Finale

skating at this
hour.
    A shift in the air, snapping with voltage, alerted me to Dante’s presence. He lowered himself onto the bench beside me, dressed in dark tailored jeans and a fitted navy polo. He
hadn’t bothered to remove his sunglasses, making it impossible to see his eyes. I wondered if he regretted giving me the drink and was experiencing some degree of moral conflict. I hoped
so.
    “Going skating?” he asked with a nod at my feet.
    I noticed he wasn’t carting skates. “The sign said you have to rent skates to go beyond the lobby.”
    “You could have mind-tricked the counter attendant.”
    I felt my mood darken. “That’s not really how I play.”
    Dante shrugged. “Then you’re missing out on a lot of the perks of being Nephilim.”
    “Tell me about the blue drink.”
    “It’s an enhancement drink.”
    “So I gathered. What’s it enhanced with?”
    Dante leaned his head toward mine and spoke in a whisper. “Devilcraft. It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he assured me.
    My spine stiffened, and the hairs at the back of my neck tingled. No, no, no. Devilcraft was supposed to be eradicated from Earth. It had disappeared with Hank. “I know what devilcraft is.
And I thought it was destroyed.”
    Dante’s dark eyebrows furrowed. “How do you know about devilcraft?”
    “Hank used it. So did his accomplice, Chauncey Langeais. But when Hank died—” I caught myself. Dante didn’t know I’d killed Hank, and to say that it wasn’t
going to help my rapport with the Nephilim, Dante included, if my secret got out, was the understatement of the year. “Patch used to spy for Hank.”
    A nod. “I know. They had a deal. Patch fed us information on fallen angels.”
    I didn’t know whether Dante intentionally left out that Patch had agreed to spy for Hank on one condition: that he preserve my life, or if Hank had kept those details private.
    “Hank told Patch about devilcraft,” I lied, covering my tracks. “But Patch told me that when Hank died, devilcraft went with him. Patch was under the impression that Hank was
the only one who knew how to manipulate it.”
    Dante shook his head. “Hank put his right-hand man, Blakely, in charge of developing devilcraft prototypes. Blakely knows more about devilcraft than Hank ever did. Blakely has spent the
past several months holed up in a lab, enchanting knives, whips, and studded rings with devilcraft, transforming them into deadly weapons. Most recently, he’s formulated a drink that will
elevate Nephilim powers. We’re evenly matched, Nora,” he said with an excited glint in his eyes. “Used to be it took ten Nephilim to every fallen angel. Not so anymore. I’ve
been testing the drink for Blakely, and when I take the enhanced drink, the playing field consistently tilts to my advantage. I can go up against a single fallen angel without any fear that
he’s stronger.”
    My thoughts spun wildly. Devilcraft was thriving on Earth? The Nephilim had a secret weapon, being fabricated in a secret lab? I had to tell Patch. “Is the drink you gave me the same one
you’ve been testing for Blakely?”
    “Yes.” A crafty smile. “Now you understand what I’m talking about.”
    If he wanted accolades, he wasn’t getting them from me. “How many Nephilim know about the drink or have ingested it?”
    Dante leaned back on the bench and sighed. “Are you asking for yourself?” He paused with meaning. “Or to share our secret with Patch?”
    I hesitated, and Dante’s face fell.
    “You have to choose, Nora. You can’t be loyal to us and Patch. You’re making an admirable go of it, but in the end, loyalty is about taking a side. You’re either with the
Nephilim or against us.”
    The worst part of this conversation was that Dante was right. Deep down, I knew it. Patch and I had agreed that our endgame in the war was to come out of it safely together, but if I still
maintained that that was my only goal, where did it leave the Nephilim? I was supposedly their leader, asking them to believe I was going to help them, but I really wasn’t.
    “If you tell Patch about devilcraft, he won’t sit on the information,” Dante said. “He’ll go after Blakely and try to destroy the lab. Not out of a lofty sense of
moral duty, but out of self-preservation. This isn’t just about Cheshvan anymore,” he explained. “My goal isn’t to push fallen angels back behind some arbitrary line, such
as stopping them from possessing us. My goal is