I stretch my hands, and shattered-bone claws carve tracks in the floor of the isolation room. I want to stand, throw myself against the walls, tear the door off its hinges. But I am exhausted, and my wings weigh me down. Fleshy newborn things. Heavy and useless.

My neck and chest are sticky with black bile. My dress is stained and torn, and my unholy mess of a body has escaped it. It destroys the perfect whiteness of this room. Good.

Across from me, there’s a two-way mirror halfway up one wall and a small hole for people to speak through. That’s why I can hear voices, murmuring.

Mom says, “How’s Brother Clairborne?”

“He’s fine.” Sister Kipling. “The effects were minor. Reverend Brother Ward and Brother Abrams are under observation now. Tipton wasn’t so lucky.”

“Poor souls. It happened so quickly.”

That agony—was that me? Did I do that?

“It’s fascinating, really, how even latent microdoses of the virus react in Seraph’s presence. A side effect of the blooming, causing a mirror effect in nearby infected tissue. It should calm in time, once the virus settles, but—”

“As long as it happens quickly.”

Please, God, if You prove Your existence by making this stop, I swear I’ll follow You for the rest of my days.

Then, of course, proof that Mom has dug faith into me like thorns under my skin, like a tattoo I can’t carve off, like trauma: Even when my chest splits open the next second, I think, But He still might be real, and I’m just too broken to feel it. It’s my fault.

Another ebb, another pulling back, another breath. My hair falls out in clumps. Blood and Flood rot have mixed together on the floor into something wine colored.

My body is too big for itself. My limbs are long, like they’ve been stretched on a rack, bending in places they shouldn’t and packed with muscle and tumors. Painful barbs jut from my shoulders and the curve of my wings, right where little spikes grow into feathers. I press my face against the tiles and gasp for air.

I wonder how Nick, Erin, the Watch, and the rest of the ALC are doing. There’s an emptiness in my chest where something used to be, and I can’t tell if it was another organ I can’t keep track of anymore or the sinking feeling of failure. Nick and the Watch were right there, waiting for me, and my body tore itself to pieces before I could raise my hand and turn the Graces against the Angels.

That was my one job, and it fell apart because I waited for Reverend Brother Ward to make me bleed.

I failed. And now Nick and the rest probably have no idea what to do.

Neither do I.

The door opens. Sister Kipling comes in.