Bewildered, I stared until I remembered. Ace. He’d gotten a guardian angel. Crap. “Paul followed us from the school,” I blurted, dropping back as she came forward step by stiff step. “I didn’t know he was there! By the time I knew what he was doing, it was too late. Nakita, I didn’t tell him it was Ace. He followed me!” I almost shouted, yelping when my butt hit the rolling gurney behind me. Remembering her killing my predecessor before my very eyes, I let my gaze drop to her amulet. It was as if it were throwing black shards of light into the shadows of the room. Nakita had paused, listening, but her grip on her sword was still white-knuckled. I think she wanted to believe me but was afraid.

“The seraphs were right,” I pleaded. “Talking to Ace wouldn’t have made any difference. But Shoe can still save the people Ace was going to kill.”

Nakita lowered her sword an inch. Her cheeks were spotted with red, and I gripped the rolling table behind me with both hands.

“I don’t care about the people who are going to die,” she said, making Shoe pause in his typing. “Saving them is not my job! Their souls are beautiful and the seraphs will rejoice. It’s wounded souls that concern me. I care for the wounded, Madison, not the well.”

My mouth dropped open in a silent “oh” of understanding. She was a dark reaper. She killed people to save their souls. She thought what I was trying to do was foolish. And yet she stood there, shielding my soul from Ron’s detection as she tried to understand.

“Taking Ace’s soul before he sullied it beyond redemption was my task,” she said, and I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. “His soul depended upon me, and I failed him utterly because I trusted you. You made a deal with the light timekeeper’s acolyte. You let him give Ace a guardian angel so I wouldn’t be able to kill his body.

Admit it!”

Shoe was staring. His fingers were still, and the silence soaked into me. “Keep working, Shoe,” I said, not looking away from Nakita. “I didn’t give him Ace,” I said to her, and she grew more agitated, a confused angel with a sword. “Paul gave Ace his guardian angel before I even knew he was there. You didn’t fail him. I did.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t betray you! Not on purpose.”

Nakita fingered her amulet, confusion pinching her eyes. Because of me, black wings had eaten her memories.

Not all of them, but enough so that she had felt the touch of death. The sound of her screams as she realized there was such a thing as an end had been awful. She alone among the angels knew what it was to fear death.

She alone knew the bitterness of loss. And I still couldn’t get her to understand why I wanted to end the early scythings.