Archive of Our Own

The citizens of Tadfield are whispering.

At the market, old Mrs. Fisher and even older Mrs. Clarke pick up and squeeze produce together. “That girl in the dairy section. I don’t know about her.”

That is a lie. Clarke knows enough about the girl to determine that this tourist has overstayed her welcome.

“They say she does witchcraft,” Fisher says, despite not believing in such things. “Mrs. Wensleydale says that, beneath her grandson’s bed, her daughter-in-law found a glass of water with a yellow yolk floating inside. She asked the boy why he’d done such an odd thing and he said the American told him it would cleanse his aura.”

Clarke tuts. “Why’s she always around children, anyway?”

“She lives with three men now. Simply not appropriate to expose them to such things.”

R.P. Tyler, of the neighborhood watch, spots all four interlopers sharing a booth at the pub. He’s not as imaginative about what the mechanics of their relationship could be as the spinsters in the produce section are. Two of the men seem clean cut enough, despite the strange company they keep. He doesn’t trust the man in black, for obvious reasons.

“That’s the one I saw with his car up in flames,” he mutters to his wife.

From her window seat, she can see a lovely black bentley parked right outside. “Looks fine to me. Must’ve been a little smoke under the hood. See, I knew you were making a big deal of nothing as always.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he starts. Then he stops.

He still doesn’t know how to explain what he saw. R.P. Tyler never believed in witchcraft either, but the American woman has him questioning. He’s more wary of her than any of the men she’s gathered. That woman was the first bad omen to arrive before the town itself went haywire.

“Quit glarin’ at the girl before she notices,” his wife warns.

“I want to know what they’re murmuring about. Know what the strangest occurrence in the neighborhood was before she turned up?”

Mrs. Tyler shrugs one shoulder. “Was it when the lawn ornaments were switched around last year?”

“Exactly. Kids switching lawn gnomes. That was the most suspicious activity I ever had to manage.”

“You don’t have to manage anything, you volunteer—“

“Since this drug-addled troublemaker arrived, we’ve had flash storms—Listen, we never had sudden, fierce weather like that—and then, then winter came early—”

“It’s normal for winter to come early some years.”

“Not here. When’s it ever happened here?”

“You’re saying this young lady is a witch using her powers to ruin our perfect weather? Because she controls the weather? With drugs?” His wife snaps her menu shut. “Is that what you’re saying, Ronald?”

Tyler diverts the questions. “The mailman says he saw her talking to aliens.”

“Since when do you believe in aliens?”

“I don’t, of course. He thinks he saw them beaming her up to their spaceship and I am investigating what exactly it is that he really saw.”

The mailman isn’t the only one reporting strange sightings, either. Tyler has received several reports of strange noises at night. Something’s digging up holes in people’s yards, ruining the grass. One family claimed to see a bear in their backyard.

Tadfield doesn’t have bears.

The Them are leagues better at getting to the bottom of things than the neighborhood watchman. They catch sight of the strange creature in the woods whenever they stay out a little too late. They make a game out of chasing it. Whatever it is, it isn’t exactly out for blood.

Adam pants, out of breath from chasing the dark shape fleeing through the trees. “See? More scared of us than we are of it.”

Aziraphale and Crowley also play this game. Sort of. While four frolicking kids attempt to chase the indecipherable shape out into the open, this pair act as goalies. They do their best to block her from leaving the cover of the woods. The Them are not aware of the pair’s part in their game. They do cast suspicious looks at the bentley parked on the roadside as they bike home, however.

“I think she’s almost done,” Aziraphale says, after ushering her back into the trees. “She was practically human this time.”

They know when she’s done because she’ll come out of the woods looking the way Anathema always did, before the possession. Around 9 PM, she wanders out to the edge of the woods again. Smooth skin, brown eyes, two arms, two legs. Aziraphale opens the door for her with a gallant smile.

She mumbles, “Thanks,” and climbs into the Bentley’s back seat.

Crowley watches her in the rear view mirror. “Horns, this time.”

“Ooh. Big or small?”

“Big V shape. Aziraphale got a closer look.”

“Hm?” The sound of his name perks Aziraphale’s attention as he settles into the passenger side. “Oh, they were elegant.”

Anathema runs a hand through her hair, searching for a trace of elegant horns. She finds nothing but twigs and leaves.

“They’re upright and wispy. Just lovely,” Aziraphale adds.

“Huh. So which one of you is that?” she asks herself. The demons answer, “Those are Taom’s.”

“Is that the pissy one?” Crowley calls into the back seat.

“Taom says, ‘Fuck you.’”

Crowley clicks his tongue to make a victorious little sound. “Thought so.”

A quick list of demons currently sharing Anathema’s body:

• Taom, the severed twin
• Zesial, blind and compromising
• Sesmahaet, possessive and reverberating
• Lehiel, resentment and craving
• Ransom, atoning and protective
• Popinjay, pride and impeccable memory

Aziraphale turns in his seat to face her. “All of you need to pay better attention to staying in the woods.”

“I know.” Anathema slumps against the door. “The kids aren’t making it easy.”

“Just tell them already,” Crowley says.

“That I’m a monster?”

“You’re not,” Aziraphale gently insists.

“One of ‘em’s the literal antichrist,” Crowley reminds them. “So, pretty sure they’d be cool about it.”

Anathema thunks the side of her head on the window in a moment of quiet, frustrated deliberation. He may be right. Adam Young knows she deals in the occult. Adam knows what Aziraphale and Crowley are. He likes Anathema. He probably gets it.

The boy’s not difficult to get ahold of once she decides to keep an eye out for him. No one is, in a town this small.

She catches him walking Dog by her street and shouts his name through the open window before he passes. “Adam! Hi!”

He waves. “Hullo.”

“Can we talk?”

“Sure. Any new magazines?”

Anathema nods and disappears from the window. She brings a bowl of strawberries and the latest New Aquarian out into the garden, where she invites Adam to sit on the bench with her. Dog sniffs Anathema intently, as if he smells another dog on her. Or rather, six other dogs.

She sets the magazine and fruit bowl down in the space between them. “I need to tell you about what you’ve seen in the woods.”

His eyes light up. “You’ve seen it too?”

Anathema’s always been the type to cut right to the chase. “It’s me. You’re chasing me.”

His face falls, unimpressed. “Don’t think so. We’re after a thing that’s got huge wings, and wiggly stuff, and spikes, and—oh, and last night, it had horns.”

“Yeah, Adam,” she answers, equally unimpressed. “That’s me.”

“Show me something, then.”

“It’s not a party trick. I can’t control it yet.”

He appears to be coming around, but not without questions. “So, you run around the woods at night looking like that ‘cos you’re, what, cursed or something?”

“I got possessed by some demons, it’s a long story. But it’s fine, we made a pact. There are some side effects, though.”

Adam turns his eyes to Dog, still meticulously investigating every inch of Anathema his little nose can reach. “What’d you need a deal with demons for?”

“Nothing in particular. They need me.”

“Sounds like you did a nice thing. You all get along, then?”

“Hmm.” Anathema feels an intense spike of curiosity somewhere in the back of her mind. The demons are eager to hear her answer. “We’re still getting to know each other, but they’ve been cooperative.”

“D’you hear voices, then? Doesn’t it get annoying?” Adam plucks a strawberry from the bowl.

The turn his questions take, from skeptic to considerate, reminds Anathema why she loves this boy’s company. “No, not really. There’s only one voice, named Jay. They picked one to be a sort of spokesperson for the group so that I wouldn’t have a cacophony in my head.”

“Jay? Not a very demonic name at all.”

“They say my ancestor nicknamed them Popinjay, centuries ago. Guess it stuck.”

“What’s popinjay?”

“Someone who talks too much.”

“Your ancestor was funny.”

“She was a lot of things. On that note, could you please ask your friends not talk about this? There’s nothing I want more than to stay in Tadfield, so I can’t give the adults around here more reasons to dislike me.”

Considering Adam somehow heard she was a witch all on his own before the apocalypse, Anathema assumes he must be at least somewhat aware of all the further gossip about her currently circulating around town since then.

“Yeah, sure.” Adam nods, then snaps to get Dog’s attention. Obediently, Dog tears his nose away from Anathema and trots to his owner’s side. “Our parents didn’t believe us anyway and I don’t want you to leave either. Sorry ‘bout chasing you around, too. We’ll cut it out.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

Besides, it’s a small comfort to know that she’s not gotten monstrous enough to scare children. Then again, these four children don’t scare easy.

Before he tucks the magazine under his arm and goes, Adam asks if she’ll at least let them see her up close after they leave her alone. “Just once, and then we’ll really mind our own business.”

Anathema says she’ll think about it.

As Adam walks off with Dog at his heels, a fond voice behind her says, “He’s turned out such a nice boy.”

It’s Aziraphale, leaning on the open window sill with a proud smile.

“No thanks to you. How long were you standing there?”

“Your cellular phone is vibrating.” Aziraphale passes Anathema her cell phone through the window.

An incoming video call displays a photo of Anathema’s mom biting into a quesito. She hits the green button and the screen switches her mom sipping orange juice at their kitchen table in Malibu.

“Buenos dias, mijita.”

“Morning, mama.”

“When are you coming back? We miss you.”

“Soon. I just—I’m not ready yet.”

“Because of the boyfriend.” Her mother nods sagely.

It is not so much because of the boyfriend as it is because of the six demons. Anathema can’t say that, though. “Yes. You know how it is.”

“Bring him with you. I want to meet him. Does he speak Spanish?”

“No,” Anathema reluctantly admits.

Her mother‘s face falls into a deep, silent frown.

Aziraphale leaves them to speak in private by returning to his book in the living room. He loves this cottage. It is cozy and sun-filled, simply perfect for curling up with some research. Or nearly perfect, if it weren’t for the times he overhears Crowley berating the flower bushes just outside. At least, the jasmines of Jasmine Cottage have never smelled lovelier.

On the evenings when Anathema or Newt are up for cooking, Aziraphale sets the table and Crowley hands glasses of sangria out to the four of them long before the meal is ready. It’s pleasant to go out to the local diner, where they brush shoulders with the person next to them and brush ankles with the one across, like close friends do. It’s equally pleasant to sit around the dining table like a family would.

Aziraphale compliments Newt’s one-pot pasta bake and gets deflected with, “It’s nothing special, really. Nothing like the French bistro you guys love.”

He means, of course, the one two towns over that Crowley and Aziraphale need to take a drive to every couple days or so. It’s how they keep the fridge packed with steak tartare for Anathema’s voracious hunger for raw flesh.

“Nothing at the French bistro is cooked with love,” Aziraphale says.

“I don’t know that mine is either,” Newt laughs. “It’s a pretty lazy recipe.”

“Of course it is. I sense it in every bite.”

Aziraphale finds it precious, but Newt seems to find it horrifying. “You can taste the love?”

Before he can answer, he’s drowned out by Crowley abruptly booming, “And do you think aliens built the pyramids, too?”

“What the hell? No,” Anathema’s volume rises to match his.

“Oh, really? Really? That’s too wild for you?”

They are in the middle of a spirited debate, sitting across from each other on the left side of the table and speaking with their hands just a little more fervently than usual.

“Obviously, Egypt had their own system of movement involving logs and sand, which is easily tested and proven!”

Crowley nods, even while his face is visibly pained with confusion. “But… But you think Bigfoot is an alien?”

“That’s because she is.”

“Oh, this again?” Aziraphale murmurs.

She turns to him and the look in her eyes makes Aziraphale jump in his seat. Anathema’s irises rapidly enlarge and shrink, dilate and contract. They do this a few times, at varying speeds, before setting back to normal.

“What is it?” she asks, quite aggressive, as if expecting Aziraphale to jump into the argument.

“Nothing, my dear. Your eyes are pinning again.”

“Are they? Well, then. Guess it’s time to go.” She picks up her wine glass and unceremoniously swallows down what’s left.

Crowley does the opposite. He clenches his eyes shut and the pitcher of red sangria on the table slowly refills. Anathema and Newt scrunch their noses at the sight. This is why they won’t share bottles with Aziraphale and Crowley and why they make sangria in two different pitchers. It works out nicely, since Anathema strongly prefers white and Crowley strongly prefers red.

“Have fun,” Newt says.

Anathema squeezes his shoulder as she passes on her way out the door.

The transformation isn’t painful. Anathema’s rarely aware that it’s even started until she glances at a reflective surface… or until the first person who sees her gets a shock. Aziraphale brought along books on demonology that he combs through like it’s his job, but the research has been fruitless so far. If anyone’s ever been possessed by more than one demon at a time, they kept that secret to themselves.

We’re trying, a voice at the back of her mind assures her.

I know, Anathema thinks, At least you can hold back until nighttime.

At first, the transformations would happen spontaneously throughout the day. They’re more of an inconvenience than a tragedy. Disappearing into the woods at night every now and then is standard fare for witches, anyway. As far as the unpredictable downsides to being possessed by six demons could have gone, Anathema thinks this isn’t too bad.

Aziraphale theorizes that they are outbursts of demonic energy. Her mortal body currently holds more of that energy than it was intelligently designed to handle and the transformations are signs of an overflow. If the demons repress it for long, the energy redirects into uncontrollable urges. She’ll lose her senses and come back to them to find herself levitating in the moonlight or kneeling in broad daylight with with her bare hands gouging holes in a stranger’s yard.

It could be worse, she still thinks.

The adults of Tadfield disagree. Just as Anathema steps out the front door, she meets eyes with R.P. Tyler, the neighborhood watchman, letting himself in through the gate. They both pause, startled to see each other.

Tyler clears his throat and marches on up the front path. “Miss Device, I’ve been sent to deliver this on behalf of the Residents Association. Planning to stick it to the door, but this is better yet.”

He pulls a manila envelope from beneath his armpit and sternly holds it out.

Anathema doesn’t take it. “What is it?”

The door behind her swings open, revealing Crowley and Aziraphale on their way out with her. With Anathema standing still in front of the doorway and blocking their path, they jolt to an abrupt stop and jostle each other against the frame in their attempt to backtrack.

“Your eviction notice,” Tyler announces with a flair of conviction somehow sparked by their appearance at her door.

“Our what?” Aziraphale says.

Anathema isn’t intimidated. “I can’t be evicted by an association.”

“But the association can petition your landlord, a dear friend of mine that came over for dinner just a few nights ago. A copy of the signed petition list is included with the eviction notice.” He shakes the envelope in the air for a moment, annoyed that Anathema isn’t taking it, then stops abruptly. His expression flips from smug to perturbed. “What is wrong with your eyes?”

Anathema is grabbed by both shoulders and pushed forward, past the watchman. Just behind her, Crowley says, “Give him the papers, he’ll figure it out.”

He steers her down the front steps, all the way to the curb. It’s odd that he doesn’t let go. He’s aware it’s odd, too.

“Got spikes coming out your back again,” he lowers his voice to explain.

Ah. He’s blocking them from Tyler’s view. Anathema looks over her shoulder. At the front doorway, Aziraphale has graciously accepted the envelope and is asking Tyler questions to keep the watchman’s eyes on him.

“Does it matter what he sees?” Anathema opens the bentley’s passenger side and climbs in. “We’re already kicked out.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. They already know you’re a witch and you’re not in California anymore,” Crowley advises before gently shutting the door.

Through the windshield, Anathema watches him walk around the front of the car. He throws an arm up to silently communicate to Aziraphale that he’s got this. Anathema pities Aziraphale, who gives Crowley a wild, trapped look as R.P. Tyler rants and raves at him. The watchman must have a long list of grievances he’s been waiting to air out to the tenants of Jasmine Cottage. She would bet money that he practiced it. Crowley gets in and pulls the car out.

“I’m going back to California.”

“‘Cause of what I said?”

“No. To see my family.”

“Oh, good. Your mum’s dying to meet Newt. She asked if I was him the other day and was so relieved—”

“I told you to stop answering my phone.”

“Stop leaving it around for me to answer.”

“And I’m not bringing Newt. It’s not the time.”

“Of course. He’s not ready.”

“Right? Way too soon. I don’t know what emotional state my family’s in, now that their purpose in life is over. I don’t know how they’re going to react to the demonic possession. It’s a lot to take in at once.”

“Oh yeah, that too. I was thinking he needs to learn Spanish first. Your mum asked me if he knows any.”

Of course she did. “We’ve been planning to suggest some time apart anyway. Things seemed to snap perfectly into place when we met, but now…”

She trails off, so Crowley fills in. “The configuration changed, I bet. The situation’s so dramatically different from how it was just weeks before, that you aren’t even sure where either of you stand.”

“It—Yeah. It’s exactly that. He’s been understanding, but still, a relationship involving six demons isn’t what he signed up for and I sort of just sprung it on him. But I don’t know, even with them out of the equation, I still took things from zero to sixty. For pretty questionable reasons.”

The car pulls to a stop on the roadside at the edge of the woods. Anathema hesitates to get out just yet.

“Guess the prospect of it maybe being your last night alive does that to you.” Crowley thoughtfully nods his head from side to side. Then mutters, “Also, because Agnes Nutter told you to.”

“How did you know about that?”

“‘Bout what?”

“That Agnes told me to sleep with Newt.” Anathema narrows her eyes at Crowley.

“She told you to what? And you did?”

“Yeah! What on earth are you talking about?”

“Oh, no, I was talking ‘bout me there.”

“She had a prophecy for you?”

“Iunno! Could’ve been for anyone, really, but we switched bodies ‘cause of it anyway.”

“What?”

“I know.”

“Have you been talking about yourself this whole time?”

“Yeah? You should just assume I’m always… doing... that.” Crowley falters mid-sentence and ends it in a faint tone.

Anathema can’t be certain with the sunglasses on, but she’s not sure he’s even looking at her face anymore.

After a beat of distracted silence, he points out, “You got something squirming in your hair. That a tentacle?”

She looks down at the long, dark hair falling over the lapel of her coat. He’s right. An equally dark tentacle with red and white suckers twists among the curls.

“Oh.” She reacts to it with a soft surprise, the same way she would react to finding a ladybug in her hair. “Hello, Zesial.”

To get a better look, she tilts the rear view mirror to point directly at her. She meets eyes with her reflection and sees that they are still pinning. Anathema’s brown irises shrink to the size of pin-holes, then grow to cover nearly the entire whites of her eyes. It doesn’t happen in smooth motions, but a jerky start-and-stop. She kind of likes it. And hello, Jay, she thinks.

Hello from all, Jay thinks back.

She swings the passenger door open. “Gotta go. Made plans with Adam.”

“What plans? While you’re like this?” Crowley calls after her as she bounds out of the car.

She’s on all fours the second she passes into the cover of the treeline. Letting go of the transformation feels like… It feels like releasing tension held all day between her shoulders and behind her ribs. If popping the cap off a hissing soda bottle had a full-body sensation, this would be it.

It isn’t too dark yet. There’s a chance The Them might still be around if she runs.

Agnes’ prophecies sent Anathema to Tadfield in search for some great, demonic beast. She never found what she was looking for. Not until after it had turned into a pretty normal dog, anyway. She pictures her ancestor chuckling to herself the moment she foretold the ways in which Anathema’s search for such a creature would come full circle. How many prophecies were truly predestined and how many simply came true as a result of one infuriatingly clever witch lining all the dominoes up herself so they may fall in just the right sequence after one calculated push?

Darting toward The Them’s neck of the woods, she can already see Pepper waiting between the trees. She quickens her pace. It hits her a moment later that Pepper can’t be this tall. Anathema skids to a stop, digging her talons into the ground. Her dark-feathered wings burst open.

The adult who isn’t Pepper barely reacts to the sight of a winged creature with spikes, fangs, and tentacles charging at her in the dark. “Be not afraid.”

Being afraid of a normal-looking woman in the woods did not occur to Anathema, but hearing that as a conversation starter makes her suspect that she should be.

“I’ve told them about you. They will come for you.”

“Who are they?” Anathema whispers.

The stranger unfolds pair of broad white wings so bright that they luminate the person spreading them. They seem to have a peacock pattern to them, except—Oh. Those aren’t markings on the feathers. They are eyes.

“Fuck,” all six demons say at once.

Anathema growls, a sound so deep that it reverberates down her bones and straight into the earth. The forest floor quakes in sync with the low rumble in the back of her throat. Her horns grow longer and sharper.

“Leave now, demons,” the angel orders.

She senses the demons arguing within her. Jay’s thoughts to her flit from one frenzied idea to another, It’s only one angel. There’s six of us. We can take it out. We can—No! More angels will come and they’ll be furious. It’s letting us go easy, why should we make this hard—But what if it’s a trap? What if—

She doesn’t wait for their decision. She runs.

Anathema startles Crowley by flinging the passenger door open and hurling her not yet entirely human body into the passenger side.

He turns down the music, miffed that she made him jump in his seat. “That was fa—”

“Drive.”

He drives. “What happened? The kids alright?”

“Didn’t see them. I saw an angel and it threatened me.”

“Oh. Shit.”

She goes into the exact details for Crowley, Aziraphale, and Newt once they get back to the cottage. Her form still hasn’t settled, but the neighborhood watchman isn’t there anymore and she doesn’t feel pressed to stifle the transformations in front of these three.

Aziraphale’s normally bright face falls into a deep frown. “I don’t understand why they would warn you instead of simply doing whatever it is they plan to do.”

“Scare tactics,” Crowley guesses.

“That’s not very angelic,” Newt says, which prompts silent looks in response from both Crowley and Aziraphale.

Crowley’s look exudes exhaustion, whilst Aziraphale’s face has found a wonderful interpretive dance method of saying ‘sweet summer child’ without a word.

“The eviction came with good timing after all, I guess.” She asks Aziraphale, “What grounds did the watchman give you for it, anyway?”

“Oh, all sorts of accusations. He’s convinced you broke the No Pets clause in the lease with a nuisance dog that you’re hiding somewhere. You know, from the holes in the neighbor’s yard.”

Anathema shakes her head. “We could have proved that isn’t true.”

“Yes, but, well, there is one clause we all unavoidably broke. I read through the lease file myself to verify that Mr. Tyler hadn’t made it up, but it’s really there. An antiquated rule about no ‘gentlemen guests.’”

Oh. Right. Anathema actually remembers reading that rule and smiling to herself before signing the papers. She predicted hosting Newt for the day of the apocalypse, of course, but didn’t expect it would matter by then. She would never have predicted staying in Tadfield for this long after the fact, let alone staying here with not one but three ‘gentleman guests.’

The constant little reminders that predictions are no longer her wheelhouse disorient her daily.

“Fair enough,” she concedes. “Newt. Before we go, I have to give you this.”

She steps over a neat pile of Aziraphale’s books in the living room to reach the work desk cluttered with notebooks (some of them Aziraphale’s, some of them Anathema’s), used mugs (all Aziraphale’s), and various witchy instruments (all Anathema’s).

She comes back with a travel journal in hand and gives it to Newt. “We finished the research on how to break your curse. These are the exact directions.”

He looks at it as if she just passed him a venomous animal. “By myself?”

“Of course,” she says, attempting to sound confident in him. It is not entirely convincing.

Aziraphale interrupts, “Wait, you’re leaving Newt here?”

Crowley pours himself a new glass of wine from his seat on the couch. “He’ll be right where she left him. Hasn’t got anything else going on.”

Anathema glares at him. “He’s going on a life-altering quest to break a centuries old curse set on him by my ancestor."

“Uhhhh, you sure I can do an epic quest alone?” Newt asks nervously.

“No one else can break it for you,” she insists. “On the bright side, at least you get a break from me hogging the sheets.”

“You don’t just hog them. You take them entirely with you when you levitate off the bed.” Newt tucks the notebook under his arm and Anathema wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. “Thanks for this. I’ll do my best not to mess it all up.”

She smiles into his shoulder. “Text me when the curse is over.”

“You’ll be my first,” he says, as if she wasn’t already.

By next morning, Anathema is in California. She packs all her belongings in Jasmine Cottage away with a snap of her fingers and expects that the boxes will be waiting for her in the attic at home when she needs them. Of all the side effects of possession, demonic miracles have been the easiest to get used to.

“It’s been ages since I saw this much sun,” Aziraphale whines from the front seat, draping both hands over his brow to shade his eyes.

“It’s almost like we’re not in England anymore,” Crowley says.

Unlike Aziraphale, he seems put in a fairly good mood by zooming along the Pacific Coast Highway and blasting Velvet Underground in the prized black Bentley. Crowley pops open a compartment in the dashboard. Anathema leans forward in the back seat to get a peak of its contents: several pairs of his current favorite sunglasses. He hands one to Aziraphale (“Ooh! Thank you!”), then holds a second pair over his shoulder for Anathema.

“Oh. Thanks.” She doesn’t feel bothered by the sun, but feels too begrudgingly charmed by the unexpected offer not to take them.

Back in Tadfield, Aziraphale asked if Anathema wanted him to come with her. (“I haven’t seen this through and I want to make sure you’ll be alright.”) She wasn’t planning to hold him to it for this long, but Jay begged her to say yes. For whatever reasons, angels and demons alike are intimidated by Aziraphale and Crowley. It’s safest for her to keep them near.

She slips Crowley’s sunglasses onto her face. In the rearview mirror, she sees all three of them in matching shades that look dumb on all of them. Her mouth trembles, trying to hold back a smile. Aziraphale spots her reflection trying not to laugh and he also starts shaking. Finally, even Crowley grins.

The car snakes its way up a winding road through the forested cliff where Anathema’s childhood home hides between the trees and the mountainside. You can’t even see the house until you’re already pulling into it. She somewhat appreciates that neither of them comment on the size of the mansion when they see it. Anathema never really knows what to say when people are impressed by her family’s fortune. A fortune that she did none of the work to earn, but was cultivated specifically for her.

Everything her ancestral line did for centuries had been specifically for her.

Heart pounding, Anathema pushes the sunglasses up to rest on the crown of her head and rings the doorbell.

Behind her, she hears Aziraphale whisper to Crowley, “Agnes Nutter’s descendants. How exciting.”

A quick list of Agnes Nutter’s descendents currently living under the same roof in Malibu:

• Anathema Device, youngest daughter
• Karma Device, Anathema’s mother
• Daily Device, Anathema’s aunt
• Volta Device, Karma and Daily’s mother

It is Anathema’s aunt that answers the door. Much like Anathema, Daily got her name from a word her mother read one day without knowing the definition. Abuela Volta didn’t care what it meant, only that it had a lovely sound.

Her face lights up at the sight of her niece. “You told us you weren’t coming yet.”

“Surprise!” Anathema springs into her aunt’s open arms.

“Are these your friends?” While squeezing Anathema tight, she meets eyes with the pair standing at the doorstep. “Hello, I’m Daily.”

“Aziraphale,” he says brightly. “Delighted to meet you.”

“Crowley.”

Tia Daily waves them inside. “Come in, come in, her mama’s cooking.”

She leads them to the sun-filled kitchen, which is overwhelming to first time guests for a couple of reasons. First, is the magnificent view overlooking the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean through floor to ceiling windows. Second, is the equally magnificent sweet-and-savory smell of home cooked pork and plantains. Crowley gravitates to the window. Aziraphale orbits the stove. Anathema shares similarly surprised and ecstatic hugs with her mom and grandma when they see her.

When her mom pulls away, she takes a moment to look around expectantly. “And the boyfriend?”

“I didn’t bring him. I—” Watching her face fall, Anathema gestures to the two ‘men’ she did bring, “No, look, this is Aziraphale and Crowley. They’re an angel and a demon.”

“That’s nice,” her mom says, not particularly impressed.

“We want to see the boy from the prophecy,” Abuela Volta says in Spanish, making no attempt to tone down her disappointment.

“Come, everyone sit.” Her mother directs the three of them to the dining table, while Tia Daily and Abuela Volta set it for the meal. “So, did your friends help you prevent the apocalypse?”

“I’m not sure. Did you?” Anathema asks Aziraphale and Crowley from across the table.

They take an uncomfortably long moment to think about it.

“I mean. We were there,” Crowley finally says.

“I think we helped,” Aziraphale argues.

Crowley concludes, “We certainly tried to help prevent the apocalypse.”

“See, Anathema,” her mother beams. “We always knew it would be you who saved everything.”

“Uh. I guess. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, with the right person.”

“And the right prophecy,” her mother says, nodding along as if Anathema were preaching. “Do you have the book?”

“Of course. It’s a little beaten up, though…”

While Anathema digs through her satchel, Abuela Volta comes by with a pot of rice and asks Aziraphale if he wants.

He doesn’t remember much Spanish at all, but can surmise well enough what the question is. “Yes, please.”

Abuela Volta dumps a hefty serving of rice on his plate, and Tia Daily right behind her follows up with an equally generous scoop of red beans. Abuela moves on to ask Crowley the same.

“No, thanks.”

Abuela Volta dumps rice on his plate anyway and Tia Daily follows her lead.

He holds a finger up, “N—Oh—kay,” then promptly drops it.

“Here it is,” Anathema announces through gritted teeth as she gingerly sets the heirloom copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch on the table.

Her mom’s gasp is exactly as horrified as expected. “It’s all burnt!”

Glass shatters. Her grandmother dropped the rice to clap both hands over her mouth. For the first time, Aziraphale and Crowley notice that one hand has its fingers permanently curled, seemingly unable to move out of a claw shape. Her aunt exhales a weak sound of dismay.

“How did this happen?” her mom demands.

“I—I don’t know.”

“How don’t you know?”

“It was entirely my fault,” Aziraphale declares, and three pairs of furious eyes turn to him. “Believe me, I am as devastated by damaged books as you, if not mor—”

“I saved it,” Crowley interjects. “Ran right into the fire and plucked it out.”

Anathema’s mother puts a hand to her chest and the look in her eyes flips to pure admiration when she turns them to Crowley. “Ave maría purísima, thank you for doing that. This book has been the entire family’s most treasured possession for 360 years.”

He can’t help pulling a face at the word choice, but otherwise stays quiet about it.

“Yes, thank you, Crowley,” the aunt echoes, while the grandmother nods.

He turns to smirk at Aziraphale and finds the angel glaring at him. “What? You seemed glad I did.”

“Of course I was,” Aziraphale agrees, still glaring.

Crowley miracles the bowl of rice back to new, which earns him another point from the family and another bitter look from Aziraphale. Presumably having heard Anathema’s side of recent nearly-apocalyptic events by now, the Devices spend their lunchtime mostly prodding Crowley with questions and giving Aziraphale the cold shoulder. When the meal is done, Aziraphale helps pile the plates and offers to wash up. He gets a flippant, “No,” from Abuela Volta.

“Anathema, mi cielo,” Her mother puts one hand over Anathema’s on the table, prompting her to sit back down, “When will we talk about your aura?”

A chill drips down Anathema’s spine. “What about it?”

The thing about seeing auras is that you can never see your own. This isn’t how she wants them to find out.

“For one, it’s enormous.” Her mom looks over her shoulder to ask Anathema’s grandmother in Spanish, “Have you ever seen one this large before?”

“Not even close.” Abuela Volta pauses scrubbing a plate at the sink to run her eyes one more time around Anathema. “Never seen such unstable colors, either.”

Across the table, Anathema overhears Aziraphale whispering, “Did you catch that?” and Crowley muttering a translation.

“You’re a kaleidoscope.” Her beaming mother squeezes Anathema’s hand. “What changed?”

All three family members stare at her. She chokes. With her mouth parted, but unable to form words, her eyes flit between each of them like a cornered animal. They have no idea what they’re asking.

“Hm?” her mom prompts, leaning in and eager to listen.

Anathema pulls their hands apart and springs to her feet, scraping the dining chair across the white marble floor. “I’m not—I—I didn’t realize you would see—”

Her mother frowns. “This isn’t like you.”

She rises to her feet after Anathema. Abuela Volta and Tia Daily set the dishes in her hands down. All three swoop in with expressions so concerned that they border on looking pained. They hold her hands, touch her face, kiss her cheek. None of it soothes her. It makes her feel worse, even.

“I need to go.” Prying herself away from them is like squeezing through the bars of a cage. “I’ll tell you, I just—I need air.”

Anathema stumbles out of their arms, slides open the door to the patio, and runs into the woods. Three pairs of brown eyes turn on Aziraphale and Crowley. Well, Volta’s were brown once. Now, they are milky grey from cataracts.

“Do you know what she isn’t telling us?” her mother demands.

“No,” Aziraphale assures with a smile at the same time that Crowley nods, “Yup.”

All eyes on them narrow into glares and Aziraphale kicks his ankle under the table.

“I don’t understand.” Karma Device sinks back into her chair. “Anathema’s always been an open book. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She’s not being herself.”

“Give her a minute,” Crowley snaps, wincing and doubling over to rub his ankle. “She came all this way just to tell you, so let her do it how she wants.”

For the past couple of weeks, when Anathema has said she needs air, what she really meant was that she needs to go hide her changing shape in the forests like some werewolf. This time, however, she really does just need to be alone and breathe. The woods around her house are ideal for it. You can’t see the ocean, but you can always hear it. The breeze rustling through the ash trees smells faintly of salt.

Aziraphale watches trees pass through the window of the Bentley, until the moment they turn a corner and there are no trees—Just miles of serpentine coastline.

When Crowley makes no effort to turn back, Aziraphale points out the obvious. “You said we were looking for Anathema.”

“Yeah, I lied.”

“Why would you lie to her family?”

“Oh, like you haven’t. Then kicked me for being honest.”

“I lied to valiantly cover for her and you blew it!”

Crowley shrugs one shoulder, not invested enough to get defensive.

“Turn around. She shouldn’t be alone right now.”

He groans, but reluctantly starts a three point turn anyway. “If she wanted us to follow, she would’ve said so.”

“It doesn’t matter. Heaven is onto her!”

“Uh huh, and how long until they catch on to us if we put ourselves in their way?”

“Are you—You can’t be—Are you saying—”

“All I’m saying is we slinked our way out of certain doom on a massive gamble that easily—easily—could’ve gone south at any second. It won’t work twice.”

“That isn’t true. We can always switch again.”

“Glad you liked it that much, but I don’t see how it helps Anathema get out of anything.”

Aziraphale purses his mouth and huffs. “I don’t have it planned out, but I am going to be there for her. I won’t stay out of it simply to save my own skin.”

The car brakes to a stop, lurching Aziraphale forward before throwing his back into the seat.

“This skin is the only one you’ll ever have again. Discorporation isn’t an inconvenience anymore.” Behind black sunglasses, Crowley’s eyes are pleading. “Adam won’t whip a new body out of a hat for you again.”

After a lifetime of living in the hills of Malibu, Anathema expects her phone won’t have any signal at all out here. It doesn’t. A little demonic miracle comes out as effortlessly as making a wish and it pushes the bars from zero to full. She calls Crowley.

He picks up on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“Are you in the car?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll drop a pin.”

It doesn’t take long for the Bentley to come around the bend. Anathema hops into the back seat and the car’s already rolling before she’s shut the door.

“Where we going?” Crowley asks.

“I don’t know. Just get away from my house.”

They drive in awkward silence. There’s a palpable tension in the car that makes Anathema wonder what she interrupted.

“You alright?” she asks the front seats.

Aziraphale answers so abruptly that he nearly cuts her off. “I am distressed, Anathema.”

“Um,” she says.

“Your family’s first impression of me is that I’m a book burner! Me. I would never—”

“I know. I appreciate you taking the blame.”

“Every single other book in the shop was restored,” Aziraphale rambles on as the Bentley snakes its way out of the hills and onto the road by the ocean, “It doesn’t make sense why yours would be the only one Adam forgot. I’m terribly sorry about that.”

“He didn’t forget.”

Aziraphale swings around in his seat to face her. “He what?”

Anathema leans forward and reaches over Crowley’s shoulder to point at a spot on the roadside. “Hey. Pull over right up there.”

“What for?”

“Anathema, what do you mean Adam didn’t—”

She speaks over Aziraphale. “One of my favorite spots is nearby. I’ve been a little homesick for it.”

Aziraphale presses on, “If the burnt copy of The Nice And Accurate Prophecies was repaired along with everything else after the world didn’t end, why is it burnt?”

Crowley obliges. He pulls over to the side of the road and puts the car in park. Aziraphale’s horrified stare could bore holes into Anathema.

“I threw it in at the same time as the new prophecies when I destroyed them, okay?” As if she’d just dropped a grenade, Anathema’s out the door the moment she’s done saying it.

Aziraphale chases after her, slamming the door behind him. “You burnt the book on purpose?”

Anathema quickens her pace to a half-jog in order to stay a few feet ahead of him at all times. “You already knew I‘d destroyed the second volume, what’s the difference?”

“My heart is still broken over losing the second volume! This is shattering it!”

”You think they could’ve made this road any closer to the water?” Crowley observes out loud.

Anathema takes for granted how outside the norm Malibu is. If it hadn’t been pointed out, she would hardly notice that all three of them get flicked with a spritz of sea spray each time the waves crash hard enough against the rocks beneath.

“That is true,” Aziraphale agrees instantly as an aside, unfazed by the interruption. “So, I took the blame for something I didn’t even do then.”

The sharpness in his voice is diffused, closer to Crowley’s musing tone, as he makes an observation of his own. Anathema tips her head at Crowley as a form of thanks.

Walking beside him, Crowley grins at the sea. “You did a good thing! How on brand for you.”

Aziraphale gives him a dry look in return. The look he gives Anathema next isn’t entirely forgiving, but inching closer to it. “I assume you had your regrets and pulled it out of the fire.”

She nods and decides not to mention the source of regret, which was not any personal concern for the book, but a devastating fear that her family would despise her if she came back without it. The same fear that had her screaming and smashing things in the garden of Jasmine Cottage the day she realized she’d lost the book in a stranger’s car.

“Sorry I didn’t say anything at the table. I can tell them it was really me when I get back.”

Upon hearing the edge in her voice, Aziraphale’s stern tone flips to something softer. “No, dear. It’s alright. No need to cause your family undue stress.”

“Thank you, Aziraphale.”

“Where are you taking us?”

He gets nothing but an enigmatic smile over her shoulder as she leads them down a set of stairs. At their base is a locked gate with a sign that reads PRIVATE BEACH. NO TRESPASSING. She snaps her fingers and the padlock falls off.

“I taught her that,” Crowley brags as they follow her through.

They step directly into the sand and, miraculously, none gets in their shoes as they hike along the beach. Aziraphale admires how short the stretch of sand between land and water is, compared to other beaches, and Crowley hums in agreement. Strong winds billow Anathema’s hair and skirts in all directions as she makes her way to a hammock swinging between two palm trees. She falls into it sideways, sitting right at its center with her feet still in the sand. Aziraphale nestles into the right side of the hammock and does the same. Crowley plops into Anathema’s left. They spend a comfortably silent minute gently swinging and listening to the waves roll in.

Anathema voices what she’s mulling over in three neat points. “I need to break it to them about the demons. Hiding them isn’t an option I want to consider. The choice that’s torturing me is whether to tell them about Agnes’ involvement.”

Aziraphale always liked the matter-of-fact way she speaks. Brazen, but still polite. Seemingly everything Anathema says is direct, precise, and unafraid of not being understood. Perhaps he’s confusing like with envy.

“Why wouldn’t you?” he says, “I’m sure it would put them at ease to know it was in her plan all along.”

“It disrupts everything they thought they knew. For generations, it didn’t occur to anyone that Agnes’ death wasn’t only revenge. I’m the only one who knows it was a demonic sacrifice.”

“Guess so,” Crowley says, “But is one actually worse than the other?”

“I suppose I would feel lied to by omission if I were them,” Aziraphale counters.

“Exactly. Would our ancestors have followed Agnes if they knew the prophecies were paid for with human lives? My family has no idea that, by following the book’s directions, they’ve been grooming me all along to be possessed by the demons Agnes killed half of Langashire for.”

“You don’t want them to feel guilty for what they’ve been complicit in.”

“But if you don’t say anything, they’ll soundly continue believing a lie for the rest of their lives,” Crowley says.

“And if I…” As she starts that thought, she hears the threat of tears in her own voice and takes a pause to swallow it down. “If I don’t tell them what I’ve done because I know they would hate me for burning the new prophecies, am I as bad as Agnes?”

“Oh, Anathema.” Aziraphale wraps an arm around her and she buries her face in his shoulder.

She stays still there. Not crying. Refusing to cry. Only taking the comfort she can’t ask from her own family.

“I don’t believe Agnes was a bad person,” he murmurs into her hair.

Over her head of brown waves, Aziraphale gives Crowley a pointed look that silently harasses him into adding, “Me neither. I mean, your demons adored her. She can’t have been all that bad.”

Anathema lifts her face from Aziraphale’s coat to look over her shoulder. “They’re demons.”

“Hey, now.”

“The bar for what’s bad is on the floor! Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” Crowley admits.

“My family’s open-minded, y’know. Always encouraged me to question everything about the world. Absolutely everything we think we know is up for debate. Everything except whether we should be doing as Agnes wrote. Tell me—You ever heard a kid say they want to be a descendant when they grow up?”

Crowley snorts, a short and silently amused huff of air through his nostrils.

“But I wasn’t allowed to consider options. I was born a descendant of Agnes Nutter and it would be a blasphemy to my entire lineage if I didn’t act like it. So I forced myself through the motions, convinced myself this is my identity. After long enough, I wasn’t even faking it anymore.”

Anathema has never been able to talk about this. Her family would disown her for it. People outside of it simply don’t have the knowledge or the range to understand where the hell Anathema’s coming from, as a professional descendant responsible for the fate of the world. She’s tried before, but it just gets chalked up to being in a cult and needing to leave.

Aziraphale’s simple response is a deep, heart-plucking hum. He doesn’t need to say anything. She feels Crowley’s hand touch her arm and knows that he understands, too. Anathema leans her cheek on Aziraphale’s shoulder again and basks in this first time feeling. She’d been homesick in Europe, but returning home with six dark secrets to hold had only made her feel more distant from her family than ever. It replaced that longing for the comfort of home with a different, much worse, discomfort. Here—in the cradle of her favorite hammock on her secret beach, with Aziraphale and Crowley and the Pacific breeze all wrapped around her—She stops believing that she’s been homesick for a place.

When her composure recollects itself, Anathema eventually sits up and swings up onto her feet. “Alright. I’m going to tell them now.”

“Would you like us there?” Aziraphale offers.

“Not really. I’m sure it’ll get extremely personal and you’d just make it awkward. No offense.”

“Need a ride?” Crowley asks.

“No, thanks. I’ll bike.”

As they watch her go, Aziraphale thinks of how worried he is for Anathema’s family finding out their youngest is possessed by six demons. Crowley thinks of how close his hand was to Aziraphale’s on her shoulder moments ago. Almost brushing.

On their own, Aziraphale and Crowley spend a few minutes pretending not to think anything of the Anathema-sized gap between them. They’ve never been touchy. There’s no particular reason why they shouldn’t be, though. They don’t have arbitrary roles to perform and dance around anymore. But there is a catch they did not expect: Their relationship spent six thousand years adapting to thrive in a specific binary. They memorized the rules of the system and mastered every loophole. And now? They’re equally maladapted for a relationship with no protocols to finesse their interactions around. This means that often, even with a bottle of wine in their bellies, Crowley can’t silently will Aziraphale to so much as nudge his shoe with his foot.

Awkwardly—Seriously, hammocks are not designed for smooth moves—Crowley scoots into the space Anathema left. To his surprise, Aziraphale wraps an arm around his shoulder like it’s as easy with Crowley as anyone else. Crowley sinks against his side as if it’s easy for him too. Throughout the millennia, he always had a feeling it could be this easy if circumstances were different. They could get used to this.

But they don’t get a chance to. Aziraphale’s soft gaze snaps to a spot beyond Crowley’s ear, where the look in them flips to alarm.

“Someone’s coming,” he says, untangling their limbs to get up, “We may be getting shooed away from their private beach.”

A woman wearing a champagne blazer with sharp shoulders and cuffed sleeves is beelining straight at them. Thick black hair billows like a cloud of curling smoke in the wind.

“I think it’s worse than that. No one wears a suit to the beach.”

“I’m wearing a suit,” Aziraphale says.

“Exactly my point.”

They both stand to greet her. When she marches up close, Crowley gathers the impression of someone desperately trying not to look intimidated. Her body language says stern authority, but her eyes say skittish doe.

“Aziraphale,” she says.

Aziraphale takes a step back, eyes wide. Well, here we go. Just as Crowley thought.

“Crowley,” he supplies.

“I know.”

“If this is about Anathema,” Aziraphale huffs, “All I have to say on the matter is that it is none of heaven’s business.”

“I’m leaving heaven,” the angel blurts out, an excited announcement.

Waves crash on sand during an awkward pause.

“You’re falling?” Crowley frowns.

She shakes her head. “I’m joining you.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Join what?”

“You—Your side.” Mutual confusion dampens the angel’s excitement.

“We don’t—have a—Oh, dear.”

“Well then. What’s your story?” Crowley asks, interest thoroughly piqued.

“You don’t know me, but I feel like I’ve known you for a very long time. My name is Solhasrel. I’ve been tasked to observe and report heavenly matters on Earth.”

Aziraphale’s jaw drops. “You’ve been spying on me?”

“Are you spying right now?” Crowley’s more than a little jealous of how cool that is.

“Technically… Yes.”

“We’re leaving,” Aziraphale says, curtly.

“Where are we going?” Solhasrel asks.

“Crowley and I are going away from you.”

Her eyes flit between the two of them. “But—But I covered for you, all this time.”

“I don’t believe you did,” Aziraphale argues. “Of course it was an angel. Michael and the others found out about my arrangement with Crowley because of you.”

“I never reported when I saw you together,” Solhasrel insists, although it sounds more like pleading. “Not until they asked me for specific records of the demon Crowley. I couldn’t—They pressed me and—and I was afraid of being caught. But I’m trying to do what feels right now.”

For the first time since meeting Aziraphale, Crowley’s stunned by another angel. “That’s… truly something. But I can’t tell what you’re expecting to happen here.”

“I want to be one of your disciples.” She says it as if it’s stating the obvious.

“One of our what now,” Aziraphale cries out, so tinged with hysteria that Solhasrel recoils.

“It’s not like that,” Crowley steps in front of him to explain. “No followers here. No organized anything. We’re just people now.”

Solhasrel frowns, frustrated and wounded. “You can lie to me, but I have been watching over you. After you and Aziraphale were brought in for your trial and execution, I was assigned to keep my eyes out for six rogue demons who escaped similar sentences. I’ve seen you harboring them.”

“You gotta understand, Sol, we’re not trying to do something here. There’s no agenda.”

“Indeed, and you can tell that to your superiors,” Aziraphale mutters darkly behind Crowley. “We’re leaving now. Do not follow us.”

Crowley doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Aziraphale is walking away. He can read it all over Solhasrel’s crumbling expression as she watches him go. He doesn’t know what to say to her. But, fuck, if he isn’t weak for an angel that wears their uncertain heart on their sleeve.

“Crowley, please,” she begs him now. “I’m so afraid of heaven’s wrath, but I know I must leave. I will inevitably fall and I refuse to take orders from hell when I do. At least tell me how you survived the trial. Please.”

She’s visibly terrified. She knows what heaven will do to her for rebelling and what hell will do to her for refusing to assimilate. She planned on Aziraphale and Crowley for guidance, or at least solidarity. But even when that hasn’t panned out, even if she would be butting heads with heaven and hell alone, she still wants to face whatever wrath may come from either side than continue being complacent with the systems in place.

It shatters Crowley’s heart to say, “Sorry, Sol. It wouldn’t help you even if I told you.”

“Why?”

“I’m so sorry. I gotta go.”

He turns and walks away to follow Aziraphale, who is already climbing up the stairs leading to the roadside. Somewhere behind him, he hears a whimper and looks over his shoulder. The angel’s knees tumble to the soft sand as she collapses and tears that glimmer like crystals spill down her cheeks. He has never seen an angel cry.

Anathema comes home to find her family dressed all in white. The three rise from the dining table to greet her.

Her mother cups her face. “Mi cielo, forgive me. You must be going through so much.” When Anathema nods, she adds, “We all are. It isn’t easy to reach the end of your life’s purpose.”

Anathema’s eyes dart between the three of them. “Why are you dressed for rituals?”

“After you left, Abuela threw shells and they told us terrible things,” her aunt says.

She notices a white cloth laid across the dining table. On it, five cowrie shells neatly lined up in rows and sixteen scattered across the table. Anathema doesn’t need to count them to know how many there are. The five on the sidelines are witnesses that make sure none of the sixteen shells tell a lie. It’s more of an art than a science, but her family take the dilogun as seriously as Agnes’ prophecies.

“You need a cleansing,” Abuela Volta says in Spanish, stroking Anathema’s hair. “Your aura is a sign of all the evil eye you carry.”

“I don’t. Nothing could cleanse me of this. Let me explain everything.”

She coaxes them to sit and she tells them of the first signs of possession. She tells them how the signs got out of hand and how she ran to Aziraphale and Crowley for help. How they convinced the demons in Anathema to speak.

“Demons,” her mom repeats. “Plural?”

“I don’t understand,” Tia Daily says, “How could Agnes not have warned us?”

Anathema bites her tongue. Her own relationship with Agnes may be broken, but there’s no harm in leaving her family’s faith undamaged. The book’s hold on them is over now and their hearts would break if they knew Anathema was only a bargaining chip to Agnes. Don’t they deserve to feel at peace with their life’s work if it was well-intentioned?

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We reached an agreement. They’re here to stay.”

Her grandmother makes a low, pitying sound. “Mijita, witches are capable of things angels and demons couldn’t imagine. We can cast these evil spirits out.”

“They aren’t evil, abuela, look—” Anathema takes her grandmother’s hand, the one permanently gnarled into a c-shape from a decades-old injury.

Anathema drags her thumb across the underside of Abuela Volta’s curled fingers and painlessly unfurls them. It’s exhilarating to watch her grandmother spread her fingers and wiggle them freely. She now understands how Agnes healed her village of the howling pox and the bloody flux. More urgently, a crystal clear understanding hits her of exactly why Aziraphale got carried away on the night they met. Anathema reaches up to cup Abuela’s cheek and watches the milky grey color of her eyes turn into pure brown as the cataracts vanish. She’s eager to touch each family member and heal every single problem they thought nothing could be done about. But all three Devices recoil from her.

“Anathema,” her aunt hisses. “You can’t drag us into your debts with demons.”

They don’t understand. Anathema doesn’t understand how her family of all people don’t understand. How could they be scared of healing? How could they find it wrong?

“I don’t owe them anything, Tia. They owe me—”

“We need to have the mass immediately,” her mother snaps, and the other two relatives nod, “Agnes will know what to do.”

“Listen, it was my choice to let them—What?”

“Since you left, we’ve been planning to contact Agnes upon your return. We wanted a proper gathering with the whole family here for it, but I’m afraid it can’t wait.”

Anathema tugs her mom by the arm as she leaves to prepare, but she can’t stop all of them. Her grandmother and aunt hurry to the altar room without waiting.

“Please,” she begs, “Don’t speak to Agnes. Don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t worry, mi cielo. That’s the demons talking.”

Anathema doesn’t know how to tell her she couldn’t be more wrong. There’s an intrusive explosion of elation in Anathema’s chest that goes directly at odds with the suffocating dread she truly feels. The demons could not be happier to reconnect with their first mistress.

Halfway up the semi-hidden staircase that leads back up to the road, Aziraphale turns to Crowley and says, “Heaven is up to some—”

He falters mid-sentence. Crowley isn’t there.

Fearing the worst, he storms back down to the beach. What he finds there makes his mouth fall open because it is, in fact, worse than he feared. Crowley on his knees in the sand, supporting heaven’s spy as she cries on his shoulder. Crowley tries to smile, but he only manages to widen his lips as far as they go to show his clenched teeth. For a long moment, Aziraphale is held still by shock.

“What,” he says, very deliberately, “are you doing?”

The angel turns her head up to Aziraphale, big dark doe eyes shining with tears. He’s not falling for it. He’s not. He tells the ache in his own gullible heart to buck up and cut that out.

“She started sobbing on the ground, what am I supposed to do?” Crowley hisses.

“She ratted you out to Michael! She told them all about Anathema!”

“Oh, get off your high horse. She’s having a crisis of faith here. As if you didn’t ditch me when you found exactly where the antichrist was. You sucked up to heaven right up until the very last minute of the apocalypse.”

“That—How dare—That was completely different. I was conflicted and I came around, so—”

“Uh huh, you took your sweet time coming around. So maybe cut Sol a little slack here.”

Furious at the shame over his choices during the end of times dredged up again—and dredged up to defend the enemy, no less—Aziraphale simply presses his lips together in one hard, trembling line.

‘Sol’ dries her eyes with the back of her palm. “I’ve watched over you for so long. I only want to be like you. I want it so much. And I’m not the only one.”

“How do you know that?” Crowley asks, patiently.

“After the rumor of Aziraphale’s failed execution got out, I saw them shoot down an angel for leaving. The angel wanted to rejoin their separated twin. That’s the demon you’re protecting with the witch that harbors them, isn’t it?”

“Taom,” Crowley gasps.

“And you did nothing?” Aziraphale asks. The angel blinks at him and he clarifies, “Are you still on good terms with the archangels because you let them take down Taom’s twin?”

Solhasrel hesitates, then nods.

He makes a ‘there you have it’ gesture at Crowley.

“Oh, come on. She would fall if she intervened. You remember the fear of falling.”

It isn’t a question. It’s a fact. Aziraphale remembers it so viscerally that he often forgets it’s no longer a threat.

“You really think it’s wise to trust an angel from their side, Crowley? After everything?”

“You’re an angel from their side,” Crowley snaps back. “I want you to think about where we’d be if I did the wise thing.”

“Dios te salve, maria, llena eres de gracia, el señor es contigo, bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre…”

The Device’s bóveda is a small table covered with white cloth. Front and center, a white candle lit by Abuela Volta. Behind it, six identical glasses of water and a seventh larger goblet with a crucifix sitting in its water. Cigars, white flowers, a bottle of rum, and portraits of saints or deceased relatives (including one of Agnes Nutter tied to the stake) clutter the rest of the altar. Three barefoot women in white pray the same prayer over and over and over in a smoke-filled room. “... bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre...”

Anathema, the only one in black, watches in blank terror. She begs her demons to stop this. Knock the candles off the altar or shatter the bottle of aguardiente on the floor. Can’t they miraculously silence her family?

We could, Jay answers at the back of her mind.

Anathema waits, filled with hope. But nothing happens. The demons never thought they would hear from Agnes again. They didn’t know it was possible. They won’t do a thing to let this chance slip by them.

Abruptly, one voice drops out of the prayer. Anathema’s grandmother falls silent. Her aunt and mother notice. It makes them pray more fervently. Abuela Volta’s breath grows heavier and heavier and heavier until her chest and shoulders are heaving.

Anathema considers running, but she fears too much what Agnes could tell them and what her family will think of her if she isn’t there to defend her actions.

Her grandmother seizes the full size bottle of aguardiente at her feet and swallows it like juice. Her family’s prayers steadily die down as Abuela Volta’s throat bobs with each chug. She finishes the bottle off in what seems like less than a minute. When she sets it down, her face is changed.

“I see ye hath a bone to pick with me, Anathema,” says Abuela Volta, who never bothered to learn basic English in her life, in an impeccable English accent.

“Agnes,” Anathema’s mom and aunt exhale her name almost in unison and their auras are thrumming with delight.

“Aye.” Agnes picks up a lit cigar from the offerings with Abuela Volta’s newly healed hand. Anathema’s heartbeat barks in her throat as her ancestor’s spirit looks her up and down. “Or shall I pick my bones with ye first?”

Anathema glares at the spirit wearing her grandmother’s face. She would love to throw the first punch here, but unfortunately, she’s always been a polite girl. Perhaps not disrespecting your elders is ingrained too deeply in her. Especially with her aunt and mother glancing between the two in utter bewilderment.

Her mom sticks up for her. “Anathema did everything as instructed.”

“Did she now?” Agnes says, low and knowing. She hums and takes a drag from the cigar. “I know what this is about and I tell ye: The demons are not to be disturbed.”

“What?” her aunt cries.

“We leave her possessed?”

Agnes calmly exhales smoke. “Ye heard me.”

“Oh—Okay,” her mom falters.

For a second, Anathema’s relieved. Agnes’ approval of the possession ends all arguments about it. Let us out, Jay begs her.

Agnes turns her head to Anathema as if she heard them. Perhaps she did. Witches may not sense thoughts, but spirits surely can.

“Manifest them for me, Anathema. I have missed those demons so.”

Again, not at all how she wanted to reveal this to her family. But on the other hand, Agnes’ presence shields her from the family’s denunciation of things they do not understand. Perhaps this is the best way. Like releasing tension held between her shoulders, she allows the transformations barely held in beneath her skin to unfurl. The wings of a vulture are the first to flare open from her shoulder blades.

“Lehiel,” Agnes says in the fond voice one might use when answering a phone call from an old friend.

Almost at the same time, a set of dark tentacles twist out from within the long waves of Anathema’s hair. Her aunt claps a hand over her mouth to muffle a startled cry. Her mother’s face goes pallid, but otherwise she is frozen still and silent.

Wearing a smile that crinkles Abuela Volta’s eyes, Agnes welcomes the rest of the demons with equal warmth. “Zesial.”

When wispy gazelle horns rise from Anathema’s head, Agnes says, “Taom.”

Her body folds over and shifts into a beast shape that brings her to all fours. Claws flex out from her hands and feet, dragging scratch marks across the hardwood floor. A hyena’s ominous purr vibrates from a place low in her throat.

“Sesmahaet.”

This far into the transformation, she keeps her eyes on the scratches gouged into the tiles beneath Sesmahaet’s claws as thorny devil spikes prick through her skin from underneath, growing in a straight line down her spine.

“Ransom.”

Anathema isn’t ready to look up and face her family’s reaction to what she’s become. She hears footsteps across the room. A hand wraps around one of Taom’s horns and tugs Anathema’s head up. Agnes is crouched at eye level in front of her.

Anathema’s eyes must be pinning because Agnes looks directly into them and says, “Oh, Popinjay. I am pleased you made it past the end. You have all done so well. I do not blame you for Anathema’s failure.”

Anathema glares directly into Agnes’ eyes.

“I don’t understand. I don’t—Why didn’t you prepare us for this?” her mom demands.

Agnes releases Taom’s horn and rises to stand straight—Much straighter posture than Abuela Volta has been able to hold for the past fifteen years. She turns to Anathema’s mother, who appears so distraught that Anathema wishes she would have prefaced the transformation by assuring them it doesn’t hurt at all.

“Oh, that I hath done,” Agnes says in that low, foreboding voice again. “I prepared ye for the next ages to cometh. When hard times hit, I will not be to blame. Ye must turn to Anathema, then. Had I not realized her very name itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy?”

Her mother and aunt whip their heads around to Anathema now. “What does this mean?”

“I’m sorry,” Anathema whispers hoarsely, slowly retracting the transformations back into herself until she is left kneeling on the floor in a perfectly human manner. “I didn’t know how to tell you. It would only hurt you if you knew.”

Her aunt sounds afraid of her own question even as she asks it, “What have you done?”

If Anathema doesn’t answer now, they will ask Agnes. She planned on taking this secret to her grave, but she’s cornered.

She’d rather them hear it from her. “I… Agnes wrote a second volume of prophecies. She locked them in a box along with the six demons and orchestrated their delivery to me after the day of the apocalypse.”

Her mother’s eyes light up at the news, but only for a flash of a moment before she remembers Anathema’s been accused of fucking it all up. “Where are the prophecies now?”

“I… destroyed them.”

Unlike when she revealed the burnt book, there is no outcry. Her mother and aunt simply stare, shell-shocked. Silence stifles the room.

“Who are you,” her mother finally says, voice trembling, “to immolate the fortune of our future generations?”

“Que sera, sera, mama,” Anathema reasons gently. “If it’s truly destined, then it’s all going to happen anyway.”

“Then why shouldn’t we be ready for it?” her aunt snaps, equally livid.

It takes effort not to snap back, but Anathema restrains her tone. “We should arrive at our own decisions, not at Agnes’ decisions.”

Even when mentioned by name, Agnes hardly reacts. She watches her descendants argue amongst themselves in imperious silence.

Her aunts eyes swim behind barely held in tears. “If you claim the outcome is the same, why would you rob your entire lineage the security of certainty?”

“Nothing was certain with Agnes. We had no idea what most prophecies meant until after they already happened.”

“You are wrong, Anathema. You really think you would have coincidentally been in Tadfield when the time came if weren’t for Agnes?”

Anathema doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s never been spoken to with disdain from her own mother before now. She’s never heard this much disdain in her mother’s voice, period. It hurts so much that Anathema is speechless.

“There is a solution still,” Agnes says, and every head turns to her, “If Anathema will use the demons as I have used them.”

“No,” Anathema speaks over Agnes before she’s even finished proposing it.

Agnes does not speak to her, but to her mother. “The new volume had nothing that our loyal demons cannot reveal once more for her inner eye.”

Her mother turns to Anathema, face softened by awe. “You can see the future?”

“No!”

“Yes,” Agnes speaks over Anathema. “Thy child has been destined for a purpose larger than her skin.”

Anathema clenches her jaw, seething. “This is my living nightmare. I am not going to be the new you.”

Agnes tilts her head, genuinely perplexed. “Why despise me, Anathema?”

Her mirthless laugh in response is concerningly hysterical. “Oh, where do I start? Perhaps because no one in this family ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. They discouraged any passions that would distract me too much from being a walking encyclopedia of prophecies because you told them I had to save the world. Or is it out of pure envy that you’re the last person in our family tree who experienced free will? You never knew when you messed up because you didn’t have some indecipherable passage that makes clear sense in hindsight telling you how it should’ve gone after it’s already too late. Did you ever think about what it would be like for us, Agnes?”

Anathema rises to her feet, eyes fixed directly on Agnes’. “Did you consider what it would be like for me—being treated like some child empress because every step my family has taken for generations has been to set up the perfect life for me to follow your word with no distraction? A life too comfortable, too fortunate, to complain about the small price of accepting the duties set in stone for me. And I did accept it. So thoroughly that I didn’t know who I was or what I was capable of without you. I never had a life without your backseat driving, so I never learned to truly take the wheel. You threw me under the bus for the greater good and I still trusted you until the very end, Agnes. I trusted you with my entire heart and soul because I knew there would be an end. I knew that if I did everything right, once I finished the task you gave me, I could start my life. My own life. Better late than never. I reached the end of the book with you dangling the reward of a normal life in front of me.” Anathema pauses. “Do you see where I’m going with this?”

The room is silent enough to hear the ocean outside. Agnes simply nods without a word.

Anathema goes there anyway. “Receiving the new prophecies was a cruel joke. That, Agnes, is why I hate you.”

Agnes’ face has softened, surprisingly vulnerable. “For all I could see, I lost sight of the individual lives that comprise every stitch in the wider tapestry. I had my reasons. You know what they were. One thing I could not fathom was how the demons did not see that you would betray me. That you would burn the second prophecies. Now I understand. You saw it all and didn’t tell me. Didn’t you, Popinjay?”

“We did,” the demon answers. Despite the words coming from Anathema’s mouth, she’s stunned to hear them. “But Jay, you were surprised I hadn’t read about you in the prophecies. That doesn’t make sense if you knew I would destroy them. We did not think to check if you read at least the first page before burning your ancestor’s writings for you. We assumed no one could resist the temptation of knowing the future. You’re as startlingly interesting as our previous mistress, Anathema.” Anathema’s pinning eyes turn to Agnes again and Jay adds, “We were sorry to withhold from you, but we thought you’d understand.”

“It was with the intention to let my soul rest in peace, I’m sure. And so that I would not write in anything to meddle with what your future mistress wanted for herself. Your tricks were wise.” Agnes steps forward and her eyes are lit with the spark of finding a kindred spirit in Anathema. “Perhaps, this once, I deserved to be burned again for threading the strings of fates that aren’t mine to sew. I will make peace with the fact that you do not need me steering your horse from inside the carriage to accomplish it.”

Anathema’s startled, unsure of how this makes her feel. “I’m not taking what I said back but—I know you were looking at the greater good. You did a good thing.”

Agnes’ laugh rumbles deep from her belly. “I was looking to break the system, my love. And that starts with you. I am done telling you what to do, but if you’d like to share a common goal—the angels and the demon need your aid.”

“Angels?” Anathema repeats, confused by the plural. “For what?”

“See it thyself.”

The white candle on the boveda blows out and Abuela Volta collapses into her chair. Anathema’s aunt rushes to her side and helps her sit up. Abuela Volta’s eyes are tired and bloodshot when she opens them. She hoarsely asks for water in Spanish, stone cold sober despite the bottle of aguardiente Agnes emptied into her belly. Anathema’s mom approaches her and tenderly lays a hand on Anathema’s cheek.

She lays her own hand over her mother’s and leans into the caress. Her mother kisses both of Anathema’s eyes, then brings her palm to her lips to kiss there as well.

On the beach, Solhasrel abruptly jerks her head up to the sky. It reminds Crowley of a cat Aziraphale kept in the bookshop once who would abruptly turn her head to stare, wide eyed and nervous, at invisible things in empty spaces.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asks.

Sol says, “Archangels.”

Before she even gets the word out, Gabriel and Michael manifest in the sky above the sea with wings spread and golden lances held over their shoulders.

“Traitor,” Michael says, somehow clearly audible in their ears despite being a mile high.

Her and Gabriel throw in perfect tandem, the smiting lances flung so powerfully that it sounds like thunder. Both are aimed at Sol, still held in Crowley’s arms.

Several things happen in the same fraction of a second:

• Crowley pauses time.
• Gabriel unstops it.
• Aziraphale pauses time, something he’s never done but has experienced it enough times by now to learn secondhand.
• Michael unstops it.
• Crowley throws himself over Sol on the sand, shielding her from the lances.
• The lances strike.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale screams.

Correction: One of these several things almost happens in that fraction of a second.

The lances should have struck, but instead float suspended at Crowley’s back. Their points burn white hot through his jacket, but do not penetrate. Bewildered, the archangels call back their weapons. Crowley and Sol blink at each other, equally bewildered.

Aziraphale grabs him by the jacket and frantically yanks him to his feet. “What was that! After you waxed poetic about not putting our skin on the line for a witch we just met?!”

“More importantly,” Crowley says, gesturing to the blank space in the air where the lances had been held still. “What was that?”

“Anathema,” Sol says, pointing at the witch running across the beach to meet them.

Gabriel and Michael land side by side, kicking up sand that blows away in the ocean winds. They look unnerved by Crowley and Aziraphale’s presence, but valiantly put on an authoritative front.

“I knew it,” Michael says.

“You did file a suspicion report after going over the earth observation files, didn’t you?”

Michael nods primly. “It didn’t add up to me why she wouldn’t have reported them before I asked her to look, but Solhasrel’s excuse that she wouldn’t know what the demon Crowley looked like seemed like something to put on the back burner at the time. It was the apocalypse, I had bigger fish fry.”

Gabriel mirrors her nod. “Well, then. Solhasrel. As you clearly do not adhere to our core values, it seems you simply aren’t the right fit for heaven. We’ll have to let you go.”

“I fucking hate when you say core values,” Solhasrel says, surprising everyone.

Gabriel drops his friendly-cool-boss act. “This is a sentencing, not a conversation.”

“You’ll be coming with us,” Michael says to Solhasrel. To Anathema, she adds, “And you as well, for harboring a fugitive demon.”

“Since when are hell’s fugitives your problem?” Anathema asks.

“The derailed apocalypse was everyone’s problem, sweetie. You wouldn’t understand.”

“It’s because The War won’t happen if angels keep slipping from their fingers and demons keep slipping from the other side,” Solhasrel appeals Aziraphale and Crowley. “Choosing what you two chose isn’t meant to happen and the powers that be don’t want us to know that’s an option.”

“Thinking for yourself isn’t meant to happen,” Anathema muses.

“Enough.” For the first time, Gabriel dares to look directly at Aziraphale and Crowley. “If you do not intervene, you may carry on unsupervised as per our previous agreement.”

“If you’re going to give us trouble, well...” Michael trails off and on cue, Sandalphon and Uriel manifest behind them.

Aziraphale smiles the way one might when watching a yorkie bark at a great dane.

Crowley laughs. “Oh, they think it’s a fair fight.”

All four opposing angels raise their weapons. Crowley and Aziraphale simply stand there and grin with hands in their pockets or folded neatly in front of them. The lances have a false start as the angels hesitate to throw and pull them back just before release. A bit like children floundering at the tip of a diving board.

“There’s no honor in attacking when they’re unarmed,” Sandalphon of all people suggests.

The rest of the angels nod in relief and lower their spears.

“Nice save,” Crowley quips.

Gabriel narrows his eyes. “We’ll be taking the traitors now.”

Solhasrel’s feet carve lines into the sand as she’s dragged forward by an invisible rope. It’s Gabriel pulling her in.

Crowley and Aziraphale grab the other end of that metaphysical rope with their own power and tug her backwards, away from Gabriel. It’s enough to jerk her to a stop for a moment, but Gabriel is powerful. Even with the three of them resisting, all he has to do is put a little more oomph into the pull and Solhasrel lurches forward.

“She’s with us now,” Crowley says, looking at the archangels.

But he’s saying it for Anathema. At his word, the power tugging against Gabriel triples and Solhasrel is plucked right back to Crowley and Aziraphale’s side, snipping the string Gabriel pulls almost effortlessly.

Gabriel’s mouth falls open. “How—?”

“Uriel, take on the angel,” Michael cuts in. “Sandalphon, we grab the girl.”

They think that dividing Aziraphale and Crowley’s power will make it easier for at least one of them to slip through. They assume that even with Solhasrel and Taom helping, it’s an even match of four against four. Michael realizes how wrong they are the moment she and Sandalphon try to draw in Anathema and the witch doesn’t budge an inch.

They have no idea this match is four against nine. They never will. Your average angels and demons simply lack the imagination to conceive what Agnes Nutter’s deliriously creative mind set up for her descendant when she knew this precise moment would come. Anathema understands now why possession was necessary, why it had to be her.

“They’re both with us.” Aziraphale graciously offers, “Best to leave them alone, just the same, and we’ll continue staying out of your hair.”

All six of Anathema’s demons put more oomph into their pulls as he says it. The angels stare at Aziraphale and Crowley in wide-eyed panic, then turn that look on their leader. Gabriel’s no less caught off guard than any of them. He nods, speechless.

“Good,” Aziraphale says, cheerily.

Crowley slings one arm around Solhasrel’s shoulder and wiggles his fingers in a wave to the archangels. “Buh bye.”

Anathema stands quiet and still, an unassuming presence that the archangels pay no mind to. They don’t question what they already believe. With a fear of Aziraphale and Crowley already instilled in the angels’ hearts comes a certainty that everything against them must be their enemy’s doing. The four angels spread their luminous wings in one last showy attempt at intimidation. Expressions twisted in hopeless frustration, they vanish.

They wait a few seconds to ensure they’re alone, then Aziraphale and Crowley envelop Anathema in a victory hug. With Crowley’s arm around her shoulder, Solhasrel’s pulled into it as well.

“What would we do without you!” Aziraphale cries.

“Hi. I’m Anathema,” she says to Solhasrel as she bumps noses with the new angel.

“Solhasrel. We met. In the woods.”

“Oh. Hello again.”

Solhasrel smiles. “Hello. Thank you for saving Crowley and I from the lances. And myself from being pulled to heaven.”

“How’d you know when to turn up right in the nick of time like some bruja ex machina?” Crowley asks.

“Have you forgotten who I am?” Anathema teases, grinning.

She said she would never listen to Agnes Nutter again, but made an exception just this once. Worth it.

Over dinner that night, Anathema receives a video call from a strange number. Intuition tells her to answer it.

Her screen opens to video of Newt. “Hello? Can you see me? Hear me?”

“Yes, yes! You’re skyping me—on a phone!”

“A computer, actually. Madam Tracy was kind enough to lend me hers. Shadwell doesn’t have one. He was pretty useful when it came to finding where the curse was buried, though! We went—“

“Is it the boyfriend?” Anathema’s mother asks Crowley.

Crowley gives her a vaguely wavy hand gesture.

She reaches across the table and snatches the phone right out of Anathema’s hands. “Hello? Ay mira, blue eyes,” she coos instantly upon seeing him.

“Mama, no!” Anathema leaps out of her seat and tries to wrangle Newt away from her.

During the scuffle, Anathema’s aunt makes some unbothered small talk. “So how did you meet Anathema?”

“Er…” Aziraphale’s mind races through strategic calculations of the most family-friendly meet-cute he can concoct to cover up what really brought them together.

He’s beaten to the punch by Crowley, who doesn’t stop to calculate a damn thing. “Car accident,” he says.

Tia Daily’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“Yes,” Anathema says, returning to her seat in empty handed defeat, “Crowley hit me with his car.”

“Agnes didn’t warn us about that! Or did she? I’ll have to look back through the prophecies again with that in mind.”

“She correctly assumed that I would refuse to throw myself in front of a car simply because some piece of paper told me to, so, no. Agnes deliberately decided not to warn me about that night.”

Her aunt frowns. “I’m sure she knew you would be alright.”

Anathema looks around the table; At her mom bullying Newt into installing Duolingo on his very first day of uncursed bliss; At Solhasrel’s eyes lighting up at the first taste of her grandmother’s arroz con leche and Abuela Volta happily piling it in heaps on the angel’s plate; at Aziraphale and Crowley sitting beside each other, hands resting on the tabletop with pinkies touching. She looks at this small group of people who were handed such cosmic destinies that they once felt invincible. They know the price of invincibility and are the only ones who could ever understand what Anathema has been through.

Anathema rests her hand over her aunt’s. “I believe that.”