‘You may think you’re stronger, Archangel,’ says the Pit lord. ‘But my Pit lord brethren are on their way right now. They all saw us fighting in the sky.’

‘They won’t be here in time to save you,’ says Cyclone.

The Pit lord makes a noise like a thousand snakes slithering over dead leaves. ‘But if you take the time to fight me instead of flying away, the other lords will kill you,’ says the Pit lord. ‘So we have a deadlock.’

He sweeps his burned and sputtering wings forward, then back, as if trying them out. The cut sections bleed all over the ground. ‘I find that I’m in need of a new pair of wings.’

He looks over at Raffe’s wings, which are magnificent beside the Watchers’ mangy ones. ‘Yours are quite nice. A Pit lord with a set of archangel wings would be both respected and feared. There would be much speculation about how he came to possess them. Care to make a deal?’

Raffe laughs.

‘Think on it. No angel becomes an archangel without ambition. Ambition sometimes requires deceit. Sometimes, it requires an army. I can offer both.’

‘Deceit can be found everywhere,’ says Raffe. ‘And it’s freely given.’

‘But an army – now that’s worth something. I have several for rent. For the right price. Interested?’

‘Not for my wings. No one’s ever taking those from me.’ He doesn’t say again.

‘Perhaps you’ll have something else I might want one day.’ The Pit lord looks pointedly at me. ‘If you’re ever interested in something I can provide in exchange for . . .’ – he shrugs – ‘something I want, just bite into this.’

He tosses a small, round item strung on a thong. Raffe doesn’t bother to catch it, and it lands at his feet. It looks like a strung-up dried apple. Dark and wrinkly. I’m not sure I’d eat it if I were dying of starvation.

‘When you bite into it, it’ll bring me to wherever you are so we can talk details,’ says the Pit lord as he climbs onto his chariot.

Cyclone takes a step toward the chariot. The Pit lord’s hellions and Consumed bare their teeth at him.

Raffe puts out a hand to stop him. ‘We’re not here to fight.’

‘He’s only offering a bargain to save face,’ says Cyclone. ‘He won’t win this, and he knows it.’

‘Neither will we.’ Raffe nods to the sky. Three chariots fly toward us. Behind them is a cloud of hellions.

The Pit lord in front of us cracks his whip at the angels harnessed to his chariot. The Consumed whip heads cut into the angels, who are drenched with bloody sweat trickling down their hard bodies. They take off into the air.