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“But you saved my life. I thought I was going to save yours. When you didn’t resurface, I thought…”

“I’m a demon. I don’t need to breathe. And neither should you. Why didn’t you just cut yourself free with your sword?” I ask angrily.

He pauses, pushes himself up on his elbow, and looks down at his hip, where his sword still hangs. “I guess I forgot it was there. I couldn’t breathe, and I was getting dizzy. I would have died.” His eyes flick back up to me. “You saved me.”

“You need to stop saying that,” I say, looking away from him, uncomfortable.

“You did though!”

“Well then, let’s call it even,” I say flatly. “You spared my brother in your first life, which I effectively ended, and I saved your second life.”

“For the record,
you
didn’t end my first life. Lucifer did.”

I roll my eyes.

“But if it makes you more comfortable, fine.” He smiles at me gratefully. “We’re even.”

“Don’t patronize me,” I say, insulted.

He draws his face in confusion, the ends of his mouth turning down in a slight frown. With great effort, he tries to stand. He stumbles clumsily on his feet, attempting to regain his balance. I lower my knees, my body tense and ready to catch him if he falls, but he puts his hands up. I sit back but don’t relax. He looks clammy, his torso pale and still very damp from the pond. Even though his cheeks are rosy again, I’m worried the color is too bright to be healthy and he may be flushed from a fever.

When he steadies himself, he walks over to me and sloppily lowers himself to the ground. He hits the pebbled bank jarringly, scattering loose stones, and winces. I watch his face contort in pain for a moment before it slackens with relief.

He turns his head and looks at me, sincerity printed across his face like ink on a page. “I’m not trying to patronize you.”

I regard him suspiciously.

“You should learn to trust people more,” he advises. “ I’m not trying to trick you, but you keep looking at me like I’m going to do something awful.”

“From my experience, it’s only a matter of time before someone does. It’s in my best interest not to trust anyone,” I say. “I’ve learned that the hard way, and it’s not a lesson I’ll soon forget.”

He considers this. “Letting yourself be vulnerable can be hard.”

“No, it’s not that vulnerability is hard.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean it to, so I take a breath. “Vulnerability is dangerous.”

“But sometimes it’s the only way you can get to know someone,” he says, evaluating me through wet blond hair that has fallen back over his eyes.

His cheeks blaze a brighter red, and he has a strange look in his vivid blue eyes. He looks delirious. I reach towards him, push back his hair, and rest my cold palm on his forehead.

“Pen?”

“Shut up,” I silence him.

I move my hand across his forehead and then down onto one of his cheeks. He watches me as I lean in towards him, pressing my hand on his other cheek. The heel of my hand grazes his lip. His skin is warm, but not feverish. Self-consciously, I remove my hand and curl it in my lap.

“You’re vulnerable now, aren’t you?” he asks hoarsely. His throat must still burn from choking on the pond water he swallowed.

“I thought you had a fever,” I explain.

He lowers his chin so his eyes are even with mine. “Couldn’t I have killed you, if I wanted to?”

I look at his sword and then up to the thin scar over his heart. “Maybe you are delirious.”

“Why won’t you answer me?”

“Fine. You want an answer?” I look down to his sword which still waits, forgotten, at his hip. I try to imagine him picking it up and piercing it through me. But I can’t. The image doesn’t make sense. “You don’t seem the type.”

“To kill?” he asks.

I nod.

“But I have before, haven’t I?”

“Yes. Before.” I look away from him, over to the waterfall at the slowly sinking sun. The orange of the sky is bruising into a light purple edged in blue. “But you don’t seem to be the same Michael as before. And when I saw you again, I thought you would be. I thought you’d be
exactly
the same.” Angels never change. Not really. But he’s… “You’re different. You seem—”

“Weaker?” he asks, deflated.

I shake my head. “Kinder.”

He had asked me earlier if he had been kind in Heaven. But he was far from kind, which is why I’m so surprised by him now. The way he speaks to me, how he treats me, it’s not only foreign to me, but it’s uncharacteristic of the Michael I knew before. No one seems to be insignificant to this new Michael. No one’s opinion is wrong or invalid.

I chew on my lip. If I were to be completely honest, I would tell him that he is also stronger. He may not have the brute strength and assuredness he had when he commanded Heaven as an archangel, but he has a different kind of strength now. A strength that doesn’t require force or persuasion. He’s genuine and good, a leader people would be proud to follow into battle.

But the change I notice most in him is his strength of conviction.

He fights back now. He questions the past. He doesn’t simply accept things the way that they are. When I look at him closely, I see a spark in his eyes that I haven’t seen in over a millennium.

Michael could bring about a revolution.

Michael could change the world.

And who am I to stop him?

Chapter 14

We spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the water, waiting for Michael to regain his strength. He keeps picking up the small pebbles that are scattered across the ground and skimming them over the smooth surface of the pond. They bounce all the way across the water until they hit the bottom of the waterfall and disappear in the spray.

I lean back and lie down on the bank, my bare feet resting in the warm water of the pond. I look up through the canopy of trees to the sky, which appears to be fractured through the spindly green branches. I feel Michael lie down next to me and I glance over at him briefly before looking back up at the sky. He raises his arms and folds them under his head.

“It’s amazing how different everything looks from down here,” he says.

“What do you mean?” I turn my head and watch him.

The slowly setting sun casts a soft light across his face, illuminating his smile, and I can see the broken sky reflected in his eyes.

“From Earth, everything seems so big and infinite. It’s not like that from Heaven. Earth looks miniature and insignificant from up there. I think that’s why so many angels are indifferent.”

“Indifferent?” I ask, surprised. “Angels aren’t indifferent.” Certainly not when it comes to Earth, when it comes to their precious human race.

He shrugs, his head bouncing lightly on his arms. “Maybe not before, but they are now. They’re more preoccupied with themselves than anything down here. They don’t even seem to care about what happens on Earth. Haven’t you noticed?”

I consider what he says, trying to imagine the angels sitting around, watching Earth with disinterest. I can’t seem to connect the thought to an image, though. When I was an angel, there was nothing more important than the creation of humankind. I find it hard to believe that they would have given up so easily on humanity after a couple hundred centuries.

“Look at all of the wars that are left unchecked,” Michael continues. “How many people die from things as insignificant as disease? How many people kill each other without any provocation? The world is tearing apart at the seams, and humans are self-destructing. They’re praying to angels who just don’t care.”

“I think Hell can take a good portion of the credit,” I say in defense. “That’s our job. We’re the ones who start the wars and spread disease. We’re the ones who corrupt the good into madmen.”

“Are you, though?” he asks, glancing sideways at me. “Humans were built with the capacity for evil. They’re complacent with whatever happens as long as
they
survive. I bet they’d do just fine at ruining this planet on their own.”

I look back through the trees again. “That would make us obsolete.”

“Demons?”

“Demons and angels. If angels don’t care anymore, and demons don’t have any work left to do, what then? Do we just wait for them to implode and start over again with a new species? Speed up the process maybe?”

I think about the Lilim virus. While it originated from a demon, it is spread by humans. It’s humans who let the virus live on, infecting anyone they can. How long would it take for a virus like that to spread throughout all of the world? Would humans eventually become extinct? Maybe they are adept to end the world after all.

“You can’t think everyone is bad,” I say. I can’t imagine Michael—God’s favorite angel—having such a negative disposition towards mankind. It’s… backwards.

“I don’t. I think that everyone has goodness in them. But this goodness doesn’t erase the capacity for evil.”

I feel him look over at me, but I keep my eyes glued to the sky

He continues. “Being good is hard. It takes a conscious effort to do the right thing, especially when doing the wrong thing is so simple.” He takes a deep breath and looks back through the branches that stretch out above us. “Giving in to evil is like falling asleep. You can just close your eyes and submit to the darkness. The shadows will spill forward and steal all of the light from you, like a well of black ink spilling over fresh parchment. It’s an unending night, and it’s very tempting to just sleep forever.”

The image of parchment drowning in ink fills my mind. The ink rolls across the paper and spreads out like a starless night sky. No wonder people are so easily tempted to evil. Who would choose hot, bright noon to the cool blanket of night?

“
Everyone
has goodness in them?” I repeat, skeptical.

“Everyone,” he confirms. “Some people just forget that they do. If they only opened their eyes, they would see.” He rolls onto his side, propping his head up on his hand, and looks at me. “You have goodness in you.”

I laugh disbelievingly. “Oh, do I now? And where would that be? I have no heart, no soul. Where is my goodness hiding?”

He looks at my chest. “No heart?”

“Or soul!” I remind him, forcing cheeriness into my voice that’s so sweet my stomach hurts.

“I don’t believe that.”

I grab his hand that is resting on his hip and place it firmly on my chest. I hold it there for a few minutes, letting him feel the hollowness. He watches my face, anticipating to feel a heartbeat. But there’s nothing. I let go of his wrist and drop his hand.

“No heartbeat,” I say, rolling onto my back again. “No heart.”

He pauses for a moment, his face sad. “You don’t have to have a heart to be good. Or even a soul, for that matter.”

“Isn’t that where the term ‘heartless’ comes from?” I smile bitterly up at the trees, avoiding his gaze. “Or ‘soulless monster’?”

He’s quiet.

“That’s me all right: a heartless, soulless monster. Cruel with compassion. I can kill someone without even blinking.”

There’s a long silence that stretches out between us. It joins us on the bank of the water, wedging between us like a wall built from everything that is left unsaid. It’s painted with crude graffiti that reminds us both what we’re supposed to be. Enemies.

He ignores the graffiti.

“Can you see me, Pen?” he asks seriously.

The invisible wall crumbles and I turn to look at him, confused. “What do you mean? Of course I can see you. You’re sitting right next to me.”

“No.” He calmly shakes his head and takes a deep breath. He leans forward and looks at me meaningfully. “Can you
see
me? Because I can see you. And I know that, below your tough exterior, you are good. Because I can see it.” His gaze flicks over my ribs again before he looks back into my eyes. “It’s there. You just have to be brave enough to see the good in yourself.”

I turn farther away from him and mumble, “You must be suffering brain damage from lack of oxygen.”

“You don’t have to believe me now, Pen,” he says. I hear him shift and lie back down on the bank. His movements sends small ripples through the water, letting it lap lightly at my ankles. “One day, you’ll wake up. You’ll see what I see and then you’ll know that you are good. There is light in you.”

I’m agitated by his naïve hopefulness. What I am and what I’ve done cannot be undone overnight. The last of my light was extinguished long ago. I’ve been a lost cause since I fell from Earth. All of Heaven has given up on me, told me that I am evil through the core. Why should he believe any differently? Why should I?

“Right,” I whisper. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to,” he answers back quietly. “Besides, I should probably refrain from holding my breath for a while. Last time, it didn’t work out too well for me. Although, you did kiss me.”

I can hear the grin in his voice and I want nothing more than to slap it off his stupid face. “I did not kiss you!”

“If you say so.”

I consider arguing the point more but I decide to let it go.

We’re both quiet for a few minutes. The silence is filled by the soft noise of the waterfall splashing distantly into the pond. I close my eyes, listening. I hear the water, birds singing their last songs of the day, and the soft sound of Michael breathing. The sound is comforting, lulling me into a hazy daydream.