Gabriel wouldn’t walk away from you, a little voice in my head said.
He did. He always does.
No, he wouldn’t walk away if you needed him. He wouldn’t leave you to Nathaniel, to danger. He would never go to Amarantha.
He wouldn’t leave me. That’s what I told Beezle. He wouldn’t leave me.
“He wouldn’t leave me,” I said aloud, and I flexed my wrists. The handcuffs broke and fell away. The sword returned to my hand.
As I looked into Nathaniel’s surprised face, I swung the sword that the real Nathaniel had given me. I can’t say that I didn’t feel a ton of satisfaction in watching his head roll way down the corridor, even if it was only a puppet of the Maze. I felt my magic surge up inside me once more as I gazed into the eyes of the foe I had vanquished once before.
I had defeated Nathaniel. I had killed Ramuell. I had survived. I wasn’t powerless.
The Maze-Ramuell looked surprised as I stalked forward. The nephilim took a step backward away from me, and I knew then that the Maze would never beat me.
“You will not break me,” I said, my anger giving me strength, taking away the pain. “You will not break me, because I know that this is not real.”
“Not real?” the Maze said. “Are not your injuries real, your broken bones? Were you not defiled by Zerachiel’s son?”
“No,” I said, and as I said it my rib bone knit back together, my limping leg grew straight again, my cuts and burns and bruises healed. All the shattered pieces inside me were made whole.
“It didn’t happen,” I said. I stood before the Maze with my heart and my body in one piece. If there was a trace of darkness, a trace of fear, left inside me, the Maze would never find it. “Do your worst. You will never, never, never defeat me.”
The Maze gave me a speculative look through Ramuell’s eyes. “I never thought to be beaten by a creature as low as you.”
“Yeah, well, I have a long history of not living up to people’s expectations of me,” I said.
The Maze gave a short bark of laughter. “Lucifer’s will beats strongly inside you. I should have seen this.”
“It’s not Lucifer’s will,” I said. “It’s mine. Now, if we’re not going to dance anymore, take me to Gabriel.”
Ramuell bowed to me. “As you wish, my lady.”
The corridor we stood in slowly lightened. I realized the structure of the Maze was disappearing. The walls and ceiling faded away until we stood on an open, rocky clearing surrounded by the enormous trees of Amarantha’s forest. In the center of the rocks was a cage, and inside the cage was Gabriel, looking at me in astonishment.
I started toward him.
“I have not enjoyed playing the game so much in many years,” the Maze said behind me.
I didn’t look back as I answered. “Wish I could say the same.”
Ramuell’s laugh echoed behind me, and then slowly disappeared. I didn’t care. I only had eyes for Gabriel.
I slowed as I approached the cage. Gabriel sat in the dead center, well away from the bars. He squatted on his haunches, still dressed in the ridiculous loincloth of Amarantha’s. There were burn marks on his wrists from the cuffs she had put on him. He looked haggard and exhausted, but there was something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen when he’d first entered Amarantha’s throne room. Hope.
“Madeline,” he said, and his voice sounded raspy and underused. “The cage is bespelled.”
I nodded. “Right. On the off chance that I actually made it here Amarantha wouldn’t have wanted it to be easy for me. You can’t touch the bars?”
He shook his head. His dark hair, normally so impeccably groomed, hung in lank and sweaty tendrils around his cheeks.
“I saw something like this in the Forbidden Lands,” I said. “The Grigori used cages that caused the nephilim unspeakable pain whenever they touched the bars.”
“That is what happened to me when I touched them,” he said.
I studied the bars for a minute, and then the sword wanted my attention. “Of course. Stand back as far as you can, Gabriel.”
I swung the sword near the top of the cage and it cut cleanly through the bars. I slashed it at the bottom and several bars fell outward, creating a makeshift doorway. They sparked as they hit the rocks.
“Step out carefully,” I said.
Gabriel folded his wings as small as he could to his back and inched through the bars. I didn’t breathe until his bare feet touched the rock and he stood before me.
He put his hand on my cheek and I sank into his touch, all the horror and blood and fatigue of the last several hours coming back to me. It hadn’t been real, but it had felt real when it was happening.
“Gabriel,” I said, and there was a lifetime of longing in his name.
“You came for me,” he said, wonder in his eyes, his lips a breath from mine.
“Of course I did,” I said, and then he gave me what I needed.
After a long time we came apart, mouths swollen from kissing. He wiped the tears that I didn’t know I cried from my cheeks.
“I believe Amarantha will be quite shocked when you return with me,” Gabriel said.
“Then let’s go shock her,” I said. “And remind me to give that bitch a smack in the mouth just on principle.”
“Well, well, isn’t this a touching scene,” said a sneering voice behind me.
I turned around to see Antares standing a few feet away, looking quite the worse for wear. One of his horns had been sliced in half and he was covered in whip marks. Blood streamed from a nasty-looking cut above his eye.