He shoved past Azrael. Or tried. The water took his legs like setting concrete and held him exactly where he stood, and no amount of pulling changed it by an inch.
"Let me go. They're still up there, let me GO—"
Azrael's head turned slightly. Away from James. Toward some direction the dark hadn't offered yet, as if he could hear, from very far away, a blade starting its way down toward a boy's throat.
"With the power of death in your soul," he said, "you should not have died like that."
"I didn't ASK for it!" It tore out of James louder than he meant. "The Tower gave me the class. I picked a box on a screen. I didn't steal anything from you, I don't even know what this power IS—"
"The Tower opened the door." Azrael turned back to him. "It did not create what waited behind it."
James stood in the grip of the water with that sentence going through him.
