“He failed to mention it would possess me the moment I touched it!” I retort.
“None of us knew you’d react to it as you did. Heaven has been keeping secrets from us all!”
“Welcome to my world, Xavier.”
“You knew the tone to use to open the doorway! Tau said you whispered something just before you used the key.”
I rub my forehead anxiously. “I...when I picked it up...I knew the way to enter. I wanted to go, but it made me sick at the same time—but I knew I had to go. They need me.”
“Who needs you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you remember what you said?”
I think for a second. “In your hideaway, towers grow, so far away, in the dark of Sheol...” I groan, and look around like I’ve lost something. “There’s more...it’s on the tip of my tongue...arrrghhh,” I growl in frustration.
“Using the key to close the door almost killed you. It’s like you were meant to go to Sheol and the fact that you remained here almost destroyed you.”
“Why would I need a key anyway? Don’t angels go in and out of Sheol all the time?”
He looks at me like I’m completely na?ve. “There are gateways between this world and Sheol but they’re all known to us. We guard them from this side and Sheol guards them from the other side. Sometimes there are tears in the fabric between your world in which demons and Fallen slip through. But mostly, there’s balance—small doors that close and don’t open again for long periods of time. The boatswain creates a gateway where none existed. You could theoretically control the flow of beings in and out of Sheol with it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if you were to open the gateway big enough, you could march an army through it.”
I shiver as all the hair on my body stands on end because he’s speaking the truth. “Where’s Reed?” Pieces of the ceiling fall to the bedroom floor as I force Xavier harder against it in panic. “I need him.” He’s the only person that can drive away the fear that threatens to overwhelm me.
The set of Xavier’s jaw indicates that he’s done talking.
“You don’t like that question? Here’s a different one: Where were you?” I ask, choking on betrayal.
His expression loses some of its defiance. “When?” he asks.
“When I was Simone and being tortured by Emil.” I hiss. “You made me go back to him in Lille. You wouldn’t let me leave Emil until I found out his next position, would you? Even with everything you knew about him! You knew he was a complete monster! You knew what he was doing to me! The brutality I suffered at his hands!”
A smile forms on Xavier’s lips “You remember me—you remember us?” His elation is eclipsing his pain.
“I remember being tortured by Emil and abandoned by you! It’s a theme with you!”
His smile is gone. “I never abandoned you! I’ve never walked away from you!”
“You let him have me,” I whisper, wretched with the knowledge of what he allowed to happen to me.
“It was our purpose, Evie! It’s what we do. We subvert evil. I couldn’t touch him in that lifetime—I’m an angel and he was human. It had to be you, human verses human. It’s how things are done. You knew going into that lifetime what could happen to you. What ALWAYS happens!”
“And what always happens, Xavier?”
“There is always a consequence—a price to pay! You die at the end. Period. Every time. You were human and that’s how it always ends.”
“Simone didn’t know that though, did she?” I ask. “She had no idea she was there to take one for the team. She thought you were her savior—her human British soldier who’d rescue her from the sociopath who wanted to destroy her—to take her apart piece by piece—inch by inch. You abandoned her to Emil—to that evil bastard!”
“You used to understand that once you were sent to Earth to live a life, I couldn’t reveal who or what I really am to you. This is the ONLY lifetime in which that no longer applies. This was going to be the first time I could reveal who I am to you while on Earth because you’re angelic now, too,” he explains. “But to answer your question: NO! My plan was to extract Simone before he killed you. I never meant to leave you there with Emil. Our plan went wrong. Evil won that time. Some missions end that way, Evie. You used to know that!”
I feel so hurt by him that I’m nearly overwhelmed by it. “I must’ve forgotten, Xavier, but you know what? Screw your missions! I don’t care about your missions! This is about you and me.”
“You’re exactly right! It is about you and me. It’s about you being with me. And it has everything to do with this assignment and Emil!” I release Xavier from the magic that has him pinned to the ceiling. He falls toward the floor, but his wings unfurl from his back, shredding off his shirt; they beat hard, saving him from crashing into the floor. He hovers for a moment in the air before touching down at the foot of my bed.