City of Heavenly Fire

One leaped out at Emma like a sign lit up in neon. CARSTAIRS: DECEASED. She tried not to let the recognition of her family name show on her face.

“I’m saying I don’t know.” The Consul spread her hands flat over the surface of the desk. “There’s so much we don’t know right now,” she said, and her voice sounded quiet and nearly broken. “To lose the Fair Folk as allies is a severe blow. Of all Downworlders, they are the subtlest enemies, and the most dangerous.” She rose to her feet. “Wait here for a moment.”

She left the room through a door in the paneling, and after a few moments of silence, Emma heard the sound of feet and the murmur of Patrick’s voice. She caught individual words—“trial” and “mortal” and “betrayal.”

She could sense Julian beside her, wound as tightly as a spring-loaded crossbow. She reached out to touch her hand lightly to his back, and drew between his shoulder blades with her finger: A-R-E Y-O-U A-L-L R-I-G-H-T?

He shook his head, without looking at her. Emma glanced toward the stack of files on the desk, then toward the door, then at Julian, silent and expressionless, and decided. She launched herself at the desk, plunging her hand into the stack of files, and pulled out the one labeled CARSTAIRS.

It was a bound file, not heavy, and Emma reached out to yank up Julian’s shirt. She muffled his cry of surprise with a hand over his mouth, and used the other hand to stuff the file into the back of his jeans. She pulled his shirt down over it just as the door opened and Jia walked back in.

“Would you two be willing to testify before the Council one last time?” she asked, gazing from Emma, who guessed she was probably flushed, to Julian, who looked as if he had been electrified. His gaze hardened, and Emma marveled. Julian was so gentle, she sometimes forgot that those sea-colored eyes could turn as cold as the waves off the coast in winter. “No Mortal Sword,” the Consul said. “I just want you to tell them what you know.”

“If you promise you’ll try to get Mark back,” said Julian. “And you won’t just say it, you’ll actually do it.”

Jia looked at him solemnly. “I promise that the Nephilim will not abandon Mark Blackthorn, not as long as he lives.”

Julian’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction. “Okay, then.”



It bloomed like a flower against the clouded black sky: a sudden, silent explosion of flame. Luke, standing by the window, flinched back in surprise before pressing himself against the narrow opening, trying to identify the source of the radiance.

“What is it?” Raphael looked up from where he was kneeling by Magnus. Magnus appeared to be asleep, his eyes shadowed dark crescents against his skin. He had curled himself uncomfortably around the chains that held him, and looked ill, or at least exhausted.

“I’m not sure,” Luke said, and held himself still as the vampire boy came to join him at the window. He had never felt entirely comfortable around Raphael. Raphael seemed to him like Loki or some other trickster god, sometimes working for good and sometimes for evil, but always in his own interests.

Raphael muttered something in Spanish and pushed past Luke. The flames reflected in the pupils of his dark eyes, red-gold.

“Sebastian’s work, do you think?” Luke asked.

“No.” Raphael’s gaze was distant, and Luke was reminded that the boy in front of him, though he looked an ageless, angelic fourteen, was in fact older than he was, older than Luke’s parents would have been, if they had lived—or in his mother’s case, if she had remained mortal. “There is something holy about this fire. Sebastian’s work is demon’s work. This is like the way God appeared to the wanderers in the desert. ‘By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.’”

Luke raised an eyebrow at him.

Raphael shrugged. “I was brought up a good Catholic boy.” He cocked his head to the side. “I think our friend Sebastian will not like this very much, whatever it is.”

“Can you see anything else?” Luke demanded; vampire vision was more powerful even than a werewolf’s enhanced sight.

“Something—ruins, perhaps, like a dead city—” Raphael shook his head in frustration. “Look where the fire fades. It is dying away.”

There was a soft murmur from the floor, and Luke glanced down. Magnus had rolled onto his back. His chains were long, giving him at least enough freedom of movement to curl his hands over his stomach, as if in pain. His eyes were open. “Speaking of fading . . .”

Raphael returned to his place by Magnus’s side. “You must tell us, warlock,” he said, “if there is something that we can do for you. I have not seen you so sick.”

“Raphael . . .” Magnus pushed a hand through his sweaty black hair. His chain rattled. “It’s my father,” he said abruptly. “This is his realm. Well, one of them.”