"But what if there was another?" Michael pressed, his voice controlled but edged with something sharper beneath. "What if Father cast her into the Veil... and unlike Lilith, whom we still remember... He made us forget who it was this time? What if the Veil is where He cast Seraphadneel, and that is why no one remembers her?"
"And yet Samael knows her," Uriel countered calmly. "And Mikael… are you doubting our Father now?"
"Of course not," Michael answered at once, too quickly, as though the words were meant to seal the question shut. "I have never doubted Him. I have never doubted His plans, even when He has been silent."
Uriel studied him for a long beat, golden eyes steady, unblinking. Then she sighed... softly, almost sadly.
"Are you sure about that?" she asked. "Because I can hear doubt in your questions."
Michael did not respond.
Uriel's expression shifted, less teasing now, more like the thing she truly was... Wisdom.
"Let us say He did cast this… Seraphadneel… into the Veil," she continued, her voice even. "And let us say He made us... His Archangels... forget about her."
She tilted her head.
"You said you do not doubt Him. So why all these questions? Maybe He had a reason for casting her into the Forgotten. Maybe Seraphadneel committed a grave mistake. Maybe she committed the most unforgivable sin among our kind... so unforgivable that He chose not only to cast her away, but to erase her from our knowing."
Uriel's gaze sharpened.
"Maybe her crime was so severe that He hid it even from me... His Wisdom."
Then she stood.
The air in the room subtly changed... no wind, no temperature shift, just the instinctive sense that something vast had risen.
"If you truly do not doubt our Father," Uriel said, "then forget about Seraphadneel, Mikael. Because though He has not given us explanations, He has always had reasons. He does nothing without purpose."
Her eyes stayed on him, uncomfortably direct.
"And if you think Seraphadneel is Evadne because of your dream-memory... if we assume that is the truth... what would you do then?" Uriel asked. "What is your plan for her? Have you asked yourself that?"
Michael's jaw flexed, but he still said nothing.
Uriel's voice softened, and the sharpness in it dulled into something almost… protective.
"I have seen the life Evadne lived in Solmara, Mikael," she said quietly. "She suffered there. And perhaps Samael pitied her... perhaps that is why he offered her a deal. Perhaps that is why he transferred her soul to Earth. To give her the life she deserved."
Uriel's eyes narrowed again, not in anger... but in warning.
"And truthfully? She deserves the life she has now. She deserves to live happily here."
She took a step closer, her presence filling the suite without her needing to raise her voice.
"And you... hovering around her... does not make that easy."
Uriel's tone remained calm, but it held finality.
"You are our Father's creation's greatest protector. And even if her soul is originally from Solmara, she is still human. And all humans are Father's creation, no matter which world their soul once walked."
Her gaze hardened.
"So stay away from her. Keep your warrior angels away from her."
Then, as if the final blade needed twisting, Uriel added with cold clarity...
"And so you know... she knows who and what you truly are, Mikael. And you are making her worry. You are poisoning her new life with fear... for herself, for the people she loves."
She paused, lips curving faintly.
"And most of all... " her eyes flicked over him like a judgment he could not deflect, "... you are not her type."
Uriel did not wait for a reply.
There was no grand farewell, no dramatic warning repeated. Only a burst of light... clean and blinding... then she was simply gone, vanishing from the suite without touching the entrance, without passing the corridor where Francois and the others waited.
And Michael was left alone.
The silence felt heavier than the skyline outside.
He stood motionless, the city's glittering lights reflected on the glass behind him, but his attention was nowhere near New York. He was caught in something older than the world outside this window... something that had existed before stone and steel and human names.
More confused than before.
About Evadne.
About Seraphadneel.
About his purpose.
About his feelings.
Uriel told him to forget Seraphadneel... as if forgetting was an act of will.
As if he had not tried.
But how could he forget when every fiber of his being screamed at him to search? To dig. To rip open the gaps in his memory and bleed whatever truth lay inside them.
It was like losing a piece of himself he had never realized was missing... until the moment the dreams began.
And now that he had felt it... now that he had tasted the ache of that absence... he could not pretend it was not there.
It haunted him in the quiet.
It haunted him even more when Evadne was near.
Because that missing piece… that nameless wound inside him… felt like it was within reach whenever she breathed in the same room as him.
And that... more than Uriel's warnings, more than Samael's involvement, more than Father's silence... was what terrified him the most.
In the middle of the surrounding silence, Michael heard a knock... not from the suite's entrance, but from beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
He turned.
Outside, hovering in her true form, was one of his most loyal warrior angels... Seraphyne.
"Enter," Michael said.
Seraphyne vanished from the night air and reappeared before him. Her pinkish-white wings... matching the soft hue of her hair... folded into nothingness. She lowered her head in a formal bow.
"You called for me, General," Seraphyne said.
Michael looked at her, and Uriel's words replayed in his mind as if they had been branded into him.
Stay away from Evadne.
"Assume a younger human form," Michael ordered. "The same age as my vessel. I need you by my side while I remain here in New York." His gaze stayed steady, cold. "I will be enrolling in NYE. You will enroll there as well."
Seraphyne lifted her head, her expression calm, obedient... yet attentive in the way only a warrior could be.
"Do you need me to do anything else?" she asked.
"There are two Damned living here in New York," Michael said. "Casadin Sinclair and Hades Falcon." His eyes narrowed slightly, as if merely speaking their names irritated something inside him. "Get close to them. I need you to draw their attention away from Evadne Monteverde."
A faint pause.
Seraphyne's eyes sharpened with understanding.
"How do you wish me to do that?" she asked carefully. "And to what extent?"
Michael did not hesitate.
"However you wish," he said. "To the extent you are permitted." His voice dipped, colder. "And you do not have to worry about hurting them. They were Blackhearts. You are free to do as you please with them."
Seraphyne's lips curved into a sweet smile... soft, almost charming… the kind that could fool a human into thinking she was harmless.
"Is that all?" she asked.
"That is all for now," Michael replied. "And you have permission to enter any room I am in... except my sleeping chamber." He rose, his tone final. "I will see you in NYE when the school year begins. You may leave."
"As you command, General," Seraphyne said.
And in a burst of light, she disappeared.
Michael stood alone again.
Slowly, he crossed to his desk. The jewelry box was still there... untouched. The necklace he had commissioned for Evadne. The gift she never even had the chance to hold because of the chaos that swallowed her birthday night.
Yes… he had heard Uriel's warning.
But hearing it did not mean obeying it.
If Wisdom could not... or would not... give him the answers he needed, then he would take them for himself.
Maybe the unexplainable pull he felt toward Evadne was merely residue... Samael's celestial taint clinging to her soul because of their deal.
But Michael did not care.
There was more to Evadne than Uriel was admitting.
And if Evadne and Seraphadneel were one and the same… or even slightly connected…
He needed to know.
He needed certainty.
He needed to understand why Father had erased Seraphadneel from his memory. Why it felt as if a piece of him had been carved out long ago... cleanly, mercilessly... without even leaving a scar he could point to.
Only the ache remained.
Only the sense of missing something he had never realized was missing... until now.
He wanted to know what sin she committed that made Father cast her into the forgotten.
He wanted to know why two Damned Blackhearts were tied to Evadne.
Why they looked at her as if she were the moon in their sky.
Why she looked at them as if they were the thing that made her whole.
Why he felt the urge to strike them down whenever she smiled at them the way she did...
And why it stung like insult when she looked at him with indifference in her eyes.
What did Casadin and Hades have that he did not?
Even in a human vessel, Michael was exemplary. This body was perfection by mortal standards... wealth, intelligence, and beauty sharpened into something almost unreal. Even compared to the two Damned in Evadne's orbit, he was superior in every measurable human way.
So why...
Why did she not look at him the way she looked at them?
Why did she live inside his thoughts every time he closed his eyes?
And why... when she appeared in his dreams... did he feel peace?
Not war.
Not rage.
Peace.
His fingers tightened around the velvet box.
And in the privacy of his suite, with no one to hear him say it aloud, Michael admitted the truth that frightened him most... not because it was sinful…
But because it felt inevitable.
He wanted her to be his.