Patch glanced at me, and I inclined my head. Time to pull out the proverbial ace up the sleeve. With little time to consider, Patch and I had decided this was one card we couldn’t afford not to play.

“We want access to every fallen angel feather being stored in heaven,” I announced.

The pompous smirk drained from Pepper's eyes, and he gave a cold bark of laughter. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t give you that. It would take a whole committee to release those feathers. And what are you planning to do? Burn the whole lot of them? You’d send every fallen angel on Earth to hell!”

“Would you really be that disappointed?” I asked him in all seriousness.

“Who cares what I think?” he growled. “There are rules. There are procedures. Only fallen angels who’ve committed a serious crime or breach of humanity are sent to hell.”

“You’re out of options,” Patch stated coldly. “We both know you can get the feathers. You know where they’re stored, and you know the procedure for releasing them. You have everything you need. Devise a plan and carry it out. Either that, or take your chances against Dante.”

“One feather, possibly! But thousands? I’ll never get away with it!” Pepper protested shrilly.

Patch stepped toward him, and Pepper shrank back in fear, his arms flying up to shield his face.

“Look around,” Patch told him in a quiet, lethal voice. “This isn’t a place you want to call home. You’ll be the newest fallen angel, and they’ll make you remember it. You won’t last a week of initiation.”

“I-i-initiation?”

Patch’s black stare sent a shiver up my spine.

“W-w-what do I do?” Pepper wailed softly. “I can’t go through initiation. I can’t live on Earth full-time. I need to be able to go back to heaven when I want.”

“Get the feathers.”

“I can’t d-d-do it.” Pepper hiccuped.

“You don’t have a choice. You’re going to get those feathers, Pepper. And I’m going to kill Dante. Have you thought this plan through?”

A miserable nod. “I’ll bring you a special dagger. It will kill Dante. If the archangels come after you, and you try to give them my name, you’ll cut your own tongue out with the dagger. I’ve enchanted it. The dagger won’t let you betray me.”

“Fair enough.”

“If we go through with this, you can’t contact me. Not while I’m in heaven. All communication goes dark until I finish. If I can finish,” he whimpered wretchedly. “I’ll let you know when I have the feathers.”

“We need them by tomorrow,” I told Pepper.

“Tomorrow?” he fussed.

“Do you realize what you’re asking?”

“Monday at midnight at the latest,” Patch said with no room for compromise.

Pepper gave a queasy nod. “I’ll get as many as I can.”

“You need to clear out the inventory,” I told him. “That’s our deal.”

Pepper swallowed. “Every last one of them?”

That was the idea, yes. If Pepper succeeded in getting the feathers, the Nephilim would have a way of winning the war with a single strike of a match. Since we couldn’t chain fallen angels in hell ourselves, we’d let their Achilles’ heels—their former angelic feathers—do it for us. Every fallen angel would be given a choice: release their Nephilim vassal from their oath and swear a new oath of peace, or make a new home for themselves in a place much hotter than Coldwater, Maine.

If our plan worked, it wouldn’t matter if Dante accused me of treason. If I won the war, nothing else would matter to the Nephilim. And despite their lack of faith in me, I wanted to win this for them. It was the right thing to do.

I met Pepper’s gaze, putting steel behind mine. “All of them.”

Chapter 31

SCOTT CALLED ME AS SOON AS PATCH AND I WERE BACK at the townhouse. It was now Sunday, just after three in the morning. Patch closed the front door behind us, and I put the phone on speaker.

“We might have a problem,” Scott said. “I’ve gotten a handful of texts from friends saying Dante is making a public announcement to Nephilim later tonight at Delphic, after closing. After what happened tonight, anybody else find this odd?”

Patch swore.

I tried to stay calm, but black tinged the edges of my vision.

“Everyone’s speculating, and the theories are all over the board,” Scott continued. “Any idea what this is about? The prick pretended to be your boyfriend and then wham. Earlier tonight. And now this.”

I braced my hand on the wall for support. My head spun and my knees shook. Patch took the phone from me.

“She’ll call you back, Scott. Let us know if you hear anything else.”

I sank into Patch’s sofa. I stuck my head between my knees and drew several rapid breaths. “He’s going to publicly accuse me of treason. Later tonight.”

“Yes,” Patch agreed quietly.

“They’ll lock me in prison. They’ll try to torture a confession out of me.”

Patch knelt in front of me and placed his hands protectively on my hips. “Look at me, Angel.”

My brain automatically switched into action. “We have to contact Pepper. We need the dagger sooner than we thought. We need to kill Dante before he can make his announcement.” A rattled sob escaped my chest. “What if we don’t get the dagger in time?”

Patch drew my head against his chest, gently kneading the muscles at the back of my neck that were clenched so tight I thought they’d snap. “Do you think I’m going to let them lay a single hand on you?” he said in that same soft voice.

“Oh, Patch!” I flung my arms around his neck, tears warming my face. “Wthat are we going to do?”

He tilted my face to look at his. He brushed his thumbs under my eyes, drying my tears. “Pepper is going to come through. He’s going to bring me the dagger, and I’m going to kill Dante. You’re going to get the feathers and win the war. And then I’m taking you away. Someplace where we’ll never hear the words ‘Cheshvan’ or ‘war’ again.” He looked like he wanted to believe it, but his voice wavered just enough.

“Pepper promised us the feathers and dagger by Monday at midnight. But what about Dante’s announcement tonight? We can’t stop him. Pepper has to bring the dagger sooner. We have to find a way to contact him. We’ll have to risk it.”

Patch fell silent, rubbing his hand across his mouth in thought. At last he said, “Pepper can’t solve the problem of tonight—we’re going to have to do that ourselves.” His eyes, unshaken and determined, flicked up to mine. “You’re going to request an urgent and mandatory meeting with the most prominent Nephilim, schedule it for tonight, and steal Dante’s thunder. Everyone is expecting you to launch an offensive, to catapult our races into war, and they’ll think this is it—your first military move. Your announcement will trump Dante’s. The Nephilim will come, and out of curiosity, so will Dante.

“In front of everyone, you’ll make it very clear you’re aware there are factions in favor of putting Dante in power. Then you’ll tell them you’re going to put their doubts to rest once and for all. Convince them you want to be their ruler, and that you believe you can do a better job than Dante. Then challenge him to a duel for power.”

I stared at Patch, confused and dubious. “A duel? With Dante? I can’t fight him—he’ll win.”

“If we can delay the duel until Pepper gets back, the duel will be nothing more than a gimmick to stall Dante and buy us time.”

“And if we can’t delay the duel?”

Patch’s eyes cut sharply to mine, but he didn’t answer my question. “We have to act now. If Dante finds out you’ve also got something to say tonight, he’ll put his plans on hold until he knows what you’re up to. He has nothing to lose. He knows if you publicly denounce him, he merely has to point a finger at you. Trust me, when he finds out you’re challenging him to a duel, he’ll break out the champagne. He’s cocky, Nora. And egotistical. It will never cross his mind that you can win. He’ll agree to duel, thinking you’ve just dropped a cake in his lap. A messy public pronouncement of your treason and a drawn-out trial . . . or stealing your power with a single shot from a pistol? He’ll kick himself for not thinking of it first.”

My joints felt as though they’d been replaced with rubber. “If the duel goes through, we’ll fight with guns?”

“Or swords. Your preference, but I’d strongly suggest pistols. It will be easier for you to learn to shoot than to sword fight,” Patch said calmly, clearly not hearing the distress in my voice.

I felt like throwing up. “Dante will agree to duel because he knows he can beat me. He’s stronger than I am, Patch. Who knows how much devilcraft he’s consumed? It won’t be a fair fight.”

Patch took my trembling hands and brushed a soothing kiss across my knuckles. “Dueling went out of fashion hundreds of years ago in human culture, but it’s still socially acceptable to Nephilim. In their eyes, it’s the fastest and most obvious way of solving a disagreement. Dante wants to be leader of the Nephilim army, and you’re going to make him and every other Nephil believe you want it just as badly.”

“Why don’t we just tell prominent Nephilim about the feathers at the meeting?” My heart surged with hope. “They won’t care about anything else when they know I have a surefire way of winning the war and restoring peace.”

“If Pepper fails, they’ll see it as your failure. Getting close won’t count. Either they’ll hail you as a savior for getting the feathers, or they’ll crucify you for flopping. Until we know for sure Pepper has succeeded, we can’t mention the feathers.”

I raked my hands through my hair. “I can’t do this.”

Patch said, “If Dante is working for fallen angels, and if he gains power, the Nephilim race will be more deeply in bondage than ever before. I worry fallen angels will use devilcraft to make Nephilim slaves long after Cheshvan ends.”

I shook my head miserably. “There’s too much at stake. What if I fail?” And undoubtedly I would.

“There’s more, Nora. Your oath to Hank.”

Dread formed like chunks of ice in the pit of my stomach. Once again, I remembered every word I’d spoken to Hank Millar the night he’d pressured me to take up the reins of his doomed uprising. I’ll lead your army. If I break this promise, I understand my mom and I are both as good as dead. Which didn’t leave me much of a choice, did it? If I wanted to stay on Earth with Patch, and preserve my mom’s life, I had to keep my title as leader of the Nephilim army. I couldn’t let Dante steal it from me.

“A duel is a rare show, and throw in two high-profile Nephilim, such as you and Dante, and this will be an event not to be missed,” Patch said. “I’m hoping for the best, that we’ll be able to push out the duel, and that Pepper won’t fail, but I think we should prepare for the worst. The duel might be your only way out.”