“I’m, uh.” Sadaf leans forward to watch how my mouth works when I speak. “I’m turning into an abomination. A Grace. I—I grew up in New Nazareth. I was an Angel.” Cormac’s eyes snap to Nick, but he does nothing. A few people glance away, like they can’t bear to look at me while I speak. Like I’m something they have to reconcile now. “I ran away, but before I did, they infected me with a special strain of the Flood that’s turning me into a Grace called Seraph. It, uh, I can actually control other Graces, talk to them, ask them to help. So Seraph is really, really important to the Angels. And they’re not going to stop tearing apart the city until they get me back.”

A deep breath. A steadying one, long and slow.

“So I’m going to go back to New Nazareth,” I say, “and if you’ll have me—if you’ll help me—I’m going to burn it to the ground.”

Quiet.

Look at these people, the silence says, who have rejected you. You were wrong.

But Sadaf’s smile still gleams in her eyes. Aisha totters to her feet, pressing both hands to her mask. Salvador begins to laugh, and it is infectious. Cormac claps a hand on my shoulder, and Faith yanks me away to wrap me in her arms, and I am not alone, I am not alone.

“Looks like we can’t get rid of you that easy,” Alex sighs.

I will be good. I will make the Angels fucking suffer.

Theodore

Chapter 26

Do you believe in God?

—I do, please stop, there’s so much blood

Theo prays at the foot of the nest, and the words come out rotten; less words and more stomach acid or whatever terrible thing is forcing itself up this time. It’s taken root in his organs, festering with maggots and eating him alive. No matter how hard he pulls, he just can’t get the sick parts out.

He’s ruined everything. Like he always does.

So many people have been sacrificed to get Benji back. Squad Rapture, cut down by the heretics days ago; Squad Dominion, who haven’t returned from their hunt and probably never will; Squad Crucifix, who Sister Kipling says might still be out there, but there’s no use in hoping. The children, clergy, and everyone that day at Reformation. And all for what? For Theo to fail? Like he always does?

Theo presses his face into his dusty, torn-up palms. He’ll be lucky if his punishment is just execution in the culling fields. He’ll be hung from the gate. He’ll choke on his own intestines. Or maybe his father will drown him in the river like an unwanted newborn, hold his head underwater until his lungs flood and he slowly, slowly stops struggling.