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Though Luce hated the Scale, if there was a record of the fallen, she burned to knohose naes, to see where Daniel’s name was tallied now

This hat the fallen kept talking about A single angel ould tip the scale

But before Zaban could hurtle any s filled her vision--

an angel descending through the largest hole in the skylight

Daniel touched down in front of her and eyed the cloak i her He studied her constricted neck

His h his T-shirt as he tried to tear the cloak away

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Phil lift a small pickax from a nearby table and slice it across Zaban’s chest The Scale angel swerved, trying to spin out of range The blade connected with his arm The bloas so powerful it severed Zaban’s hand at the wrist Sickened, Luce watched the pale slack fist thump to the floor

Aside froed to one of the ravaged statues

"Tie that on with one of your knots," Phil taunted as Zaban fu the battered, unconscious bodies of his sect

"Is it hurting you?" Daniel tore at the knots binding Luce

"No" She willed it to be true It almost was

When brute force didn’t work, Daniel tried approaching the cloak o," he ers inched across her body, feeling close and far away

Luce wished that her hands, over any other part of her body, were free so she could touch Daniel right now, soothe his anxiety She trusted hi

What could she do to help him? She closed her eyes and drifted back to the lifetiht her dozens of knots in their quiet afternoons on the beach She reht loop in the ood for carrying extra weight on a line Or the lover’s knot, which looked si four hands at once; each one had to loop a strand through a different portion of the heart’s core

The cloak was so tight Luce could notit further

Daniel cursed at how it pinched her neck

"I can’t," he finally cried out "The Scale straitjacket is comprised of infinite knots Only one of them can unbind it Who did this to you?"

Luce jerked her head toward the blue-winged angel howling to hi in a corner by astill protruded from his eye

She wanted to tell Daniel how her captor had taken out Olianna with a flagpole, then bound her up and brought her here

But she could not even speak The cloak was too tight

By then, Phil had the whining angel in his grasp, gripped by the collar of his blood-wet cloak He slapped the Scale three ti s in alar of dried blue blood had for protruded from his socket

"Unbind her, Barach," Daniel ordered, recognizing Luce’s captor i Luce wonder hoell they knew each other

"Not likely" Barach leaned away and spat a stream of blue blood and a couple of sharp and tiny teeth out onto the floor

In a flash, Phil had a starshot trained between the angel’s eyes "Daniel Grigori instructed you to unbind her You will oblige"

Barach flinched, eyeing the starshot with disdain

"Vile Vile!"

A dark shadow fell over Phil’s body

Hazily, Luce processed the sight of another Scale angel, the craggy old hag with s She must have roused after she’d been knocked out Now she came at Phil with the same pickax he’d used on Zaban--

But then the Scale angel vanished into dust

Ten feet behind her, Vincent stood with an empty bow in hand He nodded at Phil, then turned back to scour the carpet of blue wings for movement

Daniel turned to Phil and muttered, "We need to be careful about how many we take out The Scale do matter in the balance A little"

"Unfortunate," Phil said, strange envy in his voice

"We will keep the killing to a ori

But ould prefer to kill all of them" He raised his voice for Barach’s ears "Welcohtlessness The Outcasts are more powerful than you think I would kill you without a second thought, without a first one, even However, I will ask again: Unbind her"

Barach stood a longhis one re wrinkled old eyelid

"Unbind her! She cannot breathe!" Daniel roared

Barach growled and approached Luce His age-spotted hands worked out a series of knots that neither Phil nor Daniel had been able to find Luce felt no relief in her neck, though Not until he began to whisper so, very low, under his rancid breath