsters playing behind trees, glowing figures of men climbing over stone walls…old City was alive and surreal, and I longed to stop and enjoy the festivities, but there was no time for that.

St. Anne’s was even more beautiful in person and at night. Golden spotlights lit up the stone walls, but our movements were safely cloaked within the Grim. We entered through a wooden door and passed through a small courtyard filled with incredible flowers. Ethan met us at the front entrance and allowed us in. Passing humans would never notice us as long as we stayed hidden in the Grim.