My eyes burn. My vision dissolves into blurry smears of color.

I plunge my hand into his flesh.

I pull together the Flood from his body, what lingers in his corpse, and build. I take out pieces, draw from his organs and bones, and sew it together with sinew. I cut apart his skin and pull out a little creature, eyes squeezed shut and shivering, wet from the blood and pus.

Theo loved me. I loved Theo. He was wrong and he was a monster, but I did. I do. Maybe I’m just a stupid boy, but I don’t know. Maybe in another world, one that didn’t ruin him, he could have been better.

I hold the tiny creature to my chest. There is no other world. Just the one we have here. And in this one, I am alive.

I pull my engagement ring from the dirt and fit it in the creature’s little palm—and I set them down. I wave my hand and whisper, “This world is yours. What do you want?”

They stay by me.

We come back to the bank late in the evening. Erin and Aisha and Cormac, Sarmat and Lila and Carly, all of us, have been talking the whole way—about the future, about what will happen to the Angels across the world, about how Acheson will change. By the time we make it back to the courtyard, though, we are quiet. The realization of what we’ve done and what’s going to happen swirl into a blurry mass of past, present, and future, of fatigue and occasional fits of disbelieving laughter. One erupts when Faith picks up the little Grace that’s followed us home and spins them around, saying, “Hello! You’re an ugly little thing, yes you are!” The people who didn’t come to New Nazareth, who stayed back to hold down the fort, gawk at me, touch my face, and ask if it’s me, if it’s really me. Does it hurt, am I okay? Are the Angels really dead?

Not all of them, I say, but enough.

I think it hits us all at the same time that maybe we’ll live long enough to grow up.

But as soon as I find a place to breathe, Sadaf comes up to me and says, “Nick wants to see you. He’s in the copy room.”

I run to him.

The copy room has been set up as a miniature version of Nick’s room in the ALC: a mattress, his beads, dim lighting, and not much else. I squeeze my massive body through the door, wincing when my wing catches on the threshold. It’s just the two of us here, alone.

Nick tries to smile. It doesn’t work.