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"Oh," Daniel said "The Scale can be fearso pain, and they may cause our friends some temporary discomfort But they won’t hurt them in any permanent way They don’t kill That’s not their style"

"What is their style, then?" Luce crossed her legs under her on the hard damp surface of the roof "You still haven’t told ainst"

"The Scale caroup oflesser angels They were the first to be asked in the Roll Call which side they would stand by, and they chose the Throne"

"There was a roll call?" Luce asked, not sure she’d heard correctly It sounded more like homeroom than Heaven

"After the schis with the angels with the small-est dominions, each of us was to be called upon to make an oath of fealty to the Throne" He stared at the ain "It took ages to call out the angels’ na up It probably took as long to say our names as it did for Rome to rise and fall But they didn’t h the Roll Call before--" Daniel took a ragged breath

"Before what?"

"Before so happened to els" By now Luce realized that when Daniel’s voice trailed off like that, it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her or because she wouldn’t understand, but because despite all the things she’d seen and learned, it still ht be too soon for her to know the truth So she didn’t ask--though she was desperate to--what had els had not yet chosen sides She let Daniel speak again when he was ready

"Heaven cast out everyone who had not sided with it Reot to choose? They were ahest After the Fall, Heaven was bereft of els" He closed his eyes "The Scale, who had lucked into see loyal, stepped into the breach"

"So because the Scale swore fealty to Heaven first--" Luce said

"They felt they had a superior aht "Since then, they have self-righteously clai as celestial parole officers But the position is self-invented, not ordained With the Archangels gone after the Fall, the Scale took advantage of a vacuum of power They carved out a role for themselves, and they convinced the Throne of their importance"

"They lobbied God?"

"More or less They pledged to restore the fallen to Heaven, to gather back those angels who had strayed, to return the us to reco the way, they gave up trying to change our points of vie they " His steely gaze looked enraged and it made Luce wonder what could be so bad in Heaven that it kept Daniel in self-exile Wasn’t the peace of Heaven prefer-able to where he was noith everyone waiting for hiels worth their wings who have returned to Heaven don’t need the Scale to get there Ask Gabbe, ask Arriane The Scale is a joke

Still, they’ve had one or two successes"

"But not you?" she asked "You haven’t chosen one side or the other And so they’re after you, aren’t they?" A crowded red tram wound around the paved circle below, then forked up a narrow street

"They’ve been afterscandals"

"And yet you haven’t declared for the Throne Why haven’t you?"

"I’ve told you It’s not as sioing to side with Lucifer"

"Right, butI can’t explain thousands of years’

worth of argument in the space of a few minutes It is coain, out over the city, then down at his hands

"And it’s an insult to be asked to choose, an insult for your creator to demand that you reduce the vastness of your love to the tiny, petty confines of a gesture during a Roll Call" He sighed "I don’t know Maybe I’m too sincere"

"No--" Luce started

"Anyway, the Scale They’re Heavenly bureaucrats I think of the ressions of rules no one cares about or believes in, all in the naain Luce stared out at the city, which was drawing a dark coat around its shoulders She thought of the sour-breathed vice-principal at Dover, whose name she couldn’t remember, who never had any interest in her side of any story, who had signed her expulsion papers after the fire that killed Trevor "I’ve been burned by people like that"

"We all have They’re sticklers for frivolous rules of their own invention, which they deehteous None of us like theiven them the power to monitor us, to detain us without cause, to convict us of cri"

Luce shuddered again, this time not because of the cold "And you think they have Arriane and Roland and Annabelle? Why? Why hold thehed "I know they have Arriane and Roland and Annabelle Their hatred blinds the us helps Lucifer" He sed hard "What I fear most is that they also have the relic" In the distance, four pairs of tattered wingsOutcasts As they neared the palace roof, Luce and Daniel rose to greet thes crackling like paper umbrellas as they drew the in their deested that their trip had been suc-cessful

"Well?" Daniel asked

"The Scale has taken control of a place down the river," Vincent announced, pointing in the direction of the Ferris wheel "The neglected wing of a , so they stake it out unnoticed It is not equipped with alarms"

"You’re certain they’re Scale?" Daniel asked quickly