“To what do I owe the honor?”

“I have brought these two for my brother. They are of the fallen.”

It’s taking every ounce of Christian’s self-control not to bolt for the door and drag me with him. I shift closer and try to steady him. Stay calm, I want to whisper in his mind, but I don’t know if this new angel will be able to hear our connection.

“Live Dimidius?” Kokabel asks, again surprised.

Samjeeza’s eyes glint as he looks at me. “Quartarius. But a matched pair, and I think he’ll find them amusing.”

“Why stop here? Why not bring them directly to the master?”

“I thought it would please him to have them marked first,” Samjeeza says. “Can you fit them in today? I had hoped to present them to Asael shortly, if possible.”

“What is today?” Kokabel answers, grinning. He jerks his head toward the hallway. “Bring them back. Will we need to restrain them?” He looks like he might relish the task.

“No,” Samjeeza answers smoothly. “I have broken them thoroughly. They shouldn’t offer any resistance.”

We follow Kokabel down a narrow corridor into a small room, like an exam room at a doctor’s office. There is a person reclined on a large leather chair, with a man—Desmond, I recognize—leaning over her, a buzzing tattoo gun in his hand. From this angle I can’t see her face, only her hands as they clutch the arms of the chair.

She’s wearing dark gray nail polish, but I’m guessing that on earth it would be purple.

Christian and I each suck in a breath at the same time. Kokabel pushes us farther into the room like we are livestock, and I wish I could hold Christian’s hand as Angela’s despair crashes over me. Desmond is tattooing something on her neck on one side. She’s wearing a hueless camisole almost the same color as her pale skin, and dirty, torn jeans, no shoes. The soles of her feet are black. Her hair is pulled back in a ratty knot at the base of her skull, her bangs overgrown so that they almost obscure her eyes, a few lanky strands sticking out like straw on a scarecrow. Her entire right arm is covered in words, some easily readable, some overlapping and indecipherable.

Jealous, I make out along her forearm. Insufferable know-it-all. Bad friend. Careless.

Selfish, it reads in the curve of her elbow.

Slut, in the tender space where her arm meets her shoulder.

And other things, more specific sins, like I lied to my mother, I lied to my friends, I started a rumor, I hid the truth, in tiny scribbled print all along her bicep, the word LIAR spelled broadly across it.

“Sit,” Samjeeza commands us, and we sink obediently into a pair of folding chairs against the far wall. I try to keep my eyes down, but some part of me can’t look away from Angela.

“Desmond, we’ve brought you some new customers,” Kokabel says.

“I’m just finishing up here.” Desmond sniffles like he has a cold, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. His eyes flit to Samjeeza, then quickly away.

I lift my gaze to Angela’s neck, the spot where Desmond is currently leaving a line of characters. He spreads his fingers to stretch the skin there, touching the gun into the tender space under her ear, wiping away a smear of black ink with a dirty cloth. The letters are dark and startling against the fragile whiteness of her flesh.

Bad mother.

“A bad mother,” Samjeeza remarks. “Who’s her unlucky offspring?”

Kokabel shakes his head. “Penamue’s, I believe. I thought he didn’t have it in him to sire children, but they say he’s the father. She’s a troublesome one. Asael sends her back to us every time she displeases him, which is often.”

Angela takes a sudden breath, a strangled whimper escaping her, the cords on her neck standing out and halting Desmond’s progress. Without blinking an eye he rears back and slaps her, hard, across the face. I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out. She slides down on the chair, closes her eyes. Gray tears slip down her cheeks as he finishes the words.

Samjeeza turns to Kokabel. “I’d like to choose the design for the female,” he says. “Will you show me your book?”

“Yes. This way,” Kokabel says. “I’ll be back for the girl,” he directs at Desmond, and then he steps into the hall. Samjeeza holds back a moment longer, reaches to slip something into Desmond’s hand, a plastic bag, then follows Kokabel to deliberate on my ink.

I’m thinking it’s not going to be a pretty butterfly on my hip.

Desmond puts the bag in his pocket and pats it, like it’s a pet or something. He scoots his stool up to my chair. I force my eyes down as he takes my chin and turns my head from side to side.

“Lovely skin,” he says, his breath like sour cigarettes and gin. “I can’t wait to work on you.”

Christian’s body tightens like a bowstring.

Don’t, I tell him with a look, not daring to speak even with my mind in here.

Desmond gets up and peels off his gloves, throws them onto a counter in the corner, stretches, wipes at his nose again.

“I need a refreshment,” he says, clicking his fingers together in a kind of nervous rhythm. Then he goes out, sniffling and rummaging for the bag Samjeeza gave him, and closes the door behind him.

You have perhaps five minutes to make your escape, comes Samjeeza’s disembodied voice in my head, the second we’re alone with Angela. Go back to the train station and take a northbound train, which will come shortly. Hurry. In a few minutes the whole of hell will be after you, including me. And remember what I told you. Don’t speak to anyone. Just go. Now.

Christian and I rush to Angela’s side.

“Ange, Ange, get up!”

She opens her eyes, the dark traces of tears still on her cheeks. She frowns as she looks at me, like my name isn’t quite coming to her.

“Clara,” I supply. “I’m Clara. You’re Angela. This is Christian. We have to go.”

“Oh, Clara,” she says wearily. “You were always so pretty.” Absently she rubs at her arm where it says jealous. “I’m being punished, you know.”

“Not anymore. Let’s go.”

I pull at her arm, but she resists. She whispers, “I’ve lost them.”

“Ange, please …”

“Phen doesn’t love me. My mother did, but now she’s lost, too.”

“Web loves you,” Christian says from beside me.

She stares up at him with anguish in her eyes. “I left him for you to find. Did you find him?”

“Yes,” he says. “We found him. He’s safe.”

“He’s better off,” she says. Her fingers drift up to scratch at the fresh words on her neck. Bad mother.

I grab her hand. Her self-loathing churns through me. I get the sharp taste of bile in the back of my throat. No one loves her. She can never go back.

Yes, you can, I whisper in her mind. Come with us. But I don’t know if she can hear me. She never learned how to receive.

“What’s the point? It’s over. Ruined,” she says. “Lost.”

In that instant I know that her soul is wounded. She’ll never wake up from this trance she’s in, not like this. She’ll never agree to come with us.

We came here for nothing.

No one loves me, she thinks.

No. I will not let this happen, not again. I grab her shoulders, force her to look at me. “Angela. I love you, for heaven’s sake. You think I would have come all this way, to freaking hell, to rescue you if I didn’t love you? I love you. Web loves you, and what’s more, he needs you, Ange, he needs his mother, and we don’t have any more time to waste with you feeling sorry for yourself. Now get up!” I command her, and at that precise instant I send the smallest blast of glory straight into her body.

Angela jerks, then blinks, shocked, like I threw a glass of water in her face. She looks from Christian to me and back again, her eyes going wide.