Indeed, fury had twisted Jesse Blackthorn’s features; he was barely recognizable. It was as if his human face was a skin stretched too tightly over the features below: Belial’s true, monstrous face. “Enough!” Belial hissed. “Show me who you are.”

False Magnus bowed low to the ground, and when he rose, he had transformed once more. Standing before them was a slender woman, her skin pale as milk, and her hair jet-black, falling down her back like dark water. She would have been beautiful but for her eyes: black snakes writhing from otherwise empty sockets. A rope of deep blue gems wound about her throat.

“Lilith,” Belial said bitterly. “Of course. I should have known.”

25 ARCHANGEL RUINED

His form had yet not lost

All her original brightness, nor appeared

Less than archangel ruined, and the excess

Of glory obscured.

—John Milton, Paradise Lost

There was a low moaning sound. It took Lucie a moment to realize it was coming from her. She was lying on her stomach, her cheek pressed to a cold, hard surface. She blinked her eyes open with effort and saw a thick layer of dust on a wooden floor, and ahead of her, a filthy, dark blue wall.

Her head ached so badly the pain sent spikes of nausea through her. Swallowing hard, she pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around.

She was in a long room, high-ceilinged and dancing with dust: above her sparkled a battered chandelier in the shape of a twisted spider. Aha. She was in the ballroom of Chiswick House, where she had once climbed through a window and met Jesse.

Jesse. More recent memories came back to her in a flurry—her rush to the coffin, the discovery of the runes on Jesse’s body, taking the Blackthorn sword from the wall. The blow from behind and the darkness…

Lucie touched the back of her head and felt a painful lump where she had been struck. She twisted around another inch—and saw a froth of gray skirts, and a pair of dove-gray kid boots. She dragged her gaze up. Grace sat a few feet away on a splintered wooden chair, her ankles neatly crossed, her back straight. Across her lap she held a fireplace poker.

Lucie sat up hastily, ignoring the pain in her head. Her back hit the wall; she thrust out her hands defensively as Grace stared at her. “Don’t you come near me with that thing again,” Lucie gasped. “Why on earth would you—”

Grace looked incredulous. “How can you even ask? Lucie, you—you of all people, standing over my brother with a drawn sword! How could you do it? Did you think if you destroyed his body, I could never raise him? Why would you want such a thing?”