Her eyes lowered. Her resolve, newborn and fragile, faltered. Perhaps she should not have come after all. There was no longer any place for her in the Archangel's heart except as an accomplice, it seemed. She could not be that for him. Never again.

She drifted back, retreating partly into the deep shadows beyond the doorway, unreached by the orb's light. Her arms wrapped themselves around her body, long spidery limbs that reached to the floor, that could fold around her like a shield or a coffin, much more securely than the arms she'd wrapped around herself before the Blaze.

"The Koriel boy has purified the Littles," she informed him. She lifted her head, just enough to watch his reaction, hoping--but knowing it was in vain--that it might convince him to stop his crusade.