For the first time, the thought gave me a very strange feeling. It hadn’t really struck me before how inherently lonely this was – being the only one of my kind in the entire world. I went on quickly, before I could think too deeply about it. “Anyway, I didn’t go as often as I should have – my friend Nina and I used to skip a lot, and just go clothes shopping. I’m into vintage stuff, so there’s this store in Schenectady we’d go to...” I trailed off, wondering why I was telling them this.

Open mouths around the table now. I could almost hear the same thought from everyone: You had a friend? Followed hard on its heels by the girls with, Wait – you’re into clothes shopping?

From the look on Sam’s face, half-angels going shopping was seriously his idea of conversational hell. “Yeah,” he said. “So anyway, can we get back to this psychic thing? Couldn’t she – Willow – go into the cathedral and start holding people’s hands? Like, some of the officials there, or something?”

“It might look pretty suspicious,” I said wryly. “I usually have to focus for a few minutes; it’s not like a lightning flash the second I touch someone.”

“But you said you get feelings sometimes,” pointed out Kara, studying me carefully. “So if you did go into the cathedral, you might pick up something useful.”

Alex sat reading the sheet with his head propped on his hand, caressing his forehead. “I’m not sending Willow in there; her aura’s too distinctive. Any angel that saw it would know exactly who she is – all they’d have to do is sound the alarm, and there’d be a riot. Every Church member in the world wants her dead.”

“Yeah, but we could scan first, right?” Brendan’s voice quickened with excitement, just like when he was arguing politics with Sam. “Make sure there aren’t any angels around.”

Kara nodded. “Sure, and then you and me could go in with her, Alex, and make sure she’s covered.”

I was about to say it sounded good to me – and it really did; I’d been painfully aware that so far I was probably the least-contributing member of the team – but Alex glanced up and spoke first, his voice impatient. “You said angels cruise in and out of that place all the time, Kara. What good would scanning do?”

I hesitated. “But Alex, if I did get something, we’d know a lot better how to plan this thing. I wouldn’t be in there that long; I’d probably know in five minutes if I could get something.”

He gave me a look. “It’s not just the angels. Your picture’s been on every Church of Angels website in the world, remember? Someone could recognize you.”

“Not with my hair like this.” I touched its short red-gold strands.