Alex’s arms tightened around me. “It’s okay,” he whispered, his lips moving in my hair as he rocked me. “Shh, it’s all right, everything’s okay...”

I tried to answer and couldn’t. I’d thought she was dead. Oh god, I had really thought my mother was dead. Distantly, I felt Alex pick me up and sink to the cracked tiled floor, his arms still firm around me. He didn’t say anything else; just held me close and let me cry, stroking my back and occasionally kissing the top of my head.

Finally something resembling calm started to return. I pulled away, swiping at my damp cheeks. “How did you know?” I asked shakily. “How?”

He brushed a strand of hair from my temple. I could see the depth of his relief. “I didn’t – I just really, really hoped I was right. Is your Aunt Jo okay, too?”

Shame scorched me like a flame-thrower; I’d forgotten all about her. But when I checked, she was fine. Actually, better than fine – she seemed happier than I’d ever sensed her. I let out a breath. Aunt Jo and I had lived in the same run-down, full-of-clutter house for years without becoming close – in fact, there’d been times when I hated her – but knowing she was all right made me go limp all over again.

I felt battered as we stood up, as if I’d been pummelled by a hundred fists. I reached into the cubicle for some toilet paper to mop my face. “So was the fire just a cover, then? Someone must really want the world to believe that Mom and Aunt Jo are dead.”

Alex nodded, resting a firm-looking shoulder against the wall. “I think it might have been the CIA.”

I looked up from wiping my eyes. “You mean Sophie?”

“Yeah, maybe. Nate told you that another department was sheltering Project Angel, now that it’s been infiltrated. She could have gotten their help to set the fire and get your mother and aunt out of there – keep them both safe, so the angels can’t use them to get to you.”

I fell silent as I threw the damp tissue into the overflowing trash can. Project Angel had been the covert CIA department Alex had worked for; after it had been taken over by the angels, Sophie and Nate had been its only two agents left. Now Nate – a renegade angel who’d tried to help humanity – was dead, and though I assumed Sophie was still alive, I had no idea where. She’d left me at the Church of Angels cathedral with no way to contact her, believing I was going to die just like Nate.