16

Nero drew his sword, flames erupting across the blade. He pointed it at his former best friend.

“Nice to see you too, Nero.” Harker dipped his chin to me. “And you, Pandora,” he added with a smile on his lips.

“How did you get out?” Nero demanded. The flames were burning so hot that the room’s drizzling rain was turning to steam.

Harker’s gaze shifted from me to Nero. “Leda didn’t tell you? She called the First Angel and asked for me.”

The look of betrayal on Nero’s face nearly broke my heart. Nero quickly recovered his hard shell, but I knew it was still there, buried beneath centuries of training. That was the thing about the hard choices we made for the greater good. They were often horribly dissatisfying.

“We don’t know where Colonel Starborn is,” I told Nero. “She is beyond our reach. We have no connection to her, no way to find her.” I looked at Harker. “But he does.”

“The connection between mentor and student,” said Nero.

That’s what the voice had shown me in the Fire Mountains—that Harker was Colonel Starborn’s protege, the person she’d trained to know everything she did.

“Harker is the person on Earth she has the strongest connection to,” I said. “I hoped he could help us find her.”

“I can,” Harker assured me. “Odd that Nero didn’t think of it.”

“I thought of it. And decided it wasn’t worth the risk of letting you out,” Nero said, his voice dangerously low.

Harker met his cold stare without a hint of fear in his eyes. “It seems Nyx doesn’t share your feelings. And neither does Leda.”

Nero’s face was impassive. Oh, no. Harker was not going to put me into the middle of their quarrel.

“We need Harker. Trust me when I say he’s a last resort,” I told them both.

Harker’s smile never faded. “Of course I am.”

The look in Nero’s eyes put the lava pools of the Fire Mountains to shame.

“An angel is being tortured by dark angels. One of our own, Nero. Despite everything that has passed between us recently, we must work together for Leila’s sake.” Harker held out his hand to Nero.

“Very well. For her sake,” Nero agreed, but he didn’t shake his hand.

“We were friends once, Nero. Like brothers.”

“No longer. Not after what you did.”

“You are so unforgiving.”

“Some things cannot be forgiven,” Nero declared.

“Guys, we need to work together,” I said. “Colonel Starborn is in pain, probably being tortured for secrets. Or they’re trying to turn her. Nero, we have to get her out. If they turn her, if they make her dark, there’s no going back. And if they don’t turn her, she’ll be broken, worse than dead. That’s why I asked Nyx to call in Harker.”

Gold flashed in his eyes. “You went behind my back.”

“I knew you wouldn’t agree to this, but it had to be done.”

A low grunt buzzed deep inside his throat. “Not long ago, you shouted at me for doing exactly the same thing. You might not be an angel, Leda, but you think just like one.”

My mouth dropped in outrage. I was completely ready to argue with him—but then I stopped. He was right. I was acting just like an angel.

No, this was different. This was about saving a life. Saving Colonel Starborn from death and suffering. It wasn’t the same as what Nero had done.

Or was it? Under the angels’ rules, if I was considered Colonel Fireswift’s property, Nero couldn’t even protect me anymore. He wouldn’t have the right. I would be Colonel Fireswift’s to protect. Or to harm. And he would harm me. I knew Colonel Fireswift, knew his cruelty, how he treated his children. He’d kill me to be rid of me if he could. Knowing that, could I really say that what Nero had done was any different than what I’d done?

These thoughts made me dizzy. There was no time for that now. I had to worry about saving Colonel Starborn. These moral conundrums, these philosophical debates, would have to wait for later.

“You did the right thing,” Harker told me. “The Legion cannot afford to lose another angel to the demons. We’ve lost too many already. Nyx has ordered us to set out immediately. I can sense Leila, but our connection is growing weaker. They’re breaking her.”

Nero’s face went cold. He was bottling his emotions to deal with the matter at hand.

“What happened? How did they get her?” Harker asked us.

I shared my visions of Colonel Starborn’s capture.

“She connected to you?” He looked surprised.

“Yes.” I didn’t tell him about the voice who’d spoken to me. “But I can’t hear her anymore. She’s gone.”

“She is on the wrong side of the wall. The barrier blocks most magic from passing. Our connection runs deeper than that, but it won’t last long.”

“Where is she?”

“The Sea of Ice,” Harker replied. “You said the dark angels invaded her sleep, controlling her dreams?”

“Yes.”

“They brought her through a dream dimension to move her beyond the wall’s protection,” he realized. “A loophole. I never thought of that.”

“We can discuss magic deviations later. It’s time to bring Leila home,” Nero declared.

Harker nodded. On that, they were obviously in clear agreement.

* * *

The road to the Sea of Ice brought us through the Wetlands. The Elemental Expanse’s water magic lands were pretty much what you’d expect: warm, wet, and marshy. A small rainforest hugged the banks of the great river that bordered the road.

But with every passing minute, the air grew colder. Warm marshes gave way to snowy fields. Snowflakes fluttered down like crystals falling from the heavens, light and delicate. They jingled like sleigh bells as they twirled in the breeze. Far down the road, a bright blue sky shone behind snowy mountain peaks.

“So are you two a couple now?” Harker asked, breaking the silence that had reigned in the truck since we’d left the base an hour ago.

When Nero didn’t answer, Harker looked at me. I didn’t answer either. What was I supposed to say? It was complicated.

“I see,” Harker said. “Well, my offer still stands, Leda.”

He was hitting on me? Now? Sure, he was a nice guy. And loads of fun. Well, up until the part where he’d betrayed me. Harker’s first priority would always be to his career—and to the god he served. He was a champion of light, a pious warrior. Collateral damage was fine with him, expected even. But none of that even mattered because Nero was the only one I wanted.

“I’m sorry, Harker,” I said. “I don’t date people who try to kill me.”

He frowned. “You would have survived the Nectar.”

He was still saying that? Surely, he did not believe I could have survived a dose of pure Nectar? He was lying to himself. Maybe that helped him live with what he’d done.

“You survived the Venom,” he said.

I blinked at him in surprise.

He shrugged. “I hear things.”

“You hear a lot of things for a man in prison.”

He looked fit, good. He didn’t have that haggard look of suffering, torture, or being in a Legion prison for months. I had to wonder if he’d even had a visit from the Interrogators. Nyx had admitted to me that she didn’t have anything substantial against him. All she had was Harker’s act of killing someone the Legion wanted to interrogate—and her suspicion that he was up to something.

Nero and I couldn’t tell the First Angel the truth about what had happened, that Harker had tried to get me to drink pure Nectar. If we did, then the Legion would find out about my brother—and that we were trying to keep Zane away from them. What we were doing, keeping a powerful telepath hidden from the Legion, would be considered treason.

I suspected Harker’s prison stay was more like a vacation than an incarceration. He’d probably spent his days lying around reading books and working out in expensive sports facilities. The biggest punishment for him was that he wanted to be out here, growing his magic, furthering his agenda. Instead, he’d spent nearly half a year tied up in all the red tape Nyx could find.

“What can I say? I get a lot of visitors,” Harker said with an easy shrug.

“I heard you’ve had some godly visitors.”

My words shocked him to silence for a few moments, but he quickly recovered. “You’re trying to trick me into giving away something.”

I shot him my most innocent smile. “I would never do such a devious thing.”

“You absolutely would do it. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re more innocent or wicked.”

“Both,” I told him.

He laughed. “Yeah. I think you might be right about that.”

Nero had his eyes on the road, but I had no doubt he was watching our exchange. Harker was fun. It would have been a blast to have him as a buddy like Nerissa or Ivy. But the look Nero shot me was a reminder that I had to be careful with Harker, just as I had to be careful with Jace. Nero was my reality check, the counter to my habit of trying to save people from themselves. I wanted to see only the best in Harker—the good, the fun—but I should not forget that he served a god. And that god was trying to find Zane so he could force my brother into his service. The question of the day was whether the god had cut Harker loose when he’d failed to manipulate me into drinking the pure Nectar.

“We’re coming up on the wall,” Nero announced as he drove us toward the wall.

The soldiers standing up there rushed to open the gates, and we entered a vast tundra. Everything was white as far as the eye could see. The sunlight reflected off the tiny crystals of the sleek, white sheet of ice that covered the lands. This frozen place shouldn’t have been able to exist so close to a desert and a mountain range of boiling volcanoes, but I’d given up questioning magic. After all, I’d recently experienced scorching heat in the dead of winter. Magic changed things. It made so many horrible, splendid things possible.

The truck shook a little as the wheels transformed into sled runners. We slid across the icy expanse, the soft scratch of ice whistling beneath us, carrying us along. There was a quiet peacefulness to this place.

But with every mile we ventured deeper into the Sea of Ice, I felt colder. An icy chill had taken root inside of me. It wasn’t refreshing like the cool rush of winter tickling my cheeks. Dread, malice, pain, desire. The magic was calling out to me, whispering sweet temptations into my ears. It was like an ice cream sundae with lots of chocolate syrup. You knew it was bad for you, but you wanted it anyway.

Snowflakes fell softly, as cold and cruel as they were beautiful. As they turned, flipping between dark and light magic, they pulsed like stars in the night sky.

“It’s coming from that mountain.” Nero’s voice was eerily quiet, hardly louder than the whistle of ice beneath our truck’s runners.

I had to squint my eyes to make out the form of the white mountain camouflaged against the winter tundra. We were approaching fast.

“There’s an opening,” Harker said.

He was right. The hole in the mountain face wasn’t large. There wasn’t enough space for us to drive the truck through it, but it was big enough for us to enter by foot. Nero parked beside the mountain.

“I can feel Leila. She’s close,” Harker whispered as we walked through the opening.

A soft gasp escaped my mouth at the sight of the crystal cave inside the mountain. A light as bright as a thousand fire diamonds shone high above, bouncing off the icicles that hung from the ceiling like an enormous chandelier. That magical light sparkled off the smooth, purple walls and floors. A soft, sweet melody jingled in the distance.

A gate of stone slammed down, blocking the entrance. Soldiers popped out of the floor all around us, brandishing swords and guns. Hell’s army had us completely surrounded.