I sighed. That was the Will I knew, always focused on the future and never the past or present. It was easier for him to focus on something other than Nathaniel’s death.

“At least Bastian is out of the way,” I offered.

He didn’t answer or acknowledge what I’d said. Perhaps now I understood what Will had been feeling all along, the frustration and need to be there for me when he was unwanted. I didn’t want to be unwanted now, and neither did he.

“What should our next move be?” I asked.

“We lie low,” he said, surprising me. I think I expected him to demand that we eat a feast and march off to war at dusk. “Azrael came in at the right time, but Sammael also underestimated us. He will not risk making another mistake and losing you a second time. He has been dormant for thousands of years and could still need time to recover his strength, just as you do each time you’re awakened. Azrael’s glory weakened him, so we may have bought some time.”

I gaped at him. “Why are we letting him get stronger? We should take him out now while he’s weak.”

“Because we can’t beat him,” Will said firmly. “I am just a reaper, and you have a breakable human body. We will never be able to beat him or Lilith. He is one of the Fallen and the Right Hand of Lucifer. There’s no way anything besides an archangel could obliterate him. We need Azrael. We need the Destroyer.”

“But Azrael is an outcast,” I said, perplexed. “He’s not an archangel anymore.”

“He’s defeated Sammael twice already. He can do it again.”

“What if he can’t?” I asked. “He couldn’t kill Sammael last night, only hold him off. What about Michael?”

He shook his head. “Michael can’t engage until there is outright war. It’s not his job. That’s why Azrael was punished in the first place. Absolute obedience, or you are cast out, killed, or forced to fall.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m human,” I said. He gave me a puzzled look and I continued, my temper spinning hot. “Nathaniel told me that angels don’t have free will in Heaven, that they never make a single choice on their own. Everything they do is an order. I’m human now, with a human soul, and I have the free will to choose. And I choose to stop the war before it happens rather than sitting around like Michael and waiting for someone to tell me to make a move.”

Will paused thoughtfully, and his gaze drifted out over the lake. “I won’t let you fight Sammael until I know we can defeat him. With him able to destroy your soul, we can’t afford to make a mistake. We only have one shot, and we cannot lose.”

There was no changing his mind. At this point, not that I wanted Sammael to eat my soul, but I couldn’t rely on someone else to save the world—I couldn’t trust anyone with that responsibility but myself. “So then how do we summon Azrael and give him solid form so he can help us?”

“We’ll have to find the correct relic and spell,” he replied. “If they can do it for Lilith, then we can do the same for Azrael.”

“Okay, well, how do we know which are the right ones?”

“The spell will be different to give corporeal form to an angel, but that information will still be in the grimoire.”

“The book that Sammael has?”

“Yes.”

“Well, life just keeps getting easier and easier.” I slumped back into the bench and folded my arms over my chest. “If we can’t get Azrael to fight Sammael, then we need an archangel.”

His lips formed a tight line of frustration. “That’d be you.”

I blinked at him. “Come again?”

“Our last resort would be figuring out a way for you to ascend and become Gabriel again,” he said.

“In this world?” I asked, unable to hide the incredulity in my voice. “On Earth, in the human world?”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” he admitted. “But we’ve got to find a way to make it happen if worse comes to worst. I just don’t know if the transformation would destroy you or what would happen to your soul if you were killed as Gabriel. You might not come back as a human again, or even at all.”

I frowned. “If me becoming an archangel in this world is even possible, then we have to figure out how to do it.”

“We will,” he said gently. “Everything will be okay.”

But I wasn’t so sure. It would be difficult enough to summon Azrael and get him to fight for us, but on the minuscule chance that I was able to ascend to my archangel form … I didn’t know what that really meant. In the last few months I’d come to understand who I really was, something far beyond what I was now. I remembered my past lives and uncovered secrets as they came, but I remembered nothing of being Gabriel. I felt small things, recognized Sammael and Lilith, but those were all memories from Earth. I knew my true name, but I didn’t know who I truly was. I didn’t know what I was like as Gabriel. I didn’t know how much I would change.

“I’m terrified of myself, Will,” I admitted. The icy wind flowing off the half-frozen lake whipped my hair around my face. “Of becoming Gabriel. The angels don’t feel anything. I don’t want to lose myself when I become an archangel. I’m afraid that I’ll forget you, that I won’t love you anymore because I won’t be able to.”

His jaw tightened and he looked at me sadly. “That doesn’t matter. It’s not as important as—”