Sitri turned and pulled up his phone. Across the room, Lilith shook her head at me. “You can’t dodge fate, Samael.”

“Fuck fate.”

“If she’s in the library, it’s too late. Humans are such curious creatures.”

I whirled and focused all of my attention on her. Lilith paled and went silent. I turned and went back to pacing.

“Mariam is on the way,” Sitri announced. “She said that if she’d known about the prophecy, she never would’ve sent her after the amulet.”

I closed my eyes. “So far, they’ve lost a sword, an amulet, and a belt,” she’d said. And I, who’d been so focused on controlling the situation, the prophecy, and Danica herself, hadn’t bothered to clarify which amulet it was. Instead, I’d been distracted by the vision she presented in her dress the night of the ball.

And now we’d all pay for it.

A rumbling BOOM shook the room. I glanced around, ready to order an evacuation of the tower, but the room itself wasn’t shaking.

That sound had just warned every demon alive.

Bael’s face was expressionless. “She opened the book.”

Lilith shook her head. “And so it begins.”

* * *

Danica

I frowned. My head ached like I’d been hit, and my stomach clenched uneasily. I blinked my eyes opened and the light burned my eyes, making nausea roll through my body.

All I wanted was to close my eyes again, but I forced myself to sit up. The library was a mess, shelves fallen, books sprawled on top of each other. None of them seemed destroyed, but I felt bad anyway. I loved books.

Except for the book next to me.

The book had seemed thick at first, but it actually only had one page, which it was opened to. I scowled at it. Whatever had happened, to both me and the library, was because of that stupid book. I leaned over to close it, once and for all, and my hand stilled.

One sentence. The first page only contained one sentence.

When the Morning Star goes to war with the Nephilim of his bloodline, only one shall survive.

A Nephilim. I was a Nephilim. I snorted. I was pretty sure my mom hadn’t been getting it on with Lucifer on the downlow. I flicked the page, and as I watched, the following pages turned to ash, crumbling into nothing.

A deep sense of unease was crawling up my spine.

I stared around the library. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I clicked my heels together. “There’s no place like home.”

My voice sounded hoarse. I was oddly numb. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing here, but it didn’t bode well for me. All I wanted was to be back in my apartment.