It was not easy, especially for me. The children had some magic. They belonged. But I was always looked on with suspicion. Any magic that I had was buried inside when I agreed to go with Michael. I had to give its use up lest Lucifer try to track me. So I was alone, and very human, in a world of perfection. She gave a wry smile. But I lived, lived until a very old age, and I was able to see my children grow into men, and have children of their own.

We are here, she said.

I stopped and looked up. The great tree was before me. I had been lulled by the sound of Evangeline’s voice and my preoccupation with the cold, and I hadn’t noticed our approach.

The tree was so large that it was almost hard to grasp its size. I had seen the forests of redwoods in California; this tree made redwoods look like dwarves. The trunk was nearly as wide as the base of the John Hancock building, and great gnarled roots as large as city buses twisted around it. It stretched high above me, so high that it disappeared into the low-hanging clouds that circled the mountains. The bark was white as starlight, and it gleamed in the dull gray that surrounded it.

“What now?” I asked.

Evangeline approached the base of the tree. I clambered after her, climbing over the roots, pulling myself over them with frozen hands and feet. It took me several minutes to reach her. She floated patiently next to a knot the size of my fist that marred the white face of the tree. I climbed over the last root and stood at her side, panting.

We must enter the tree, she said, and did that twirly thing again with her finger in the air. A circle of flame appeared on the bark of the tree. The inside of the circle opened to darkness.

“Where does this go?” I asked.

To the Valley of Sorrows, on the other side of the mountains, she said, and floated inside. Come, Granddaughter.

I stared after her into the darkness and felt all the misgivings I had been pushing aside come surging up. She could be leading me anywhere. Hell, for that matter, she might not be Evangeline at all but some kind of trick sent by Antares or Focalor or Ramuell’s master.

This is a great time to realize that, I thought sourly. But I had committed myself to this course of action, and there was no way home without Evangeline.

The circle of flame closed behind me as I stepped inside and plunged into blackness. I could barely make out the glitter of Evangeline’s form several feet in front of me. As my eyes adjusted I realized it wasn’t completely black. The walls sparkled with a kind of green luminescence, almost like algae on the ocean at night.

Evangeline called for me to follow her again, and I picked my way toward her, cautiously putting one foot in front of the other. The tunnel was narrow enough that I could touch both sides with my arms outstretched. The walls felt like smooth rock beneath my fingers and the air inside the tree was surprisingly warm and humid. I felt all of my frozen parts thawing out rapidly. After several minutes of walking I unbuttoned my coat and folded it over my arm to carry.

The path was some kind of fine silt and felt slippery beneath my feet. It sloped downward for several feet, then leveled out. I didn’t encounter any roots or rocks to trip over, and after a while I picked up the pace. I’d lost all sense of time and wondered how long I’d been gone. I wondered if Beezle would be worried. I wondered if my father had saved Gabriel. A fist squeezed my heart when I thought of the half angel lying bloody and still. I wished that he was with me now.

Evangeline stayed several feet in front of me. She did not speak at all. There was a sense of urgency about her now that infected me. I walked more quickly even as I grew more anxious about what awaited me at the end of the tunnel.

After what felt like an hour, the path started to slope upward again. Unlike the beginning of the path, the incline wasn’t gradual. The grade steepened abruptly and I was forced to scramble for purchase several times, digging in the silt with my fingers. I fell flat on my face once and slid backward at least ten feet before I managed to dig the toes of my boots into the dirt and halt my progress downhill.

My coat fell from my arms and tumbled down to the bottom of the slope. I’d have to retrieve it on the way back. It was far too cold on the road for me to even consider going outside in nothing but a sweater.

Evangeline turned with an impatient huff. Granddaughter, hurry, please. We have no time for this.

I pushed to my knees and glared at her. “I’m not enjoying this, you know. Some of us can’t just float along.”

No, but you could fly, she snapped.

“Flying. Right,” I said, feeling amazingly stupid. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. Maybe because I was still unaccustomed to using my wings for any purpose other than in my role as an Agent. I was used to acting like a human, not a supernatural being.

As soon as I thought of it my wings pushed out my back. I brushed the dirt from my face and sweater and then flew to Evangeline. She turned without another word, moving faster now, and I stayed easily at her side.

We continued upward for a few more minutes; then the path abruptly leveled out again. We were in a small, round anteroom, just a few feet across. I realized that as we’d traveled, the luminescence in the walls had increased gradually. The room was not as shadowed as the rest of the path, and I could see a door with an arched top and a squared bottom in front of us.

The door gleamed in the faint light. It looked like heavy metal, warm and yellow like gold. There was no knob, but there was a series of bolts—seven in all. I fluttered to the ground and folded my wings to my back. Evangeline hovered impatiently beside me.