“So much for that linear-time nonsense, eh?” My voice came out sounding harsh and rough.

Footsteps sounded behind me, and the room began to grow brighter and brighter. After a moment, there was nothing but white light, and I had to hold up a hand to shield my eyes against it.

Then the light faded somewhat. I lifted my eyes again and found myself in a featureless expanse of white. I wasn’t even sure what I was standing on, or if I was standing on anything at all. There was simply nothing but white…

… and a young man with hair of dark gold that hung messily down over silver blue eyes. His cheekbones could have sliced bread. He wore jeans, old boots, a white shirt, and a denim jacket, and no youth born had ever been able to stand with such utter, tranquil stillness as he.

“You’re used to linear time,” he said. His voice was resonant, deep, mellow, with the almost musical timbre you hear from radio personalities. “It was the easiest way to help you understand.”

“Aren’t you a little short for an archangel?” I asked him.

Uriel smiled at me. It was the sort of expression that would make flowers spontaneously blossom and babies start to giggle. “Appropriate. I must confess to being more of a Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan, personally. The simple division of good and evil, the clarity of perfect right and perfect wrong—it’s relaxing. It makes me feel young.”

I just stared at him for a moment and tried to gather my thoughts. The memory, now that I had it again, was painfully vivid. God, that poor kid. Molly. I’d never wanted to cause her pain. She’d been a willing accomplice, and she’d done it with her eyes open—but, God, I wished it hadn’t had to happen to her. She was hurting so much, and now I could see why—and I could see why the madness she was feigning might be a great deal more genuine than she realized.

That had to have been why Murphy distrusted her so strongly. Murph had excellent instincts for people. She must have sensed something in Molly, sensed the pain and the desperation that drove her, and it must have sent up a warning flag in Murphy’s head. Which would have hurt Molly badly, to be faced with suspicion and distrust, however polite Karrin might have been about it. That pain would, in turn, have driven her further away, made her act stranger, which would earn more suspicion, in an agonizing cycle.

I’d never wanted that for her.

What had I done?

I’d saved Maggie—but had I destroyed my apprentice in doing so? The fact that I’d gotten myself killed had no relative bearing on the morality of my actions, if I had. You can’t just walk around picking and choosing which lives to save and which to destroy. The inherent arrogance and the underlying evil of such a thing runs too deep to be avoided—no matter how good your intentions might be.