The palanquin carried them through the impossible city at a pace that defied physics, gliding over streets paved with crushed starlight and between towers that scraped the ash-colored sky. Azrael found himself studying the inhabitants as they passed—beings that had once been mortal, angelic, or demonic, but were now something else entirely. They moved with purpose through markets where crystallized emotions were traded like currency, past fountains that flowed with liquid music instead of ...