I felt like dirt for ditching Josh, but what else could I do? Slowly I started easing my pace, both Nakita and Barnabas dropping back with me until Josh continued on ahead of us, his head down and his hands in his pockets. I held my breath as I shifted to the side and let Officer Levy walk right on past. Barnabas touched my elbow, and I stopped. His other hand was around his amulet, and his eyes were silver as he touched on the divine, changing Officer Levy’s memories to not include us. It was a minor task, but one I think they were both reluctant to teach me because of what I might do with it. Sure, I was their boss, but I’d gotten the job without the lifelong apprenticeship and discipline that usually went before it.

I stood between cars and watched, unbelieving as Officer Levy seemed to forget all about us, escorting Josh back to the school as if he were the only one she’d seen. Reaper magic—you gotta love it.

“The woman will remember,” Nakita said with a huff, hip cocked and watching, too. “You used so little of the divine that the false memory won’t stick.”

“It will stick long enough for us to leave, and that’s all we need.” Josh clearly forgotten, Barnabas took my elbow and directed me to the field at the edge of the parking lot, but my eyes were on the school behind us and the open windows. “And when she comes back to look and she finds nothing, then there will be doubt in her. A week from now, she won’t remember it because it will be easier for her to forget.”

A week, I thought, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. I had thought it would be more certain than that. Nakita, too, seemed unconvinced.

Shoulder-to-shoulder, we turned and left the cars behind us to walk out onto a long-fallow field thick with bees and tiny flowers. I couldn’t help but feel odd as I walked between the two angels, one light, one dark, as if I were somehow connected with all the past that had happened before me and the future yet to be. If I hadn’t known the school was behind us or smelled the pavement and hot metal, I could have been walking in Eden.