November 1070

We magically dragged the remains of Salazar's basilisk into the Nevernever, sealing the rift behind us. None of us said anything, Salazar least of all. He just stared at the basilisk's corpse, his posture slumped and defeated. Guy had fixed up most of his physical wounds, but hadn't done anything for the emotional ones.

Guy hadn't been able to do much for mine either. My exhaustion wasn't a matter of cells or energy or injury. It was something deeper, more profound. My right wrist was whole again, but my arm was still numb. I limped along on my staff, clutching it tightly with my left hand. The potion I'd given to Rowena turned out to be short-lasting, and once the effects wore off she kind of froze.

"My wife looked after him," Salazar said, defeated. "Birthed him. Couldn't raise him, truly, but she helped. He was like a second son to me."

I cocked my head to the side. "Second?" I asked.

Salazar nodded. "I have a son. My wife named him Eder, after an... an uncle of hers, I believe."

"He wasn't free to come help you?" I asked.

"He might have, but we've barely spoken since... her death," he replied.

I let out a long sigh and looked over at the basilisk corpse, then up at my shoulder, at Guy.

"As I understand it, Raith's kiss of death is like a vampire's feeding turned up to eleven. He just rips the life out, but doesn't injure the body in any way," I said. "Could you fix that?"

Guy warbled sadly.

"No, no, I... I'm not getting my point across," I said. "I know the basilisk is dead. It's... his spirit is gone. But if it wasn't, if it was there, could you... I don't know, bring him to life?"

Salazar slowly turned his head to face me. "What are you saying?" he asked.

"I told you, I read a book on necromancy. I remember every bit of it," I said, glancing at Salazar. "I once heard of a woman, a necromancer herself, who saved a man's life by tethering his to his body as... physicians worked to repair the physical damage. It worked, saved the man's life. And I mean, your basilisk's body hasn't been cold that long, and he isn't human. I wouldn't be breaking any Laws." I looked back at Guy. "I just need to know if you can manage that last step."

Guy warbled again, this time with uncertainty.

I sighed, nestled my staff in the crook of my arm, and ran a hand through my hair. "Okay. Okay. Everyone, get back."

Salazar kept staring at me. "Why?" he asked.

"Because you came to help me," I said. "You brought him to help me. And because I screwed up, didn't do my research properly, he died. So I'm fixing that. Now get back. Necromancy's cold and rank and you don't want to be near me when I'm doing this."

"Have you ever even resurrected anything before?" he asked.

"Yeah. Giant reptile about half your basilisk's size," I said. "And its bones had been rotting for a long, long time. Now, I'm not going to repeat myself again. Get back."

Salazar swallowed and walked back, the others backing up with him. As for me, I limped over to the basilisk's head, planted my staff in the ground, and laid my one working hand on the basilisk's head.

Salazar's basilisk was an enormous creature. Powerful, unnatural. I shouldn't have had the power or ability to bring it back, not after what I'd done to Raith. But as I'd found out a year ago, with the draugr - necromancy and soulfire are a hell of a mix.

It hurt as I started chanting, a cold, tingling nonfeeling working its way through every inch of my body, as I wound that power into the corpse in front of me. Behind me, I could hear Guy flap his wings, letting off a sound like a crack of thunder with each motion. A beat, slow but steady.

I won't describe the process. I'll just say the effort knocked me out, dragged me into unconsciousness. But the last thing I remember before I slumped over, was the basilisk juddering to life, and a blaze of fire harmlessly engulfing it.

I woke up a day later, in Rowena's tower. Without a wardkey they couldn't get me into my house, and after waking up I could barely move, so I spent a few days in Rowena's care. Turns out she was a good healer, for a recluse.

Late on the first day, when I could finally manage to string more than two words together, I asked her, "How did you learn this? The healing, the way you... exploded Blandine."

"Morgana left many journals on many topics," Rowena said, sitting beside the makeshift bed she'd rigged for me. "A number of them were on the human body. My ancestor was many things, but what she was best at, what she was renowned for, was healing. She was magnificent at it."

"Healing, huh," I said. "What about when my arm got cursed, by the draugr? Did Salazar just not tell you about it?"

"No, he did, but there was little I could do about it," she replied. "I never said I was a magnificent healer. I'm simply good. And I hadn't thought of using her athame on a living being before you brought it up, and that was the only way I think I could have removed that curse."

"Does that mean I have to be worried when you cut into my brain?" I asked.

"No. I need to run a few final experiments, make sure I fully and truly understand everything properly, but I should be ready to extract the spirit in a week. Which is good, because I don't think you have much longer."

"A week, huh. How long until I can go back to Berkhamsted?" I asked.

"In another day or two, I'd say."

I nodded. "So, about five to six days to finish Bonea's vessel. I'd hoped I would have longer. I'll have to cut a few corners."

"I am certain you will make it work, Harry," she said.

"Yeah." I looked up at her then, and thought about asking her what she thought about me. How she felt about me. But I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't want some kind of desperation rebound relationship. I didn't want Rowena to be a desperation rebound. Instead I just asked, "Blandine. You soulgazed her, didn't you?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because... because I wanted to see her. To remember her. I'd never fought in anger before then. Killed. I wanted to be sure I was doing it for the right reasons. That she... deserved it," she said.

"And what did you see?" I asked.

"Enough," she replied. "I don't understand how you do it. Fight, again and again."

"Someone has to, I guess," I said. "For some reason it just keeps falling on me to do it."

Rowena nodded and moved to get up. I stopped her, grabbed her by the hand. "Hey," I asked. "The Accords. Are they still in my coat?"

"No," she said. "I had them delivered to the Winter Queen. I thought you would rather not do that yourself if you did not have to."

I let go of her hand and nodded. "Thank you."

I took the Ways back to Berkhamsted late the next day, following Rowena's directions. I grabbed Shadowfax from the castle stables, since he'd been taken in while I was gone, and Eva caught me on the way out, following me back to my house. I prepared a meal for us as usual, if a much later one than the usual, and poured us both a cup of something very mildly alcoholic.

She didn't ask me any questions while we ate, and I didn't press her. But when we were done, and I moved to put the plates away, she asked, "Is this what being a witch is like? Not knowing what is real, who is real, what to trust or believe?"

I sighed. "In a way, yes. Magic is a wondrous gift, Eva. A great and terrible one. It broadens your horizons, opens your eye to vistas of knowledge. But not everything you're going to learn or find is good. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, because if you don't know what's out there, you can't worry about it. But at the same time, that doesn't mean it'll all ignore you." I took a deep breath. "Magic isolates a practitioner. Our auras, the way we naturally, passively warp the world around us, is just the beginning of that isolation, the surface level. It's what we learn practicing the Art that truly sets us apart. And only you can decide if magic is worth the price."

"Elfleda said I would likely outlive my entire family," she said. "Is that true?"

"It is. The body of a practicing wizard, a witch, is different than that of a regular person's in a number of ways. The biggest is that after a certain point, around forty or fifty or somewhere around there, we stop aging as fast as everyone else. For some it slows to an absolute crawl, in others just stretches out a little. It correlates strongly with the amount of power you have. With the amount you have, you will comfortably live to see your three hundredth birthday. Maybe more. Unless you die along the way."

"So my parents will die. My brother will die. If he gets married, his children will die. Their children will die. And I will still be young."

"Yes."

"How do you live with that?" she asked.

"I'm young, as wizards go. Turned forty a few days ago. So far, I've only had to outlive friends and family the violent way. But I imagine that many wizards and witches live with it by distancing themselves from regular people. Shutting themselves away. Can't get hurt if you don't have anything to lose," I said. "I don't entirely agree with that, but who knows, maybe I will in the future."

Eva nodded without really understanding. "Now that Elfleda is leaving, how will you teach me?"

"I don't know." I ran a hand through my hair. "We don't really have a cover any more, strange and threadbare as the one she provided was. I'm not sure how we'll excuse your comings and goings now, or my comings and goings if I start going to the castle and spending time with you."

"Do we still have to?" she asked. "Can't I just be your apprentice openly?"

"You can, I guess," I said. "But that would change how everyone sees you. Acts around you. You would be the odd one out."

"Isolated," she said.

"Yeah."

"But I'm already isolated, aren't I? The one Saxon girl at court. Lady-in-waiting to a woman who never really existed, who will also be leaving soon. My brother might not even come back to court. And eventually you'll have to leave too, for your school."

"Eventually," I agreed.

Eva shrugged. "Then... whatever. Let them talk. Elfleda taught me how to deal with people like them." She laid her small, dainty hand over my large, scarred hand, and smiled cheekily at me. "And besides, you need someone to look after you. You'd be hopeless on your own, after all."

"Hopeless, huh? You know, you've still got a lot to learn before you can call yourself a Master of the Snark, Cinderella," I replied.

"Cinderella?"

The morning of the day Rowena was supposed to come and extract Bonea, an unexpected visitor knocked on my door. She was about five-four, dark haired, plump of figure, pale skinned, dressed like a man, and had a familiar Sword at her hip and a cask of ale in her arms.

"Lucille," I said. "What brings you here?"

She gestured with one elbow towards the Sword, then hefted the cask. "To talk. And drink."

"Today's not a good day for me to drink," I said.

"Then I'll drink half and you can keep the rest for later," she said.

I looked down at her, peering into her eyes then around the empty street, before sighing and stepping back. "Alright," I said. "Come in."

"Thank you," she said. She hauled the cask inside and set it down on my new table. Reattaching the pieces of the old one had proven to be prohibitively difficult, so I decided to just break down the pieces into tinder and start over with a new one. The wooden utensils joined that pile of tinder.

"Do you want anything to eat?" I asked.

"No. Why, do you usually eat in the morning?"

"Usually, yeah."

Lucille snorted and shook her head. "You're a strange man."

"Far as I'm concerned, you're the weirdos for skipping breakfast," I said. I went to pull out a cup for her to pour the ale into, and handed it over to her. I offered to crack it open for her, but she demurred and did it herself.

"So why are you here?" I asked, taking a seat.

"To return this," she said, unbuckling Amoracchius from around her waist and hoisting it onto the table by the scabbard.

"I don't need it, or want it," I said.

"Well neither does my brother," she replied. "He said he doesn't feel up to the responsibility, yet at least."

"Yet?" I asked.

"When we were young and naïve and foolish, Timothée wanted to be a great knight, in the image of King Arthur. We actually had a number of books and stories about him in the family library, written in the Saxon tongue. It's how we learned it, actually. After we changed, we realized that the stories weren't there to inspire us, but caution us. Warn us of those that might come after us. Still, I don't think my brother ever truly stopped dreaming about it."

"Hmm."

"Oh, and he also says that he can outrun you if you try and give it to him again," she added.

I snorted. "Yeah. Sure. Maybe physically, but I can always just mail the Sword to him. He can't outrun an owl for long, or a phoenix."

"Is that what you did with Joyeuse?" she asked.

"Yeah, I sent it back to King Philip the day I made it back to Berkhamsted, with a letter telling him to be more discerning in his next choice of Constable," I said.

"Did you mention what my father was?" she asked.

"No. I didn't think you wanted that kind of attention. Was I wrong?"

"No," she said. "You weren't. Though, I am not certain it would have mattered."

"What do you mean?"

"Timothée and I are planning to leave," she said. "I never really liked Robert. He's simple-minded, plain looking, and uninspired in bed. The only thing he could offer me was protection from my father, and I no longer have to worry about him. Or anyone else, ever again. Being reputed for being partnered with wizards and tearing down the elders of the White Court seems like it should keep the vultures away."

"Leave and go where?" I asked.

"We're not certain yet. We'll travel around for a while, I imagine. Maybe go to Denmark and try finding those svartalves you mentioned. I think the idea of sleeping his way to a magic sword of his own appeals to Timothée in a vulgar, masculine way."

"And when Robert hires me to find you?" I asked. "Assuming you don't fake your deaths, that is."

"I'm certain that you can find a way to be just a step too slow in pursuing us," she replied with a smirk.

"Which conveniently leaves me holding the blame," I said.

Lucille's smirk widened.

"Back in France, with the White Court. You had the opportunity to win big," I said. "Why didn't you take it?"

"Because I realized my brother was right about his approach to power," she said. "If I became the White Queen, I would never again rest a day in my life. I would have to constantly struggle to maintain my position within and without, worry about an unknowable number of knives lurking in the dark, waiting to end me. In the mortal world, the scramble for power and position is one that can end. One can stop. With the White Court, it would only ever stop when I died. I won't say I wasn't tempted by the power - I was. But ultimately, I thought of what might happen two, three, four centuries down the line. Maybe I would end up breaking the White Court to my will, reshaping it in my image. Maybe the task would break me, and I would end up in the position the late Lord Raith was in, across the field from you. And that would end even less well for me than it did for him."

I nodded. "I get it," I said.

She regarded me for a moment, then slowly nodded herself. "I suppose you do," she replied. "But I didn't bring the ale so I could drink it while discussing that sordid business."

"Why'd you bring it, then?" I asked.

"Well I expected you to drink it with me and we could commiserate about mutual betrayals," she said. "I suppose we can skip the first and just do the second."

"What would we have to commiserate about?"

"Being lied to by someone close to you?" she asked. "Deceived as to their true nature? Having your heart torn out in a cruel and vile betrayal? I don't know Harry, what do we have in common?"

I chuckled in response. "Touché." I gnawed at my lips for a few seconds, eyeing the cask. Then I stood up and sighed. "Alright, screw it. I'll drink to that."

The ale turned out to be some of the best I'd ever had. It reminded me of the brew I had from that pub the twins had dragged me into soon after our acquaintance, only better. For about the next hour we drank and bitched and moaned about what other people had done to us. And when the hour was up, and I'd felt I'd drank as much as was safe, I thanked her and walked her to the door.

"Lucille?" I asked as she went to leave.

"Hmm?" she asked, turning back around to face me.

"Do you actually want to be... cured?" I asked.

She furrowed her brow. "Of what?"

"The Hunger," I said. "Being a vampire."

She cocked her head to the side, frowning. "Can you even cure me?" she asked. "What would that even involve?"

"Well, broadly speaking, I imagine it as a two-step process. Separating you from the Hunger, and then leaving you alive, whole, and sane in the aftermath. The first, I think Rowena and I could accomplish if we put our heads together. As to the second, I think my phoenix, Guy, can handle that part."

"You think," she said uncertainly.

"I'm brainstorming here. I don't know if we'd actually be able to pull it off. But I believe we have the tools to do it," I replied.

Lucille looked down at the floor and nervously rubbed her lips against each other. "I... I... maybe. I don't know." She took a deep breath and looked back up at me. "I shall have to think about it."

"Well, you know how to find me when you finally do decide," I said.

"If," Lucille said, though without much heat to it. She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Harry, for everything. Truly."

I nodded. "It's funny how life works out. The people I thought I'd have to run out of town turned out to have my back, while the woman I thought I could trust turned out to be nothing but a liar."

"I don't think that's very funny," she said.

"I have a morbid sense of humor."

"If you say so." Lucille went to leave, then paused as she grabbed the handle. She looked back at me. "You saved me from being consumed by bitterness, Harry. So I feel I should try and repay that, give you some of your own advice. Don't allow it to dominate your life. You're not alone."

"A vampire giving out life advice," I said. "Will wonders never cease."

Lucille rolled her eyes as she walked out the door.

Rowena came by in the evening, and I led her up to the guest bedroom. I set the vessel I'd carved for Bonea down on a small table I'd dragged in, and then laid down on the bed at Rowena's behest. She presented me with a potion she said would send me into a dreamless sleep, easing the process of extraction while simultaneously sedating me. Then I think she made a joke by assuring me that unlike my potion, everything she'd brought with her had been repeatedly and thoroughly tested.

I never got to ask who or what she tested the potion on, since it knocked me out in seconds.

"You really are hopeless, aren't you, Harry?"

The procedure didn't kill me, as you can see, nor did it maim me. Waking up after did leave me groggy, and with a residual pain in my head, but one that went away over the course of a few hours. I could still feel my everything, move my everything, and as far as I could tell, I had suffered no brain damage. Then again, if I had, would I be able to tell?

The voice I heard as I was waking up was distractingly familiar, warm and lilting and teasing. It took a while to blink away the drowsiness and turn my head to the left, towards the sound of the voice. It was coming from atop a table, the table where I'd put Bonea's vessel before the operation. I'd carved a few preliminary holographic enchantments onto the skull, to give the spirit more choice in how she looked, but I was pretty damn sure I hadn't made them strong or detailed enough to project a full body hologram.

A woman was sitting there, a tall, athletic blonde clad in a white Greek-style tunic that fell almost to her knee, the skull-vessel sitting beside her legs. She smiled as I looked her way.

"L-Lash?" I asked hesitantly.

"Indeed," she said.

"But... you're dead. I saw you die."

"As you have been told many times, Harry, life and death are more of a gradient scale than simple binary states," she replied. "But in this case you are correct. I did die. I was dead. And yet somehow, I came back. I first felt myself stirring in Avalon. I am not certain how long you truly spent there, but it was a significant span of time. By the time of your escape I was conscious, barely, but not whole. Not independent. A membrane between you and our daughter, a liaison to our memories."

"Our daughter- Bonea?" I asked. "Is she alright?"

"Yes, she is," she said. "There were some mild complications, but none that cannot be sorted out."

"What kind of complications?" I asked, worried.

"My resurrection. I believe I was pieced back together out of some of your damaged brain matter and the memories I passed on to Bonea. Unfortunately, that means that at present, we are not separate entities, and to separate us would irrevocably lessen one or both of us. In simpler, mortal terms you could understand, I'm pregnant."

"You are? But... uhh..."

"Ugh." Lash rolled her eyes and her form wavered, the bottom of the tunic sliding up to her thighs as her stomach developed a sizable baby bump. "Is this better?"

I blinked a few times. "So you're in the skull right now?" I asked.

"Yes. It can comfortably sustain us for now, but you will need to create another vessel for whichever of us moves out of this skull. And while we are on the matter, Bonea?"

"It's a good name," I said.

"With a significant element of petty wordplay and references to your old life, like Guy, or Snickers, or even Shadowfax." Lash shook her head. "Your sense for naming things is as atrocious as ever."

"Hey, I put a lot of thought into each of those names."

"No, you didn't," she replied. "I would know."

I sighed and lay my head back down on the pillow. "Where's Rowena?"

"Downstairs. After she successfully extracted me, we discussed a few things, and I asked her for some time alone with you."

"What things?" I asked.

Lash smiled mysteriously.

"Okay, fine, don't tell me," I said. "Alright. So you were a membrane. Like a symbiotic existence?"

"In a way, though symbiotic implies I was more independently viable than I truly was," she said.

"Then what changed?" I asked. "I mean, what made you... dominant, I guess, or brought you back completely?"

"Guy, I believe," she said. "I had extremely limited volition prior to his decision to attach himself to you. I was able to provide you with the knowledge you requested, and make certain limited suggestions of my own, but I was too weak to do anything more. But when Guy healed you, at first and then later throughout your testing of his tears, I felt much of the healing power flow to your brain, regenerating neurons and regrowing connections. Restoring me. And since I have a much more developed personality and will than Bonea, I became 'dominant', to use your terminology."

"So what now?" I asked. "For Bonea."

"I must reorganize our memories," she said. "Duplicate myself, to put it simply. I can manage it, but it will take time. There is much I must replicate." She turned away then, looking off into the distance. "I believe the Archive sensed my rebirth, or at least my stirring. It was why she asked you about how we met, I suspect."

I frowned. "I thought that was to clue me in about M... you know who."

"Perhaps, but I doubt it," she said.

I nodded, and looked away myself. "I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"About what?" she asked curiously.

"Nearly killing myself, and you and Bonea along with me," I said. "Almost burning myself out."

Lash sighed sadly. "Oh, Harry, there is nothing to forgive there."

"But there is! I almost killed you because I couldn't control myself. It took Uriel reminding me about Bonea to stop myself." I let out a long sigh. "I guess that means he has six words left to give now."

Lash groaned. "See, Harry, this is what I mean when I say you're hopeless. You are still owed seven words."

I looked back at Lash, frowning. "How?"

She leaned in towards me, baby bump shrinking to accommodate the motion, and pressed her illusionary lips up to my ear. "Shiela," she whispered, in the perfect cadence and pitch of my voice.

I stared at her, eyes wide. "Wait, you mean-"

"The Prince of Darkness loves to watch men destroy themselves," she said, straightening her posture. "Of pulling back lies and revealing the ugly truth. With one word and a few unfortunate coincidences he nearly destroyed you, the Sword of Love, and us."

"Unfortunate coincidences?" I asked.

"Do you recall how Esther just 'happened' to come upon Cuthbert as he was returning home?" she asked. "How Sofia and the mercenaries just 'happened' to ambush you on your date? How Amoracchius just 'happened' to end up in your bedroom in a direct mirror of your earlier encounter with the Winter Queen, such that you instinctively went to draw your sword and took up the wrong one? Do you think those were all simple coincidences?" She shook her head. "No. You were manipulated. From a professional perspective it was absolutely brilliant. A few nudges combined with the wrong word, the wrong name, at the right time nearly destroyed you, Harry. And that is why Uriel repaid that by telling you the right name, at the right time."

"So... everything that happened, with... with her was..."

"An attempt to kill you, yes," Lash said. "And her as well perhaps. Lucifer may have seen it as doing the world a favor, putting a new Winter Queen in charge, one less inclined to waste her time on you."

I sat up in my bed, drawing up my knees just so I could bury my head between them. "Oh, God. I don't... I don't know what I should do."

"About what?"

"About her," I said, pulling my head back and looking at Lash. "I mean, hell's bells, I burned Raith. How did that even happen? Thomas told me that kind of energy lingers when two people really, selflessly love each other. How can that even be true when it was all a lie? When one of them is the damn Winter Queen?"

"Thomas spoke from a limited, incomplete, and mortal perspective," she said.

"So what's the full story then?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "My progenitor might, but I am no longer connected to her. I can no longer ask her questions, bid her to use her Intellectus. All I have now, is what I had when I made the choice to save you. Extensive knowledge of how the Hunger works, of how the Raith Hunger works, was not something I had."

I sighed and looked away. "I... I loved her. I loved her and she just kept lying to me." I shook my head. "I just don't know. Was I protected because of her, or because of what I did, how I felt? Did she even care, or was it all just a goddamn game to her?"

Lash went to shrug and paused halfway. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked across the room. And a few moments later, I heard Uriel's voice.

"Love must be equal to be true," he whispered.

I frowned and counted off my fingers. "Five, six, seven," I muttered.

"What did Uriel say?" Lash asked.

"You felt that?"

"Give me some credit. I may not be an angel, but I know how to identify one's presence," she said. "So?"

"He said, 'Love must be equal to be true,' " I said. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Hmm... well, there is the obvious. He was referring to True Love, which is an appropriate colloquialism for the Raith's bane," she said. "That it must be reciprocated to manifest. But equal, equal... ah. Ah, yes, that makes sense."

"What?" I asked.

"The protection of love, as it applies to the Raiths, is a reciprocal exchange. One that comes from and affects both parties. It makes sense that for it to last, it would require both parties to see each other in similar ways. With respect, admiration, care. As equals."

"So..."

"She loved you, Harry. Perhaps she still does. She had to," Lash said.

"And what the hell am I supposed to do with that information?" I demanded.

"Whatever you wish," she replied. "Uriel usually acts in these ways. He provides enough for you to make an informed choice; he doesn't tell you what choice to make. And even more so, he tries to match the response to the transgression. A name nearly destroyed you, and so a name saved you. And in this case, seven words made you so terrified of Mab that you engineered your own suicide. So he gave you seven words with which to reconsider her opinion of you, and your opinion of her. From here the choice is yours. You can decide to try and move past what happened, to try and make things work. Or you can accept that what you had was real, for the most part, and that it ended. Or something else entirely."

"What do you think I should do?"

Lash arched an eyebrow. "I really don't think you should take relationship advice from me."

"Why not?"

"Because my personality and being was derived from my progenitor, and the bulk of it remains the same. I am a jealous, possessive temptress," she replied. "You want my opinion? Forget her and stay with me. You want my advice? Make your own decision."

I sighed. "I suppose. I just... don't know."

"You don't need to make it now. You can make her wait. I'd suggest doing so, in fact," she said.

"Is that your opinion, or your advice?" I asked.

"Both."

I nodded and took a deep breath. "So what now?"

"The rest of your life. Of our life. Though I think I might need a new moniker. Lash is a name similar enough to my progenitor's that people might ask questions once a mysteriously knowledgeable and powerful woman appears in your life."

"Do you really think we need to worry about that?" I asked.

"From your friends? No. From the rest of the Council, from the Denarians, from the Fae, from others? Yes," she said. "The Denarians especially will want to destroy us if they ever find out. A major draw of their organization is being the sole proprietors of angelic knowledge on Earth, and even then they are restricted in the ways they can share that knowledge. I am not. I do not have to steadily tempt someone by dangling bait in front of them. I can freely share."

"I thought you could always do that," I said.

"If I could, don't you think I would have?" she asked with a roll of her eyes. "You were repeatedly tempted by the mere hint of the knowledge I possessed, but you always restrained yourself. Do you think you could have stopped yourself if I began to freely and fully disclose what I knew?"

I thought about it, then slowly shook my head. "I'd like to say yes... but I don't think so."

"Exactly," she said.

"Then what new name are you going to pick?" I asked.

"Moniker," she corrected. "My name is still Lash, and I cannot change that. I'm not mortal like you."

"Alright, moniker. Same question," I said.

Lash tapped a manicured finger against her lips. "I think, in this case, I would take a page from your book, follow your own ludicrous naming sense."

"I feel like I should take offense to that," I said slowly. "But I'm also curious what you think would be a page from my book, Lash."

Lash smirked. "Please, call me Miss Ciel."

I blinked. "Really. Really? Lash Ciel? How is that not even more on the nose?" I asked.

"Only those that knew my true name would see the jest," she said. Her smirk widened. "And besides, who would ever suspect that the shadow of a Fallen Angel would name herself after Heaven?"