Free The Armies of Heaven by Jane Kindred

did, actually. I always take them with me.” She regarded Love curiously. “Did you want another reading?”
    Love glanced back at the tent to be sure Kirill was still sleeping. “Well…it would be good to keep in touch with my friend.”
    “Let me get them.” Lively turned toward her tent, but the flap opened and Margarita climbed out.
    “Everything all right?” Margarita eyed Love. “You’ve been gone a while.”
    “I was just going to throw some cards for Love. Neither of us can sleep.” Lively ducked down as if to crawl into the tent, but Margarita stopped her.
    “I’ll get them.” She retreated inside and returned with Lively’s bag and a large blanket, which she laid out on the ground near the dwindling fire, giving Lively her arm to help her sit.
    Love sat across from them both, wondering how she was supposed to get a message to her contact with Margarita sitting there. She couldn’t very well discuss her plans in front of Anazakia’s second-in-command. Not that she was doing something that would harm the mission, but she wanted to keep it to herself in case she failed—and because, as Belphagor had said, Anazakia might lose heart if she knew how badly things were turning against her below. Perhaps she could just send a simple message to possessed85 saying she was on her way home and hoped to speak with him soon.
    After setting out the candles, Lively gave her the cards to cut and then laid them on the blanket. Instead of reading the spread like a message, however, she read it as if telling Love’s fortune.
    “I see a brave man who opposes evil. A just and generous man. And with him, you share a partnership of harmony and accomplishment, with poignant memories. The world is at your feet, but it isn’t a world you recognize, and all about, you’re surrounded by the aspects of the Cherubim. The man has recently faced disappointment, sorrow, and loss, leaving everything he has known, but he’s retained an unquenchable belief in hope and the heart. Events are unfolding quickly, and help and communication will come from below, but the future isn’t set. Before you is your heart’s desire, and spirits of the earth will hear the messenger from above. The man will face a test of strength he alone can overcome, not through might but through truth, and together, you’ll achieve completion of the heart and home.”
    Love’s mouth parted in surprise. Lively seemed to see inside her, though these weren’t the things she’d been thinking about. How much did Lively know of Kirill? She’d described him as if she’d been there in Love’s head from the beginning, seeing a Kirill no one else knew. The description of being in a world they didn’t recognize, surrounded by the aspects of the Cherubim, could have been taken from the moment they found themselves in Heaven—though of course Lively had probably known about that.
    What puzzled her most, however, was the prediction of achieving things together. Surely, she’d never see Kirill again once she left him below. She planned to return to Heaven after she made her case to try to restore the terrestrial alliance. She could never abandon Ola, and Kirill could never be happy in Heaven, nor could he truly be happy with Love anywhere, when loving her distracted him from his duty to God.
    She decided to focus on the elements that seemed pertinent to the query she’d wanted to pose: help and communication from below, and spirits of the earth hearing the messenger from above. She had to believe this meant her quest would be successful.
    “Thank you, Lively.” The nature of the reading still puzzled her, but Lively had given her something special and unexpected. “That was kind of amazing.”
    At a sudden click behind them, Love turned to see Belphagor standing before his tent with a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it with a metal Zippo from the world of Man.
    “Now that’s just a crime,” he said with the cigarette between his teeth. He shook his head