Jenny clung tight to Iblis's new feathers. The brood mother was a much bigger harpy, but their fight had been brutal, and the harpy was broken. Blue and orange fmes flickered out the eyes, and the feathers fshed white with every wing beat. Fmes had healed the wing Jenny tore through. They only needed it to climb to the final stage.

  Iblis kept his fire burning as the tunnel was dark, but even with the flickering glow, they couldn't tell how far they would have to climb. Blood dribbled out from the brood mother’s body's wounds, running past Jenny's face.

  Each fp took them higher and higher. The breeze blew Jenny's hair back and stung the scratches on her face. Her legs dangled as she held on tight around Iblis’s waist. Her armored feet cnged against the sides of the tunnel several times, drawing up sparks and echoes, and after what felt like ages, light appeared overhead, bright and warm and welcoming.

  The next moment, Iblis flew right through it, and they emerged into what looked like a pace grand hall. A pce where wealthy people might throw a grand ball, something out of a magical fairy tale.

  “What the fuck?” whispered Jenny, sliding off Iblis who'd perched down and buckled as one of his knees gave out. The injured wing fluttered awkwardly as the fmes died down, and smoke rose from the hole in the brood mother’s cheek,

  “It looks to be the throne room,” he said with that distorted sing dingy voice.

  Throne? Jenny looked around. The room was draped in enormous violet cloths. Pilrs with torches attached led away from the hole they'd emerged from, with a purple carpet guiding the way to rge stone steps. And above them, slightly raised, was the throne. A giant seat made of bck stone that reminded Jenny of the rocks in the world of the dead. It even glistened simirly in the flickering torch light - sometimes visible, sometimes invisible.

  A cold shudder ran down her spine. She climbed the steps toward the throne, staring at it, dreading the question on her mind. The ceiling was draped with trailing cloths and golden ornaments high up. Past the rge stone pilrs, she could see two more great archways, one on either side of her, leading into more chambers.

  That must be his throne, said Iblis. With a shimmer of orange and blue light, he left the harpy body behind and floated up. The brood mother crumpled onto the red carpet, blood pooling with singed feathers floating to the top as it cried weakly. Iblis' incorporeal form floated toward the enormous bck seat.

  "Azra’il? His throne?” asked Jenny in a low voice, who felt every inch of her body on high alert, like something horrible was around every pilr, every shadow. “Why does he need a throne if he’s supposed to be serving Adonai?”

  The power hungry often seek the power hungry, said Iblis.

  Jenny followed Iblis up the red carpet, up the steps. The throne towered over her, four of her could've sat side by side on the throne with room to spare. The armrests were taller than her. And its back shot up, with a curved top like a tombstone, and the rock face glistened brightly, but they reminded her too much of the pilrs. For a second, she was horrified there would be more deaths in there, trapped in a fucked-up form. She used a tiny bit of ignite and held her burning hand against the throne.

  To her relief, she found it empty. It turned invisible with the light.

  It is constructed from Demon Gss, said Iblis. From our cities. From our homes.

  "You shouldn't touch that," said a small voice from somewhere. It echoed from all over, impossible to tell where it had come from.

  Jenny whipped around, holding up her burning hand. "Who's there?" She gnced at Iblis' blue sparkles then at the trembling Brood mother lying beside the hole they'd entered through. From the throne, the hole looked almost like a dark swimming pool.

  "That is our master's seat," came another voice. This one was bolder, stronger.

  Rushing down the steps, snuffing out her fmes, Jenny clutched her hatchet tight and prepared for attack. Was it more harpies? Something else? They also called the angel Master.

  Shadows moved behind the pilrs, and faces appeared. Men and women, young and dressed in flowing garments of red and purple and pink. Every single one of them had the same notification:

  Soul (Blooded)

  One of them, a boy, approached Jenny. He had long blonde hair that covered his forehead, and a sharp chin. He squinted at her. "Desecrated.... human? How?"

  "Like the angels?" asked a girl.

  "What's wrong with her?"

  "Her eyes are so weird..."

  "Should we get master?"

  Jenny clenched her teeth at their words. She kept her hand on her hatchet, turning in every direction as the Souls closed in. They seemed to be gliding across the carpeted floor, their long gowns trailing as though they were at a fancy ga. Were they going to attack? Could they even fight in those dresses?

  They weren’t at all like the souls she'd met below in the ruins. These souls could speak. They weren't afraid. They weren't crying.

  And what was with the Blooded notification? And they were referring to Azra’il the same way the harpies had. Master.

  Was this where Azriel had taken Miriam? Was this what he meant by his collection?

  "I'm looking for someone," said Jenny, trying to keep her voice even. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Iblis hovering over the souls. They hadn't noticed him, but a few of them wandered over to the harpy, kneeling and poking at it.

  "What is this thing? It's such a mess."

  "It's one of the harpies!" gasped another.

  "Is it dead? I didn't know they could die."

  "Yeah, it's dead."

  "Did the desecrated girl kill it?"

  “No, look it’s moving. It’s so pretty.”

  "Yes," snapped Jenny. These souls, thy looked about her age, maybe older, but they sounded like children. A sinking feeling filled her stomach as she realized they didn’t have the entirety of their minds. They weren't whole humans. "I'm looking for my friend," she tried again.

  "Friend?" asked the nearest soul. A girl, her eye brows raised. "Who are you looking for? What's her name? I know everyone here."

  "Susan," said Jenny, shuddering as she said Susan's name.

  The Soul frowned. She gnced at a boy near her, draped in pink. He shrugged. "Master brought a new princess not too long ago."

  The girl lit up like she just remembered. "Yes! Yes, he did. Is that your friend? Susan?"

  Jenny shook her head, eyeing the other souls who looked upset. "No. That's someone else. But I'm looking for her too. Where does he take them?"

  A bunch of souls frowned. "We're not allowed to know. We stay here. And over there." One of them pointed to a rge chamber to the right.

  But another pointed to the left. "There's another girl in there, I think. But we're not allowed to talk to her."

  A few of them grumbled something about master spending too much time with her.

  "We don’t like her,” said another soul. “She’s a strange girl who's stuck on something."

  "She's being punished."

  “She’s always screaming.”

  "She committed a grave sin."

  These souls have had their mind emptied, said Iblis quietly to her. Jenny agreed. It was like talking to a cssroom of absentminded school kids. They seemed innocent and unaware and forgetful. But they looked like adults.

  "Master says he doesn't like pying with her," said another soul. "But he pys with us all the time."

  "Pys?" said Jenny, a sickening feeling rising to her throat. She didn't want to know what they meant, but another soul described it in depth.

  "He comes to our chambers and tells us stories and shows us -"

  Jenny held up her hand. "Wait. Wait. Wait."

  The souls looked at her curiously. Like they couldn't understand why she wouldn’t want to hear more.

  But she was shaking. "Can you tell me where the stuck girl is? The girl your master won't... that he keeps away?"

  The souls looked shifty. "We're not supposed to go there."

  "We are forbidden."

  "Master will be furious. Remember when...?"

  "Yeah."

  "He didn't like it at all. He didn't py with us for so long."

  "We shouldn't."

  But Jenny didn't want to wait for them to squabble. If the chamber to the right was their bed rooms, then that only left the chamber to the left. Where everything seemed dark and hidden away. She gnced at the bck throne, trying not to picture Azra’il sitting there. She’d gotten lucky that he wasn’t around. But Miriam wasn’t around either. He must be busy with her... She tried not to think about that. Tried not to wonder if Miriam would end up as a Blooded Soul too. What that might mean.

  There is a girl in that room, crackled Iblis's voice. I cannot see her face. She is kept in the dark. But there is a Cross. As Yeshua was kept on the cross.

  Jenny's heart leapt into her throat. "Excuse me," she said to the souls, moving between them. They didn't flinch away from her touch. They weren't even ice cold like the souls she'd met below. They felt warm and alive and soft. And they all looked at her curiously, and exchanged nervous gnces.

  "You can't go there."

  "Master has forbidden it."

  "Please. We'll get in trouble."

  Jenny didn’t bother responding to them. She shouldered them aside, and they rushed around her, their faces growing increasingly worried. Some of them tripped over their long, bright gowns.

  "Please!" Their voices raised in pitch and volume.

  “I have to,” said Jenny, whose mind was fshing red every time she pictured Susan on the cross. She almost swiped at one of them.

  "No!" A soul grabbed Jenny's arm. Fingernails dug into the cracked scales of her arm, but she shook the soul off. More hands grabbed at her shoulder. Men and women, their faces young and earnest, stared at her.

  "You can't go in there. Don't go in there!"

  Jenny threw them off and pulled out her hatchet, turning slowly in a circle. "Stay back."

  Immediately, the souls gave her space, falling backward, nearly tripping over their flowing gowns. Jenny felt sorry for them. For what they were suffering through. But she wouldn't let them get in her way. "I need to find her. Okay? So, stay the fuck back."

  The souls looked like they might cry. Then one of them broke away, running toward the direction of the beds. And the others did the same. A flurry of footsteps. She watched their flowing dresses and bright faces vanish behind pilrs and back into the bed chamber. Some of them stayed back, watching Jenny from the shadows, whispering among each other.

  She didn't have time to make sense of their strangeness. She turned around and marched toward the other room, a weighty feeling gathering in her legs with every beat of her heart, as every step took her closer. A cross... Iblis had seen a cross in there.

  Would Azra’il show up?

  Would these souls be a problem?

  Jenny didn’t care. Her feet felt heavy as she walked past the pilrs. As torch light flickered overhead. A horrible twisting anxiety filling her throat as she neared the opposite end of the throne room.

  Iblis fluttered close by. He might've said something, but it didn't register in Jenny's head. she came to the open doorway and stared into the dark room. Unlike the rest of the torchlit pace area, this pce was too dark for her to see anything, but she could hear the soft sounds of someone's bored breathing. And then she heard a voice. A strained, raspy voice, full of disbelief and shock and pain.

  "Jenny?"