I knew why Molly had tried to get me to tell Thomas. She’d known, just as I had, that Thomas would try to stop me from killing myself, regardless of my motivations. But she’d been right about something else, too: He was my brother. He’d deserved more than I’d given him. That was why I hadn’t thought of him, not once since returning to Chicago. How could I possibly have remembered my brother without remembering the shame I felt at excluding him from my trust? How could I think of Thomas without thinking of the truth of what I had done?

Normally, I would never have believed that I was the sort of man who could make himself forget and overlook something rather than facing a harsh reality, no matter how painful it might be.

I guess I’m not perfect.

The young man facing me waited patiently, apparently giving me time to gather my thoughts, saying nothing.

Uriel. I should have known from the outset. Uriel is the archangel who most people know little about. Most don’t even know his name—and apparently he likes it that way. If Gabriel is an ambassador, if Michael is a general, if Rafael is a healer and spiritual champion, then Uriel is a spymaster—Heaven’s spook. Uriel covered all kinds of covert work for the Almighty. When mysterious angels showed up to wrestle with biblical patriarchs without revealing their identities, when death was visited upon the firstborn of Egypt, when an angel was sent into cities of corruption to guide the innocent clear of inbound wrath, Uriel’s hand was at work.

He was the quietest of the archangels. To my way of thinking, that probably indicated that he was also the most dangerous.

He’d taken notice of me a few years back and had bestowed a measure of power known as soulfire on me. I’d done a job or three for him since then. He’d dropped by with annoying, cryptic advice once in a while. I sort of liked him, but he was also aggravating—and scary, in a way that I had never known before. There was the sense of something… hideously absolute about him. Something that would not yield or change even if the universe itself was unmade. Standing in his presence, I always felt that I had somehow become so fragile that I might fly to dust if the archangel sneezed or accidentally twitched the wrong muscle.

Which, given the kind of power such a being possessed, was probably more or less accurate.

“All of this?” I asked, waving a hand generally, “was to lead me there? To that memory?”

“You had to understand.”

I eyed him and said wearily, “Epic. Fail. Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Uriel tilted back his head and laughed. “This is one of those things that was about the journey, not the destination.”

I shook my head. “You… you lost me.”

“On the contrary, Harry: You found yourself.”

I eyed him. Then tore at my hair and said, “Arrrgh! Can’t you give me a straight answer? Is there some law of the universe that compels you to be so freaking mysterious?”