A huge thank you to JoVersify for her amazing turbo pre-reading of this chapter!


Edvardiel looked at Ezekiel and then back at her, a question in his eyes. He was asking her if she was sure. She nodded once. She'd never been more sure. These people didn't have the glow of an Acolyte or the scales of a demon.

But she was slowly understanding his distrust. This was exactly what he wanted. He'd spent a century in the void, watching it play games with his mind. How could he not be suspicious? And with something this close to his heart. Some truths could break a person.

Edvardiel hesitated and she squeezed his arm. Something shifted in his expression, his features softening as he looked at her.

"Fine," he said at last.

Ezekiel breathed a sigh of relief. "Please, come this way and I will show you."

"We can go in too, can't we?" Jacob asked.

Ezekiel smiled warmly. "Of course. Anyone with human blood is welcome in Eden's Garden."

"Sweet," Jacob said. "We even brought a cherry tree! You didn't actually need us to bring a tree, did you?"

Ezekiel's eyes glittered with amusement. "You only needed to bring yourself, child."

"I told you!" Paul said. "I told you there's no way everyone can bring something living. We're the living things."

"You also told us to turn back," Jacob retorted. "Anyway, now that the gates are open, we can drive in the tree."

"You're not going anywhere near the wheel," Paul called out.

As the two bickered, Issa looked back at the cherry tree in the truck and then at the yew tree that had sprouted and softened their fall. It looked much smaller when they were standing. Definitely not the Tree of Life.

Issa hesitated before the gates. They were open but she was apprehensive about strolling in. She hadn't shed any of her poisoned blood onto the heart. Was there a barrier that would keep her out or denounce her as a demon?

An arm came around her, interrupting her thoughts. "You're coming with me after all." Edvardiel kept her snug to his side and dragged her in before she could protest. Issa squeezed her eyes shut as they neared the entrance, bracing herself for fire. She imagined the heat licking her skin, eating away the flesh from her bones–

Nothing happened.

She cracked an eyelid open and peered through her lashes, hardly daring to believe she'd made it. The sight greeting them took her breath away. It was something she'd only seen in pictures: A beautiful valley covered in green grass and strewn with daisies. Leaves rustled with the wind and birds chirped from the branches of countless trees. Issa marvelled at the sheer amount of sound–the world outside had been so, so silent.

It was sunrise. The red-orange rays streamed through the horizon, but instead of highlighting the harshness of death, it highlighted life.

For the first time, Issa was speechless with awe.

"Wow. I'd say our cherry tree fits right in." Paul rubbed his eyes.

Jacob blinked several times before his face split into a wide grin. "For sure."

The gates swung shut behind them, sealing the Garden from the Hell without.

It should've been a good thing but it made Issa feel like a trapped rat. Could she get out? She'd never shed blood to enter.

"Are you all right?" Edvardiel asked.

People were staring. At him, because he was Eden's long-awaited son. And at her, because of the way he held her. He made them look like lovers. Which they were, in a twisted sense, but she felt like a spot of rot amidst all the life and beauty. A killer packaged in the frozen body of an alluring young girl.

"Perfect," she lied, plastering a smile on her face and comforting herself with the thought that he could open the gates for her.

"I would show you more of the Garden," Ezekiel said. "But I think there's something else you need to see first."

Issa took that as a cue for her to tag along with Paul and Jacob, but Edvardiel's arm only wrapped around her shoulders more tightly.

"Let's go then," he said.

Ezekiel's cloudy gaze lingered on them and Issa would've blushed if she'd been more decent. As it was, she only leaned closer, playing the part of a besotted lover. This was an excellent cover. It was good if people thought they were together.

"My knees are not what they used to be so I will take you there a different way. Do not be afraid." Ezekiel rapped his cane into the earth and light bathed their bodies. The valley vanished and Issa smelled the faint scent of wood and flowers.

"This was your room," Ezekiel said.

The room was very simple, almost spartan. Hand-sewn toys, pillows and quilts lined a little bed. They were worn but in perfect condition, as though someone cleaned them regularly. A shelf was filled with children's books from several different eras in many different languages. Issa imagined Eden collecting them over the centuries, hoping to one day read them to her son.

Edvardiel looked around with more guardedness than curiosity. "I don't remember it."

"How could you?" Ezekiel said. "You were but a small child." He limped to a cupboard and pulled out a painting with a gnarled hand. "Look. This was your mother."

The dark-haired woman was radiant with happiness and angelic glory as she clutched an infant to her breast.

"You look like her," Issa breathed.

She saw Edvardiel in the woman's eyes, which were filled with a ring of blinding glory and in the shape of her lips. The similarity was so stark that if she'd had any doubt before, there were none now.

Edvardiel gazed at the painting.

His heart squeezed so hard that her own hurt.

"The child… it doesn't have wings." Edvardiel's voice was flat, as though he weren't talking about himself, as though the child in the painting was an insignificant 'it' to him the way he'd been to the archangels.

Issa stared at the child and realised he was right. The infant's back was bare, half of his face turned away as he smiled toothlessly at his mother, but there was no sign of wings.

Ezekiel's expression grew grim, as though he'd been expecting Edvardiel's comment. "You were not born with wings," he said. "But I always suspected, when you disappeared, that you ended up in Heaven. Was I correct?"

Edvardiel closed his eyes and Issa felt her own head pound with the beginnings of a headache. "Yes."

Ezekiel exhaled. "I knew it. Your mother never told us who your father was. But I have reason to believe he is an angel. Today, seeing the strength of the beacon, I have never been surer. My boy, you ended up in Heaven because you grew wings, did you not? It is impossible not to when you have more angel than human in you."

Issa put two and two together. Eden was half-angel. If Edvardiel's father was a full angel, that made him three-quarters angel.

"Where is Eden?" Edvardiel asked. "Where is my mother?"

Ezekiel sighed. "She has passed. The Nephilim are not immortal. But I promise that she loved you. She never stopped searching for you."

"I didn't know," Edvardiel said numbly.

"Of course you did not. There was no way for you to know."

"All this time, I was in Heaven, trying to win Michael's favour," Edvardiel said, emotion finally creeping into his voice. "Trying to be a seraph. Failing to be a seraph. I never once thought to look to Earth. If Michael never sent me on the mission, I'd never have learned to fly down."

Ezekiel put a hand on Edvardiel's shoulder. "It is not your fault, child."

"And all this time, my father never showed himself?"

Ezekiel sighed again. "The history of the Nephilim, of those born of an angel and a human, is a bloody one. You are very clearly seraphim from both Samael and your father, but that is rare. Most Nephilim are born of guardian angels or watchers. The seraphim made it their mission to eliminate us. Your father would have put us in more danger by drawing attention to you. Not many beyond the Gardens know of Eden's child and we guard this secret jealously."

"Because Nephilim are abominations?" Edvardiel said bitterly.

"Because Nephilim are strong," Ezekiel thundered, slamming his cane to the ground, anger seeping into his voice. "Do not believe the lies you have been told. The Nephilim are known as giants because half-angels are stronger than angels. Eden was stronger than Samael. Human lifeblood strengthens angelic power." A dark look crossed his unfocused eyes. "Heaven is deathly afraid of you."

Slowly, the pieces were falling together. Edvardiel had never been too weak for Heaven. He'd been too strong for it. She'd been right about the archangels fearing Edvardiel. Still, to hear her theory confirmed was unsettling.

"The angels treated you the way they did because they felt threatened," Issa said slowly. "They were... jealous." Such a petty word for divine beings.

Edvardiel clenched his fists. "What about God?" he asked. "If the seraphim are his instruments, does that mean He wants to wipe us from existence too?"

Ezekiel sat himself slowly down on the children's chair at the side of the room. "I do not know, child. I am only human. An old man who has lived too long with what is left from the glory in Eden's gates." He rested his hands on the cane, his expression weary.

"You are the first Nephilim to grow wings. But I doubt you will be the last."