She’s heading for the gates. She’s keeping her promise. She is a heretic.

It must be tomorrow.

I can’t breathe until I hear the distant hum of the gate. Tomorrow. It’s tomorrow. Please, Nick, please.

I know Theo is expecting me—I’ve spent the past several nights in a renovated meeting room, where Theo sleeps on a mattress on the floor beside me—but I can’t bring myself to move. I feel every single spark in the world. Every single Grace. I am there with every one of them.

When I was born, Mom named me after a woman in the Old Testament. She was a Jewish queen and one of the most beautiful women her kingdom had ever known. When her cousin offended the king’s adviser, the adviser gained permission from the king to slaughter her people—but Esther foiled the plan and instead allowed her people to slaughter their enemies in turn. Mom thought she could name me Esther and not even consider the woman who saved those she loved? Or is the Angels’ persecution complex so deep-rooted they think they are the ones who need saving?

Who am I kidding? I know damn well it is.

If Mom wanted to name me Esther, then fine. I’ll live up to the name and lay it in an honored resting place at their graves. I won’t be “blessed Seraph,” I will not be theirs, and there is nothing they can do about it. I’ve taken what they’ve given me and turned it into a mockery of them. I will turn it into what destroys them.

If they want me to be a monster one step closer to God, that’s fine.

In what world was their God ever a benevolent one?

Chapter 32

“Consecration” is the act of making or declaring something to be sacred; through the Flood, we consecrate the flesh as well as the spirit. Sanctify the blood, and make holy the bones.

—Reverend Mother Woodside’s notes

Theo is taking a hell of a long time getting ready the next morning. Mom sits at the studying tables on the ground floor of the health center, legs crossed primly; Squad Devotion stands around, waiting for orders; and I’m eyeing the front door to figure out how I’m supposed to hold my wings to get through.

Sister Kipling, huddled across the hall, hasn’t looked at me since she met my eyes this morning and mouthed, It’s done. That’s fine. That’s all I need from her. The Grace is out in Acheson, the bead lizard between their teeth. My tail thumps excitedly against the floor. Anxiety thrums through my new body the way my heartbeat used to, replacing it as the thing keeping me upright and moving.

Mom says, “Sweetie?”

She never calls me that. I pick up my head to look at her.