I listened to the snuffle of his breath as it became rapid and shallow. “You still think you can make it through. Until the first memory comes at you. It’s the smell. Or, at least, it was for me. The scent of it. The feel of it. All around you. Inside you. And then it all hits you at once. Your pain, your humiliation, your fear. The memories you’ve spent your entire existence trying to scrub from your mind. Before you can fight them off, they’re crawling up your spine. Into your brain.”

I opened my eyes and looked down at him. He was paper-white. “And you get to fight not only your memories, but the memories of everyone you’ve ever possessed. Isn’t that right?” I smiled. “It’s okay, Clarence. You won’t face it alone. They’re all around you, the other people who didn’t make it out. Some of them have probably been there for centuries. Maybe longer. It eats them, see. It sucks them down, holds on tight, and digests them slowly.”

There was a solid ring of white around the irises of his eyes. “You’re right,” I said softly. “Forever is a long time.”

“The dark tower is not in this realm,” he snapped, blinking quickly.

He was right. I was kind of bluffing, but what the hell. “You’re mistaken if you think we’re alone here,” I said.

“The angels will not interfere. They are not allowed to.” But now he was sweating. It beaded on his brow, dripped through the blood crusting on the side of his face.

I looked over my shoulder at Malachi. “Call Raphael. Get him to open a door to the dark city.”

Malachi’s expression was stony, and his face was pale, probably because he knew the terrors of the dark tower intimately. But he immediately pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“No!” squawked Clarence. “No!”

“Then give me what I need!” I shouted at him.

“No!”

“Malachi, dial! Tell Raphael I need him to summon two Guards from the dark city!”

Clarence strained against the ropes, the tendons in his neck making his throat look webbed. Poisonous spit flew from his mouth as he screamed, “We will destroy you, girl! If you think you have bad memories now, they are nothing compared to what we will do to you!”

With a hard shove, I upended Clarence’s chair and sent him crashing to the floor; then I nudged his head with my boot. “What about your memories, Clarence? Got any good ones in there? How about the time I killed you?”

Clarence groaned and struggled as I lowered my knee onto his chest. “Where’s the nest?”

He glared at me. “If I tell you that, it’s better if you send me to the tower. If you destroy the nest, they will know I am a traitor. The Queen will eat my heart in the square.”