“No, no, explain.”
“I don’t know.She was so supportive coming to the cell and teaching me how to access my power.But in the courtyard… she just took my magic from me.She didn’t give me instructions… she just…”
“Used you?”Midnight frowns.
We fall silent, both lost in thought.I don’t have an answer.Architecti has been nothing but helpful, I’m probably overthinking it.
I switch to the task at hand.Playing bait and getting Interitus here is one thing.Trapping her will be another.But stopping her?That’s entirely different.“I’ve been having visions and dreams of them.Or at least I think I have,” I offer.
“Say more,” she says and steals the remaining piece of Lex’s toast.
“Since the courtyard, a piece of Interitus lodged inside me, and I guess I’m seeing fragments of their lives.”
“Anything useful?”
I shrug.“There’s one memory that keeps coming in pieces.They were staring into a mirror that shows one’s fate.Architecti saw hers, then a version of Interitus’s, but I flitted into Interitus’s memory and what she saw was different.I feel like we’re missing something.I just can’t work out what.”
“Do you have access to all their memories?”
“Maybe?It’s possible now I have a piece of each of them.”
Midnight sits up.“What if we supercharged it?Got you access to all their memories.Maybe you could hunt through them.”
“How exactly do you supercharge access to a piece of an angel’s soul?”
Midnight grins at me.“You’re basically a supercharged celestial rune, baby.How’s about you come play with Daddy and I power up your body for you?”
My cheeks flush.
“And then when you’re glowing like a firework, you let your mind channel into the pieces of them.”
“You’re offering me free orgasms?”
“Something like that.”She beams at me, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.Instead, we share a glance that weighs more than the burden of any contract.
Our eyes speak what our mouths won’t.A realisation we’re both avoiding.
The thought makes my body grow cold and shivery.She yanks my hand and pulls me out of the chair, twirling me towards her.
It’s just a distraction.All this is a distraction from the truth.
I have unimaginable power, but Midnight is still going to die because I don’t know how to save her.
36
Midnight
Ilead Lucy to the bedroom, knowing that one day far too soon it will be the last time we kiss, the last time my fingers get to caress her skin and the last time I have the honour of holding her.
If she says I have a week, then why does it feel like I have less?
I have tried so hard to run from reality.To stop the ticking clocks, but I have failed over and over.And this is no different.Now there is another ticking clock, and this time it’s on our relationship.No matter how much I crave Lucy, I will have to say goodbye far too soon.
That ever-present marching clock tolls deep in my mind.I push it away, I don’t want the reminder, not today.It’s just Lucy and me this morning.Our bodies… our goodbye, and the vain hope that I can help her trawl through the angels’ memories for a shred of an idea on how to stop Interitus destroying the city.
My eyes sting at the thought.Not for the loss of my life, but for the loss of her.I grit my teeth, shove the emotions down.Lucy needs me.
She trembles beneath my touch in a way that says she knows exactly how much she needs me too.She’s got her professor expression on, holding herself together, but below the surface she’s falling apart.
