Deacon’s fingers stilled over the Tater Tot snowman he appeared to be building. “Gods,” he murmured, sitting back. “I would like to go just a couple of months without having to go to a funeral service.”

That didn’t seem likely.

I glanced at the door. Josie had gone to the library again, but I was thinking she should be done by now. I’d told her where I was going to be, so she knew where to find us. Part of me wished I’d gone to the library with her.

“It’s weird,” Alex said as she picked up Aiden’s hand. I had no idea what she was doing, but it looked like she was massaging his fingers or something. “We see so many people entering Tartarus on a daily basis, so you think we’d be accustomed to it, you know?” She shook her head as she stared at Aiden’s hand. Her fingers moved over his. “But I’m not. I guess it’s different down there, because you know they’ll be happy, but I’m . . . I’m just rambling.”

“It’s okay.” Aiden leaned over, kissing her temple. “We don’t have services down there.”

“Makes sense,” Solos said, lips kicking up. “Everyone’s sort of already dead.”

Alex rolled her eyes.

“Do you ever think we could visit?” Deacon asked, grabbing a packet of ketchup. “I mean, I’d like to see—”

A sudden shot from outside interrupted him, then a loud bang, like a crack of thunder. I shot up, right beside Alex. Aiden made it to the window first.

“Gods,” he said.

We were on the first floor, toward the back of the main Covenant building, and the window overlooked a decent portion of the north quad, which gave us a bird’s-eye view of a pretty decent throw-down between groups of halfs and pures. The crashing noise had to have been from the shattered statue closest to the building. They’d managed to knock that thing over.

“Ouch,” Alex murmured as a half landed an impressive roundhouse.

My lips pursed as a pure tapped into the air element and tossed one of the halfs into a group of about five others, knocking them over like a set of bowling pins. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

Solos sighed, dropping his head onto the table. “Gods, is it wrong if I just pretend I have no idea what’s going on outside?”

Reaching for a Tater Tot and finding them gone, Luke frowned as he glanced over at Deacon’s plate. “Marcus is planning on putting that curfew in place, starting tomorrow, I think, but that isn’t going to stop this.”

“Nothing is going to stop this.” Alex pressed her hands to the window. Her breath fogged the glass. “This wasn’t what I wanted—what we wanted.”