“Not a thing, but a who,” Garreth’s striking blue eyes were serious.

“And whom might that be?”

“That would be Mathur. He gives us wisdom.”

“Really? Mathur?” I asked as I opened my locker, tossing my backpack and folders inside and grabbing my granola bar and Dr. Pepper from the top shelf. My stomach was beginning to rumble with hunger.

Garreth just nodded, smiling.

So many memories came flooding back to me. Mathur had been the wise elderly angel I encountered on the other side last spring. Garreth had fallen victim to Hadrian, who wanted ultimate control over humanity by corrupting our guardian angels. Without a guardian, a human is easily manipulated and vulnerable to the whims of powerful dark angels.

Without Garreth, I might have been putty in Hadrian’s hands. To stop Hadrian, I needed to cross over to a realm no humans could enter. I had to die for it. Outwitting death with an ancient dagger inscribed with the octagram was my only hope. As it turned out, I had the power to bridge the two worlds, heaven and earth.

I took Garreth’s hand gingerly in my own and flipped it over to look at his mark again, his octagram. I needed to see it, to trace it with my fingertips. I needed to know every so often that all that happened these last few months was real and not some dream.

“Maybe Mathur could give me some math pointers some day,” I said, pulling myself back into the present.

“He’s very wise. Like a father.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I sighed.

“Someday you might. Your mother seems to see something in that doctor friend of hers. Maybe it’s similar to what she saw in your father.”

Garreth’s blue eyes were tender as he leaned forward to move a strand of hair away from my face. My mom was usually a good judge of character.

Maybe if I wasn’t so focused on being jealous of the time she spent with Dr. Dean, the time that used to be ours … maybe if I wasn’t so miserable thinking about Brynn and all the ways she can mess up my life inside and outside of school, I’d be able to see the bigger picture. I smiled in response to Garreth’s insight.