Angel? My mother was an angel?

I wanted to laugh. Only I couldn’t, because it made sense to me—as much sense as the concept of my dark-witch half-demon mother as a divine agent could.

Leah had said my mother was on her tail. That Mom could keep her from going back to hell. Who could do that except an angel?

When my mother came for Leah, I’d seen her faint outline. I’d also seen something glowing at her side. Something she’d used to slice bloodlessly through Leah’s host body and send her soul back to hell. What could do that except a celestial sword?

Kimerion—a demi-demon who’d been helping us—said Leah must have gotten divine aid to escape her hell dimension. He claimed it was a collaboration between the angelic and the demonic. Then he’d asked about my mother.

That’s why Leah wanted her. That’s why this guy wanted her. Because my mother had a direct line to the celestial.

I felt … Confused. Then that fell away and what took its place wasn’t fear or pride. It was hurt. Hurt because this son of a bitch knew my mother was an angel, and I didn’t. Hurt because I trusted Jaime—trusted her since I was fourteen years old—and now I realized she’d kept something about my mother from me, something important.

Finally, Jaime said, “If you know what Eve is, then you understand that she’s not always at my beck and call. Six months of the year she’s an angel. I can’t summon her. I’m forbidden—”

“You can’t?” he said. “Or it’s forbidden? Those are two different things. If Eve Levine finds out that her daughter died and you didn’t have the guts to try calling her, she’ll reach through the dimensions and rip those guts out through your belly button.”

“I can’t—”

The blade slid across my throat. I felt the skin split. Felt blood run down my neck. Heard Jaime yelp. Tried to turn, but the blade was still there, cutting in deeper, his other hand wrapped around my hair now, wrenching my head up.

Mom!

My eyes bulged as I gasped for breath. I found it. Somehow I found it.

I could still breathe. Blood oozed down my neck. But it didn’t spurt. I stopped struggling.

“Good girl,” the sorcerer whispered. “Ms. Vegas, the ball is in your court.”

She was already saying my mother’s name, the words spilling out as she yanked off my mother’s silver ring and clutched it. “Eve, I need you, please, Savannah needs you.”

She paused for breath, and he dug the knife in again and I gasped, eyes rolling in pain, a scream caught in my throat, not daring to let it out, barely daring to breathe for fear it would press my throat harder against the blade.

The sorcerer was murmuring something. A spell?

Mo—

I stopped the thought. Squeezed my eyes shut. Don’t call her. Don’t call her.

Are you crazy? There’s a knife—

I can’t call her. I won’t. My mother was an angel. A god-damned angel, and if people knew I could summon an angel, I’d have a knife to my throat every week. I had to trust Jaime.

“I—I think she’s coming,” Jaime said. “I feel her, and—”

“Tell her to cross over there.”

He pointed. I tried to look, but the knife wouldn’t let me.

“I—I don’t under—”

“Tell her to cross there. Into the circle.”

Circle? I didn’t need to look now. It had to be something for binding a spirit.

“No,” I said, wheezing. “Jaime, don’t you dare—”

The knife bit in and I yowled. Couldn’t help it, even if it made the blade dig in all the more.

I could barely see Jaime through a haze of red. But I glowered at her, pouring every bit of rage and betrayal into that glare.

Don’t you dare let him bind an angel, Jaime. Don’t you dare.

“I—I can’t tell her where to cross over. It’s not like that. She—”

“Eve!” His voice rose to a shout. “I’m sure you can hear me. You’re going to cross into that circle or your daughter is going to die.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could. Do not cross into the circle. I had no idea who this guy was or what he was up to, but he wanted to harness an angel, and with everything that was going on—the freedom group, the immortality vaccine—we couldn’t let it happen.

I’d tricked Leah. I could trick him, too. I just needed enough time.

The sorcerer restarted his incantation, shouting the words now. I didn’t recognize the spell. Didn’t even recognize the language. Not Hebrew or Greek or Latin.

Something older.

As his voice rose, he pulled the knife away from my throat, tightening his grip on my hair. He flicked the blood-covered blade to the left. Toward the circle.

My fist went up, spell on my lips, but he slapped the blade back so hard my knees gave way, only his hold on my hair keeping me upright. He yanked me to my feet.

“The circle, Eve!” he shouted. “Cross into the—”

He stopped. And he laughed, a low, rasping chortle. “Yes. That’s it. Thank you.”

The knife eased on my neck enough for me to look over at the circle and see …

My mother. I saw my mother. Not a faint image or a shadowy apparition. I saw my mother, as real as she’d looked nine years ago, when she’d left our cell to find us a way out of the compound where we’d been trapped. She’d never returned.

“Eve,” the sorcerer said.

She pulled something off her back. A four-foot-long sword, the metal glowing blue.

“Jaime? Tell him he has five seconds to drop his blade or I use mine,” she said, her gaze fixed on him, dark eyes blazing.

I could hear Mom. Why could I hear her? But he could, too. His knife hit the floor with a clatter. He released me and I fell to my knees, hands going to my throat.

“Good,” she said.

She kept walking toward him, but lowered the sword. I stared up at her.

I can see you. And he can see you too, can’t he? Why can—?

My gaze dropped to the floor where my mother was leaving a trail of boot prints.

She shouldn’t be able to leave boot prints.

The hell-beast. He’d summoned a hell-beast and it had materialized. It had crossed the dimensions and physically entered ours.