The night was long and full of heartache—sorrow for those who were gone, fear for those who had not yet returned. The training hall had become my midnight refuge, the sanctuary where I fought insomnia, slowly wearing my body into exhaustion. This was starting to become a habit, and I wasn’t sure it was a good one.

It had been nearly a day, and Nero still wasn’t back. Had he been killed or captured? The urge to go track him down was overwhelming. I had half a mind to run off after him, even as reason spoke to me, telling me I didn’t have a clue where he was. No one did. The last anyone had seen or heard of him, he was chasing the last remaining horde of monsters through the ruins of Memphis.

If only we’d exchanged blood the last time I’d seen him, then I could find him now. Then I wouldn’t be so powerless. I really hated being powerless.

I was training old school tonight. No magic and no flashy barriers. Just obstacles that required raw strength, speed, flexibility, and endurance. I’d gone back to basics, back to the very beginning of my Legion days. The whole point was to hurt my body so hard that I couldn’t feel anything but the pain in my muscles, not the pain eating away at my heart.

It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I could almost hear the deep echo of Nero’s unwavering voice resounding off the gym walls, shouting at me to get off my ass and keep moving. The memory of him hurt more than my abused muscles.

“Leda Pierce,” a voice said as I reached halfway up the wall of spikes.

Surprised, I slipped, cutting my hand on one of the spikes as I tried to catch myself—and failed. I fell off the wall, smacking the ground like a sack of flour.

I glanced up, my eyes meeting those of my unexpected visitor. It was Aleris, the God of Nature, and I’d fallen to the floor right at his feet. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

He looked down at me, a reserved expression on his face. He was dressed in plain beige robes decorated with nature. Flowering vines crisscrossed his chest like a breastplate of armor, and glossy black gauntlets covered his forearms. At first glance, they looked like metal, but they were nothing so common. They were made from thick wooden vines intertwined to form a thin magical armor I bet was as strong as any metal.

“Are you in the habit of falling to your knees before the gods?” he asked me. There was no humor twinkling in his eyes or echoing in his voice. Sarcasm probably wasn’t even in his vocabulary.

I rose to my feet. Rather than replying with something snarky, I said, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Lord Aleris?”

“The other gods are all focused on you right now.” When he spoke with that quiet arrogance of his, his voice was like the wind, soft but projecting far. “They seem worried. I wanted to see what’s gotten them so worked up.”

I took a long, slow drink from my water bottle, wondering at his bluntness. Why would he admit that the gods were worried? Then again, they had every reason to be unsettled right now. The Legion was crumbling to pieces from the inside, its own soldiers coerced to work against the gods’ will.

“There’s a lot going on right now in the Legion and in the greater world,” I said.

Aleris watched me in reflective silence, not giving away anything more. Of course not. After all, he was a god. He was less confrontational than the other gods, but his goal was the same: for me to tell him everything I knew. Well, it was high time we turned the river of knowledge in the other direction.

“And what do you think?” I asked him.

“I am still undecided about you and your place in everything. One thing is for sure, however: you are at the center of all the chaos. Whenever trouble breaks out, you aren’t far away. What I’m still trying to ascertain is whether you are drawn to the chaos, or the chaos to you.”

And then he was gone, just like that. Just like a god.

I was still looking at the spot where Aleris had disappeared when Harker entered the gym. Though his injuries had healed, he still looked as bad as I felt. He was haunted by what he’d seen, the sight of the Venom destroying his comrades from the inside. And like me, he was worried about Nero too.

I managed a small smile. “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

“No.”

I snatched two swords from the rack on the wall and tossed one of them to him. We both needed to get our minds off of our worries.

“So, are you going to ask out Bella again?” I asked him, trying to lighten the mood.

Harker parried my strike. “I don’t know. The last time I asked her, she said it wasn’t a good idea. I have the feeling she doesn’t quite trust me.” He set his sword on fire and swung it toward me.

I countered by casting a frozen sheet of magic across my blade. Fire clashed with ice. The flames went out, the frosty glass shattered into tiny icicles, and we were both back at square one.

“Of course she doesn’t quite trust you. You did try to poison her favorite sister, you know,” I pointed out.

“You’re not ever going to let that go, are you?”

I smirked at him. “Nope.”

I didn’t mean it. Harker had made a mistake. He’d thought he was serving the gods, but Faris had just been manipulating him, using his faith to gain the upper ground over the other gods.

“Your past mistakes don’t matter,” I told him. “What matters is what you’re doing now. And what you will do in the future.”

He moved quickly, sliding under my defenses. He locked my arm in his grip and pulled hard. Pain blossomed in my shoulder as he popped it out of its socket.

I sidestepped his followup attack, cradling my pulsing, aching arm. “Though maybe you should be less…less like an angel,” I said through my teeth. Grimacing, I popped my shoulder back in.

“What do you mean, ‘less like an angel’?”

“Angels have an annoying habit of deciding things for people—and for always knowing what’s best for them.”

I snatched hold of his arm, sinking my magic through it. His hand shifted into a gargantuan tortoise shell that dropped to the ground like an iron ball, taking him down with it. He tried to lift his arm off the floor, but the shell that was his hand did not budge. He shot me an irked look.

“Like feeding Bella your blood,” I said. “Especially when she didn’t know the consequences.”

He pushed against the enormous weight of the shell, his muscles bulging from the strain. “I did that…” He locked his free hand around his trapped wrist and heaved. “… to protect her.” His face was turning red. “… to save her.”

I swung a punch at his head to end our fight. He was glued to the floor, and he still somehow managed to duck to the side. In a world without magic, that would have been impossible. In a world with magic, it was still cheating.

“You know, the ‘I’m just protecting you’ excuse is the same failed logic that got Nero into trouble,” I warned him.

“I don’t get your point. Nero marked you and you threw up a big fuss to make him remove it, but in the end, you are his.”

He evaded my next punch as well. The laws of gravity didn’t even seem to apply to him. His leg swept out, kicking my feet out from under me. My back smacked the floor.

Harker looked down at me. “You didn’t just accept your fate. You embraced it.”

I kicked back up to my feet. “See, that’s the angel talking again. Yes, I’m his, but he’s mine too. Angels and gods think so one-dimensionally. The road to heaven is paved in one-way streets. But for a relationship to work—to really work—it needs to go both ways.”

Harker was silent for a moment, as though considering the idea. “There might be something in that,” he finally said.

I grinned at him. “Don’t be shy to tell me I’m right, Harker. After all, I managed to glue you to the floor.”

He gave his arms a hard heave. The shell launched off the floor, his arms following in a smooth arc. He held the shell over his head for a moment—just to show that he could—then he slammed it down like a hammer. My spell broken, the shell cracked into a thousand tiny pieces, then dissolved to smoke.

I just gaped at him.

“As much as you’d like to make yourself out to be a badass, independent, take-no-shit rebel, you’re one of us, Pandora.”

“One of what?”

“An angel. Not in name but in nature. You make decisions for your family, for your subordinates, and even for your superiors. You couldn’t be more of an angel if you had wings.” Harker’s smile widened as mine faded. “You marked Nero. I can sense it on him—your magic, your scent, your unique magical perfume. It is the mark of an angel, faint but unfading. That is the first mark from a non-angel that I’ve come across. How did you do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps love is more powerful than magic,” I added with a mischievous wink.

Harker laughed. “Who would have guessed that you’re such a romantic.”

“Yeah, you know me. All flowers, sunshine, and lacy petticoats.”

He snorted.

I gave him a sly look. “But we’re not here to discuss my love life. We’re here to discuss yours.”

“I was under the impression that you thought I wasn’t good enough for your sister.”

“No one is good enough for my sister,” I told him. “But she likes you. I can see it in her eyes when she talks about you. I can feel it when you’re around her. And, besides, you did a very brave thing.”

Actually, he’d done two very brave things. One, he was playing double agent, spying on Faris and reporting back to Ronan and Nyx on how the God of Heaven’s Army was plotting against the other gods. And two, he was protecting the secret of Bella’s origin. But I didn’t elaborate. There could have been gods watching.

“And you care about her.”

Harker said nothing.

“It’s not a mortal failing in an angel to care about another person,” I told him.

A dark look crossed Harker’s face. “Nowadays, Leda, it just might be. The Pioneers exploited our weaknesses, our human connections. Legion soldiers betrayed us in order to protect the ones they loved. None of us can afford to have weaknesses, especially not angels.”

“We’ll get the Pioneers, Harker. They won’t use our people again.”

Determination gleamed in his eyes. “Yes, we’ll get the Pioneers. And the next threat. And the next one after that. We will always get them in the end. But what about the people we put at risk in the meantime? What about the people we lose?”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Stop,” I said gently. “You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like this. You can’t isolate yourself from the world.”

“That’s how the Legion wants us to be: isolated, alone, no weaknesses in our armor.”

“And that’s no way to live. Life isn’t clean. It isn’t perfect and orderly and always on schedule. It’s not spotless swords and sterile sheets. It’s unordered lists and dirty laundry. Life is messy and chaotic and, best of all, unpredictable. Our weaknesses, the people we love, our imperfections, not knowing what’s going to happen every second of every day—that’s what makes it all worth living. The Legion believes those soldiers’ loved ones were their weakness. But that’s not true at all. Our enemy is arrogance, the blind assertion that we have no weaknesses, that we are completely apart and cut off from ‘lesser’ humans. Instead of this blind belief that we are infallible, instead of the Legion ignoring that we have connections, they should be protecting those we care about. Because it’s not magic that will win this war and save humanity. It is compassion.”

Harker blinked. “Good speech.”

“Thank you.”

“What they say about opposites attracting has to be true. You must drive Nero insane with all the ‘unordered lists and dirty laundry’.”

“Often, yes,” I laughed.

We didn’t say another word about Nero. We were both worried about him and trying hard not to think about it.

Harker cleared his throat. “Enough slacking off. Show me what you’ve got.”

But before I could plan my attack, he thrust his hands in front of his chest. Telekinetic magic exploded out of his fists. It hit me like an invisible wrecking ball. I caught myself as I began to slip, planting my feet on the ground.

“You’ve been practicing,” Harker declared when the psychic storm had finally dissipated.

“I have too many sleepless nights of training to thank for that. Plus an unexpected visit from the Lord of the Legion.”

“Ronan visited you?”

“Yes. He gave me some tips. And a potion.”

The door to the gym swung open. I turned eagerly toward it, fully expecting to find Nero standing there. My hope fizzled out when I found Colonel Fireswift instead. Jace walked in behind him.

Colonel Fireswift’s face was cold and expressionless again. Whatever brief emotional outburst he’d had, it was over. The vicious, calculating angel had returned, and he had me caught in his crosshairs.

“Come with me, Pierce,” he said. “I’m promoting you and Jace.”

I didn’t harbor any hope that Colonel Fireswift had decided I wasn’t such a dirty street rat after all.

“The anarchists are bleeding the Legion dry,” he said, his eyes burning with cold fire. “They are trying to cut off our power, to weaken us by killing our angels and future angels.” He frowned at me. “I don’t like you, but you’re ready for the next level.” His gaze shifted to Jace. “The Legion needs you both to step up.”

Jace nodded, his face set with determination.

“I know you’re ready, so don’t you dare die.” Colonel Fireswift’s voice was as hard as diamonds. “I forbid it. To die is treason.”

It was so ridiculous to say such a thing—that my death would be an act of treason—but I got what he meant. We were fighting for something big, something beyond our own personal needs. The Legion could be cruel, but we were all that stood between the monsters and the end of humanity. As we’d just seen, even the great Magitech wall could fail the people of Earth. The Legion, however, could not afford to fail them.

Colonel Fireswift led the way to the grand hall. The room was packed. Every Legion soldier in the Chicago office must have been standing here, and yet the hall was as quiet as a tomb. No one spoke; they hardly moved. A promotion ceremony at the Legion of Angels was typically characterized by tuxedos and ballgowns, but no one was dressed up today. They were all in uniform, all standing in perfect lines with nearly identical expressions on their faces. It felt more like a funeral than a promotion.

My gaze shifted from the black silk banners hanging on the walls, to the vases of white roses on the tables. It was a funeral. A funeral for everyone we’d just lost.

Stepping onto a raised platform at the center of the room, Colonel Fireswift began the ceremony. “Traitors have besieged the Legion of Angels. They have defiled our halls, turned their backs on their immortal duty, and killed our comrades. But from the ashes, we will rise stronger than ever before.”

Jace and I stood beside him, the only candidates at this unexpected promotion ceremony. Jace was in uniform, but I was still wearing my sweaty workout suit. No one seemed to care.

Colonel Fireswift recited the usual Legion lines. “We bear witness here today as two of our own challenge themselves once more to take their next step in life, to strengthen themselves and the Legion in preparation for the days to come.”

“For the days to come,” repeated the audience.

“Leda Pierce, step forward.”

Colonel Fireswift’s voice was gruff. He wasn’t nice, but this sure beat his usual disposition. He didn’t make any derisive comments this time. Today, he was all business. This ceremony wasn’t about personal feelings. It was about refilling the void in the Legion’s upper ranks.

I faced him.

“Sip now of the gods’ Nectar,” he said.

He was hiding his pain well, but it was still in there. I actually did feel sorry for him. I couldn’t shake the memory of the agony in his eyes when he’d lost his daughter. It haunted me, the sight of that strong and hard angel breaking down, losing himself to his anguish.

“Consume the magic of their sixth gift. Let it fill you, making you strong for the days to come.”

“For the days to come,” everyone repeated once more.

He set the goblet in my hands. I lifted it to my mouth and drank, not thinking, just doing. I had to trust that I was prepared enough. Much as Colonel Fireswift hated me, he was not trying to weed me out this time. His dislike of me was less important to him right now than his need to see the Legion survive this—and his desire to crush the bigger threat, the Pioneers who’d dealt such a heavy blow to us this day.

The Nectar poured down my throat like a burning river, igniting my magic and awakening my senses. I felt alive again, invigorated. It was as though a weight had lifted from my chest, evaporating my worries. I knew it was just the high of the Nectar, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t realized until now just how long I’d been holding my breath, or how long I’d been buried beneath the burden of things I couldn’t control.

My whole body was buzzing with magic, but I tried to keep my steps steady and straight as I moved aside for Jace. Colonel Fireswift went through the lines again with him, but I hardly saw the two of them. I didn’t hear them at all.

An explosion of applause snapped me out of my daze. I glanced to my side to find Jace standing beside me. The audience was clapping in celebration of our survival.

“The Legion is counting on you both—on all our soldiers, to step up,” Colonel Fireswift declared, his voice filling the room. “You must all train harder than ever before. This isn’t just about your individual survival. It’s about the survival of the Legion. It’s about the future of the Earth.”

His speech continued, but I didn’t hear another word because Nero had just stepped into the room.

His clothes were torn and bloody, but even so, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My heart raced. Rather than not breathing, I was breathing too fast now. I was just so happy to see him, so completely overjoyed that he was alive.

I rushed forward, crossing the room in a few mere steps. I didn’t care about the whispers from the soldiers in the audience. I stopped right in front of him. Thoughts were buzzing around inside my head, unordered and chaotic. There was so much to tell him, and how did I choose to open? By tripping over my own tongue.

“You’re covered in blood.”

“It’s not my own,” he replied, a tormented look in his eyes.

Nero had seen a lot of horror in our world, but this experience had been so horrific, it had rocked his composure. I didn’t know what else to say to him. Words could not express my sorrow for what he’d been through—or my relief at seeing him again.

“I was so worried I’d lost you,” I whispered.

He reached out, his hand softly caressing my cheek.

That did it. I collided with Nero, our bodies crashing together as I kissed him. Into that kiss, I poured my anguish, my relief, my love—everything that had been bottled up since I’d learned what had happened in Memphis.

He kissed me back, and everything else faded away. It was just Nero. At this moment in time, nothing else in the world mattered.