I sank into a chair and closed my eyes. “It really wasn’t Carter.” The angel had been telling the truth about noninterference. I opened my eyes again. “And you gave me the matches, didn’t you? That’s exactly the kind of fucked-up thing you’d do.”

He put on an offended air. “That was pretty nice of me, considering how you looked like you were ready to have a withdrawal seizure then and there.”

“This doesn’t make sense. You can’t be here to help find Jerome. What’s really going on?”

“Does the reason matter if I help find him?”

“Yes! It matters if you want to find him, only so you can promptly destroy him.”

“I don’t want to destroy him.”

“I have no reason to trust you.”

His eyes narrowed a bit. “And I have no reason to trust you, if memory serves.”

I shrugged, almost too weary to be afraid anymore. “Well, then, we’re even, huh? Except, of course, that you can channel your mistrust into blowing me off the face of the earth.”

“And you could tell the demon horde out there that there’s a nephilim in the city.” Roman laughed. “Oh, they’d love that, wouldn’t they? If one of them could hunt down and kill a nephilim, that’d pretty much cinch their position here.”

“Yeah, like I’d get a chance to tell anyone.” I sighed. “Roman, if you’re not going to destroy me, then what exactly do you want with me? Why did you save me all those times?”

“Because you’re the only one in this fucking town with any chance of finding Jerome. And you can move around a lot more freely than I can.”

“Um, last time I checked, you’re the one in the Junior Smiting League, not me. I don’t have any pow—abilities right now to defend myself.”

“Yeah, but if you’re caught poking around, people aren’t going to declare open season on you . . . I mean, aside from that bitch demoness.”

I grimaced at the memory, and Roman pushed forward.

“Look, Georgina, we can sit and argue whether I’m going to kill you or not, or we can try to figure this out and get your boss back. Then we can explore me killing you in more depth.”

“God,” I groaned, standing up. I needed my cigarettes. Roman watched me light up.

“New habit since I was last around.”

“Old one, actually. And I’m not in the mood for lecturing.” I sat back down, feeling much more settled with my nicotine. Aubrey wandered out shortly thereafter, apparently not afraid of a sociopathic—yet still eerily sexy—immortal hanging out with us. “So, what’s there to figure out? It was Grace. You said you saw the seal around her neck.”