Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
“Nim is a good friend.” Okay, she’s getting to me, and the truth is Evan is an excellent judge of character. “I don’t think she knows she had a mother who was looking for her. I definitely don’t think she knew her name was Layla. May I ask what happened to her father?”
Lilith’s eyes narrow. “Well, I was having a bit of a bad-boy moment.”
“That era lasted a while if you’re called the mother of demons,” I point out. I mean we all had one, right?
“Yeah, well, I married the asshole, or at least one aspect of him. You know he can be really charming when he wants to be, but then he sends in the misogynist prick and steals your only daughter and sends her to be the Lady of the damn Lake, apparently, and thinks I won’t notice because I just love being the Queen of Hell.”
My jaw drops. “Dude, you married Lucifer Morningstar?”
“And divorced him, and let me tell you that was no easy feat. I tell you this because I need you to understand how far I’ve come. I have some amount of peace on my little slice of Hell. I spend my time showing the broken creatures of our plane that there is more to life than torture and neglect. Whatever has happened to my daughter, I will help her. And that means I will help you because according to Evan, she likes you and your family. You saved her.”
I shake my head. “She’s saved us, too, and I feel bad for leaving her to Myrddin, but I didn’t know about the thrall stone. I thought… Well, I hate what I thought, but she forgave me.”
“Which is why I wouldn’t harm you,” Lilith points out.
“But you know more than you should. Evan might have told you I’m pregnant.”
She shakes her head. “She didn’t. Harriet did. I know it sounds odd, but I speak angel. Such a weird language. You’re carrying a Nephilim child. I want that story at some point because we haven’t seen one in thousands of years. You are trying to get to a celestial plane.”
“Yes.” I don’t know that I like how much she knows or how she knows it. “She talks to you?”
“Like I said, I can read souls, and hers is quite vibrant,” Lilith admits. “It’s only the fact that she’s Nephilim that I can hear her. I was made part angel. I think that’s where the creator went wrong because angels can be a bit stubborn. Then he went and made Adam from clay and Eve from Adam. You know they were a bit boring, right? Most exciting thing that woman did was eat that apple.”
I would normally love to listen in on her very interesting family drama, but I’m kind of stuck in my own. “I do need to get to the celestial planes, but I can’t figure out how to open that door without dying. Trust me. I’ve called on a couple of angels I know about a million times. They aren’t answering.”
“Because we’re in a crisis, and the creator prefers to let us solve some problems on our own,” she says with a huff. “No. We have to assume Heaven knows what’s happening, and they are going to let things play out. But you have a secret weapon. I wouldn’t be surprised if that bit of angelic light isn’t your guardian angel’s way of sending you a weapon no one will see coming.”
“She’s not a weapon.” But isn’t that how we’re viewing Mia? Do I have any right to take her out of her safety and plunge her into war? Yet, I know what her mother would want. She wanted us to find them. She wanted me to bring them home.
“Think of her as an advantage,” Lilith says. “She’s the one who will take you where you want to go. Her soul holds angelic magic, and that means she can navigate the celestial planes. Because she’s in utero, she can take you with her.”
“Harriet can get me to Sarah?”
Lilith nods. “Yes. All you have to do is ask her. Picture who you’re looking for in your mind, and if she’s on a celestial plane, Harriet can take you there. Then because you’re on a celestial plane, she can take you all back to your home. She cannot transport you across the Earth plane. She would have to access Heaven, and that will get increasingly dangerous because if you do this, she will be on their radar, so to speak.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “I thought you said she was a gift from them.”
“From the angel who watches you,” Lilith corrects. “But not all will agree with that angel, and there are those in Heaven who think Nephilim are abominations. You’ll find the same in Hell.”