Sure, I had come down and taken flesh when playing Lucifer’s little games, and I did it again when I played on my own terms, when I carried Galilee in the quiet darkness of my own body and pushed her out, andstillI didn’t get the point. It was all so transient, so meat-like and painful and, frankly, rather disgusting. I remember holding her in that creek and wondering at how all the power I had cultivated in my blood and channeled so intentionally into her, how it was all bundled up in these frail bones and tiny body. Darling didn’t know this, but I would have never dropped the child into the water, never let her die. She was a metal seed, filled with so much potential, and all she needed was somewhere safe where she could grow into a blade. I chose well with the Kincaids. My price of Darling’s memory was evidence of a weakness I was still plagued by: the desire to see the world through Lucifer’s eyes, to understand what made itworthit for him.
All to no avail. My pain eclipsed my curiosity anyway. What did it matter if I understood or not? It would not bring him back into Heaven, it could not un-ring the bell. And now he was tangled in mydaughter, just as I wanted, and yet it reminded me of what it was like to be the one he looked at like that, smiled at like that. Lucifer always moved as if he could see something the rest of us couldn’t, like all his Morningstar brightness illuminated a secret that we would be transformed by, if only we could see it. It took me millennia to shake off the spell he had cast on me, and I had no plans to fall under it again.
I needed him destroyed.
Everything that had happened in the garden with the Kincaids wasperfect—it couldn’t have been more perfect if I had choreographed it all myself, positioned them all like little figurines, tipped the dominoes of their secrets until Galilee Kincaid was almost a column of fire. With each fragment of control she lost, all my plans came one step closer to their culmination, and anticipation bloomed ferociously inside mychest. This was worth it, the things I did to make her, the secrets I kept. Galilee would never understand what this meant—how precious a tool she was to me, divinely designed to alleviate my suppurating pain. IneededGod’s justice for Lucifer’s continued flouting of his own punishment, and Galilee was my flaming sword. It wasn’t just for me—Lucifer had wronged scores of angels, and all of Heaven bore the scars, the siblings lost to his foolish cause, entities that could not be birthed again. Some of them had beenannihilated, and the rest of us had had to watch, all because Lucifer thought to argue with God on behalf of the humans.
It was not the natural order of things. It stank of rebellion, and even when I explained this all to him, wept and begged him to recant his words, Lucifer had refused. I’d had to choose between the son of the morning and Heaven itself. One was a misguided love, and the other was the hand of God, so it wasn’t a choice, not truly. Lucifer was already turning other angels to his way of thought, and I knew it was a test. Would I be loyal? Would I let his corruption spread because of the love I bore him? If there was redemption to be had for Lucifer, we would have to force it down his throat.
I told Michael how far gone the Morningstar was, and he tried to help. He and I and even the other archangels, we all tried, and we all failed, because Lucifer would not be moved. Heaven split into factions. War broke out, and when the archangels seized the victory, our family was torn apart. The defiant angels were thrown out of Heaven. Lucifer was cast into Hell, and the others faded into obscurity, certain that Michael would smite them if they ever showed their faces again. I doubt they still live. Losing the presence of God would have killed me, I know that much, but Lucifer was different. He’d sank into his rage and bitterness and had ruled Hell with a terrifying fist, until hechangedand won the love of those demons who called themselves his princes.
I could not stand for it. Who was he to be loved after all of that? Who was he to build himself afamily? He haddestroyedmine.
A surge of rage washed through my form, and I laughed silently—how ridiculous it was to be an angel with trauma as old as a planet! I was never the same after the war, you see. My soul was scarred, and even with my fellow angels around me, Heaven did not feel like it had before. It did not feel like home because of Lucifer. Because of what he did. I desperately wished to be free of this sickening rage, and with Lucifer gone, I would be clean again, purged of the bitter cloak nailed to my back. If this sounds like an obsession, that’s because it was. After the war, I had railed against Lucifer in Heaven until the other angels were sick of hearing it, even the ones who agreed with me. Michael himself had pulled me aside.
“You must stop questioning Lucifer’s punishment,” he said.
“Hell is too good for him,” I had growled in response, and Michael had regarded me with those cold eyes of his.
“Do you really intend to keep challenging God’s judgment? Just as Lucifer did?”
I had blanched at that comparison. “It is not the same thing! I’m not trying tosavehim. I want himdestroyed.”
Michael had leaned in, and glaciers crumbled out of his mouth. “It does not matter what you want.All that matters is God’s will and ourabsoluteobedience.”
Easy forhimto say. He was an archangel—his decisions were always unquestionably God’s will. None of us dared to challenge that. And so I festered with my bitterness for thousands of years, until Michael crossed paths with Lucifer somewhere in Aotearoa and saw for himself how the Devil had dared to make a chosen family out of his demons. The archangel had returned to Heaven in a cold white fury after that.
“You were right,” he’d bitten out. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”
Finally, Michael’s desires were aligned with mine, and that is why my vengeance was now God’s will too—my actions sanctioned by an archangel, my daughter burning on earth, and a broken hellgate spitting demons into Salvation—all a trap for the son of the morning.
I call this purpose.
Sometimes, though, I wondered what I would do when it was all done. When Lucifer was annihilated, as his little found family mourned the end of his long existence, what would become of me when I was no longer fueled by this one-sided feud? I was no fool. I knew very well that Lucifer did not bear me the same ill will I had for him, because Lucifer simply did notthinkof me as I did him, and that was only one more thing in a long list of his slights.
Would I feel better about the war then? Galilee would be alive. What would she be—whatcouldshe be—once her function was complete as distraction or death blow? Would I see her as a person then, a daughter? Would Michael allow it? We’d never discussed this before, the aftermath of our well-oiled victory, and for one disturbing moment, I could see Michael striking her down, her brilliant light guttering under the violence of his hands. It was a surprisingly unpleasant thing to imagine, and I liked my own reaction far less—the girl should not have mattered. If Michael wanted to break a tool once it was used, who was I to stop him? The archangel is merely an extension of God’s will, and to think of anything else would be as Michael had already accused me once, of being too much like Lucifer. If I was wise, I would strive toward indifference, but I know the truth about me—that my hatred is nothing more than a love that was left behind.
It made no difference to my purpose. I could love Lucifer and destroy him.
After all, he did it to me first.
19.
Galilee
In the silence after her grandmother’s words, Gali let the light fade back inside her, seeping out of her eyes. Once again, she was made of stinging hollows. In just a hiccup of time, she’d discovered that Collette wasn’t her mother, she’d seen her birth mother in Nana Darling’s memories, and then she’d watched the woman casually threaten to kill her more than once. Her aunts and cousins were whispering among themselves, shocked by the revelations Nana Darling had paraded around them. Sage was still bitter and hostile, but she was keeping her mouth closed. Zélie was curled up against her mom, Eunice, and it made Gali miss who she’d been an hour ago, when she’d had just one mother and things had been simpler. Now she was unbelievably sad and equally exhausted, hurts piling up like fallen leaves inside her.
“Thank you,” she said to Nana Darling. “I didn’t understand how much you paid to get me. To keep me.”
Her grandmother smiled faintly. “You’ve always been worth it, Galilee Kincaid.”
Gali looked from her mother to Celestial, then got up to fall into a hug with them, their knees clumsy on the grass. “Thank you for choosingme,” she said, her voice muffled as they huddled around her. “Thank you for telling me. I understand why you couldn’t before.”
Collette was crying again, but Celestial just looked relieved when she pulled back.
“Can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s out now,” she said to Gali. “Thanks for not giving Nana Darling a choice.”
The cousins grinned at each other, and then Nana Darling stood up, dusting off her clothes. She seemed to have come to a decision in the aftermath of the memoryscape, and Gali could tell by the set of her mouth that Nana Darling didn’t like the decision very much but was going to follow through with it anyway.
