His anger feels like a rising mushroom cloud to me, although the expression on his face doesn’t change.

“All right,” he says.

He murmurs something in Angelic, a word that for once I don’t understand, and suddenly the air around us shimmers and splits. There’s a shrieking sound, a tearing. The ground under our feet jolts slightly, the way it feels when someone drops something heavy on the floor. Then the earth I know peels away into a gray world.

It’s like the forest we were in but diminished to a bleak and hopeless wasteland. The shape of the land is the same as the place we left, the side of a mountain with trees, but here the trees have no leaves or needles. They’re just bare, gray trunks and twisted branches against the grainy, rumbling sky. There’s no color or smell or sound beyond occasional thunder. No birds. The light is fading like the sun is setting, and black storm clouds roll over what had been, on earth, a perfectly blue sky.

I’ve always envisioned hell as all hot fire and brimstone, lakes of sulfur, demons with horns and glowing eyes torturing the souls of the damned. But here the air’s so cold I can see my breath. A slimy kind of mist passes over, chilling me to the bone. I’m shivering like crazy.

Mom is brighter than everything else, still in black and white but like the contrast on her has been turned way up. Her skin glows radiantly white. Her hair is inky black.

The Black Wing loosens his grip on my arm. We both know I have nowhere to run now. He looks way more relaxed. In hell he’s bigger, taller, and meatier, if that’s possible. More powerful. His eyes gleam. He closes them for a moment, inhales deeply like he’s enjoying the feel of the air, and then his wings appear behind him. They’re huge—much larger than Mom’s or mine—and an oily, absolute black, a dark hole opening up behind him, sucking all light into it.

He smiles, a sad smile. He’s proud of himself. The transition to hell from where we were is no easy thing. He wants to impress my mother.

“You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Mom says bluntly. She doesn’t sound impressed. “You can’t keep us here.”

That’s good news to me.

“You forget who I am, Margaret.” He’s completely unruffled by her sass, charmed by it even. He’s being so patient. He prides himself on his patience. He knows she’s afraid. He’s waiting to see the cracks appear in her calm.

“No,” answers my mother softly. “You forget who I am, Watcher.”

I feel the fear stab through him, immediate and sharp. He’s not frightened of my mom, exactly, but someone else. Two people. I can see them vaguely in his mind, standing in the distance. Two men with snowy white wings. One with bright red hair and blazing blue eyes. The other, blond and golden-skinned and fierce, even though I can’t make out the particulars of his face.

But he’s holding a flaming sword.

“Who are they?” I whisper before I can stop myself.

Sam glances down at me, frowning.

“What did you say?”

He probes my mind again, a momentary pressure, and suddenly it’s as if a door slams between my thoughts and his. His hand drops away from me like I’ve burned him. The second he’s not touching me anymore his thoughts disappear. The anger and sadness are cut in half. I feel like I can move again. I can breathe. I can run.

I don’t think about it. I mash my foot down on his instep—not that that does any damage at all—and then dart forward, straight at my mother. She holds out her hand to me and I grab it. She tugs me behind her but doesn’t let go of my hand.

The Black Wing makes a sound like a growl that has the hairs on the back of my arm standing on end. There’s no mistaking the look on his face. He will destroy us.

He extends his wings. The clouds over us crackle with energy. Mom squeezes my hand.

Close your eyes, she orders without speaking. I don’t know what shocks me more, that she can talk in my head or that she expects me to close my eyes at a moment like this. She doesn’t wait for me to obey. A bright light explodes around us. Wherever its rays touch there’s a hint of color and warmth.

Glory.

The Black Wing instantly retreats, shielding his eyes. His face contorts in pain. For once his expression reflects the way he truly feels, like he’s being eaten up from the inside out.

Don’t look at him. Close your eyes, Mom orders again.

I shut my eyes.

Good girl, comes Mom’s voice in my head again. Now get out your wings.

I can’t. One of them’s broken.

It won’t matter.

I summon my wings. There’s a flash of pain so intense that I gasp and almost open my eyes, but it only lasts a second. Heat sears along my wings, burning through muscle and sinew and bone, and then, like with the cut on my palm, the pain is gone. Not just my wings. The scratches on my arms and face, the bruises, the soreness in my shoulder. It’s all gone. I’m completely healed. Still terrified, but healed. And warm again.

Are we still in hell? I ask Mom.

Yes. I can’t get us back to earth by myself. I’m not that powerful. I need your help.

What do I do?

Think of earth. Think of green and growing things. Flowers, trees. Grass under your feet. Think of the parts you love.

I picture the aspen outside our front window at home, rustling in the breeze, quivering, a thousand little waves of green, translucent leaves moving together like a dance. I remember Dad. Cutting out old credit cards in the shape of razors for me and the two of us shaving on Sunday mornings, dragging the plastic across my face, mimicking him. Meeting his warm gray eyes in the steamy mirror. I think of our house now and the smell of cedar and pine that instantly hits you when you walk in the door. Mom’s infamous coffeecake. Brown sugar melting on my tongue. And Tucker. Standing so close to him that we’re breathing the same air. Tucker.

The ground beneath us trembles but Mom holds me fast.

Perfect. Now open your eyes, she says. But do not let go of my hand.

I blink in the bright light. We’re on earth again, standing almost exactly where we were before, the glory enclosing us like a heavenly force field. I smile. It feels like we’ve been gone for hours, even though I know it’s only been a few minutes. It’s so good to see color. Like I just woke up from a nightmare and everything is back to the way it should be.

“You haven’t won, you know,” says that cold, familiar voice.

My smile fades. Sam is still there, standing back, out of range of the glory, but looking at us cool and composed.

“You can’t hold that forever,” he says.

“We can hold it long enough,” Mom says.

That answer makes him nervous. His eyes scan the sky quickly.

“I don’t have to touch you.” He holds out his hand to us, palm facing up.

Get ready to fly, says Mom in my head.

Smoke drifts up from the Black Wing’s hand. Then a small flame. He stares at Mom. Her grip on me tightens as he turns his hand over and fire drips off of his fingers and onto the forest floor. It catches quickly in the dry brush, moving from the bushes up the trunk of the nearest tree. Sam stands in the middle of the fire completely untouched as great plumes of smoke billow up around him. I know we won’t be so lucky. Then he steps forward out of the sudden wall of smoke and looks at my mother.

“I always thought you were the most beautiful of all the Nephilim,” he says.

“That’s ironic, because I always thought you were the ugliest of all the angels.”

It’s a good line. That I’ll give her.

Black Wings don’t have the best sense of humor, I guess.

Neither of us expect the stream of flame shooting from his hand. The fire strikes Mom in the chest and instantly catches her hair. The glory radiating off us blinks out. The second the glory’s gone, the angel is on us, his hand wrapped around Mom’s throat. He lifts her into the air. Her legs kick helplessly. Her wings flail. I try to pull my hand away from hers so I can fight him but she holds on to me tight. I shriek and beat at him with my free hand, yanking at his arm, but it’s no use.