The Doorway to Dusk was halfway between two Frontier towns, Purgatory and Infernal. The towns had such cheerful names out here. Calli, Bella, and I rode in Jace’s truck all the way to Infernal—together with Jace’s team, the captured mercenaries, and the rescued kidnap victims. The truck hadn’t been designed to hold that many people, and Jace’s soldiers didn’t look pleased about all the elbows poking into their sides. I tried to cheer them up by singing a road song, but somehow that didn’t help at all. Some people just wanted to be grumpy.

We weren’t even attacked by monsters during the drive. They came close a few times, but all it took was a warning shot from the massive cannon on the top of the truck to convince the beasts that we weren’t an easy meal.

At Infernal, we caught the train to Chicago. My family came along. They weren’t allowed in the Legion cars. I was burning to ask Calli why she’d shot the fire elemental I’d been questioning, but I hadn’t had the chance. During the drive, there had been Legion soldiers all around us, and now she and Bella were in a different part of the train, surrounded by civilians. This was something I had to do when we were alone.

I stepped inside the train car where Jace’s men were guarding the prisoners. The soldiers watched me in stony silence as I passed through their car to the one behind it. There I found Jace alone, writing some reports.

I approached cautiously. I would have to be careful about what I said and how much I gave away. Jace was my friend, but he was also my superior now and very ambitious. I didn’t completely trust him—and I definitely didn’t trust his father.

Jace looked up. “Leda.”

“You sure have a dour group of soldiers.”

“Not everyone is as exciting as you are.”

I wasn’t sure whether he meant that as a compliment or a rebuke. From the look on his face, he wasn’t so sure himself.

“What do you know about the kidnappings?” I asked him.

“What do you know?”

Nice trick. He wanted me to give up what I knew first. But two could play at that game.

“In other words, you know nothing,” I said.

Jace stiffened. “You have to know that the details of my mission are classified.”

“And you have to know that I could just ask Nero what you’re up to.” Nero had the highest clearance in the Legion outside of Nyx.

Annoyance flashed in Jace’s eyes. I had him.

“There’s no need to bother General Windstriker,” Jace told me. “The deserter is named Balin Davenport, a former major in the Legion of Angels. He is trading in people, young ladies mostly. He sells them to vampires as slaves.”

“Why young people?”

“People between the ages of seventeen and twenty are the most susceptible to being changed over into vampires, both physically and psychologically.”

In other words, they were easily brainwashed. Children would be the easiest to brainwash, except children under sixteen didn’t turn easily. Their bodies could not generally absorb vampiric magic.

“So the vampires aren’t looking for dinner,” I said. “They’re looking for new recruits into their ranks.”

“It would seem so.”

“What do you know about Balin Davenport?” I asked him.

“Davenport was one of the first traitors the Legion of Angels had. He was a contemporary of my grandfather. Then one day he just disappeared without a trace. The Legion thought he was dead. It wasn’t until they encountered his mercenary band years later that they realized he’d deserted. He’s been running mercenary operations ever since.”

“He’s evaded capture for centuries?”

“Yes.”

Jace didn’t sound happy about it. Davenport was a black mark on the Legion name. He was out there, causing trouble, flaunting his disobedience of the gods’ laws. He was a real hit to the Legion’s pride. That was why Colonel Fireswift had sent his son to hunt him down. If Jace failed, everyone would blame his inexperience. If he succeeded, it would pave the way for him to become an angel. It was precisely the sort of plan Colonel Fireswift would come up with.

“Davenport isn’t working alone,” I said.

“No, he’s working with a slave trader.”

“Arius Hardwicke.”

Jace’s eyes narrowed. “You know a lot.”

“I talked to one of Davenport’s men. He told me.”

“He told you all of this?”

“Of course. I’m a likable kind of gal.” I smiled.

“Then how did the man you were questioning end up with a bullet in his head?”

My smile faded. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I really needed to speak to Calli. What had gotten into her? I knew she’d killed people before, back in her days working for the League, but I’d never seen her shoot an unarmed man in the head.

Jace gave me a hard look. “What else did the mercenary tell you?”

“That they brought some of their kidnap victims to Hardwicke’s base at Crow’s Crown. We need to go there,” I told him.

“We?”

“Yes, we. As we agreed.”

“I never agreed to let you in on this mission. I said I would listen to your report. And give you a lift to Chicago because you managed to blow up your ride. Again.”

I gave my hand a dismissive wave. “Technically, it was a rogue soldier who blew it up.

“If it hadn’t been a rogue soldier, it would have been monsters or mercenaries or vampires.”

“It’s not my fault everyone’s always trying to kill me,” I said solemnly.

The corner of Jace’s mouth twitched. “And just whose fault is it then?”

I didn’t answer that.

“Tell me everything you know, and I promise I’ll keep you up to date on the mission,” he said.

“Not good enough. I’m coming with you. I’m going to see those kidnapped teenagers returned to their homes.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Now that’s just the excuse of a quitter,” I told him. “Anything is possible if you just keep at it.”

“Leda, you don’t under—”

“Why don’t you want me on this mission?” I demanded.

Was he so afraid that I’d try to steal his thunder? I didn’t care about any of that. I just wanted to rescue my sisters and the other teenagers. He could have all the credit if he wanted.

“I don’t want you on this mission because it’s too personal for you,” he said.

“What?”

“I spoke to the victims we rescued. One of them told me your little sisters were among the people still missing.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Your priorities are wrong. Our goal is the capture of Balin Davenport. We have to stop him now. He isn’t just a threat to the gods’ order; he is a threat to our very way of life.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. People were missing—young, scared, innocent people—and Jace was only concerned about bagging a deserter. He sounded just like his father.

“No, your priorities are wrong,” I told him. “You should worry less about protecting the Legion’s reputation and more about protecting the people of this Earth.”

“This is about both. Before Davenport got involved, Hardwicke’s hired guns weren’t nearly as successful at kidnapping teenagers along the Frontier. Capturing the deserter means dealing the whole operation a mighty blow.”

“I don’t want to deal the operation a mighty blow. I want to blow it to smithereens. We’re talking about human slavery here, Jace. That’s not just against the gods’ laws; it’s wrong. On every level.”

“And we’ll take care of it,” he said calmly. “First, we go after Davenport. Then we’ll deal with Hardwicke. You need to have a little patience.”

“Patience is for when you accidentally burn all your hair off and you have to wait for it to grow back. It’s not for times like these,” I shot back. “Davenport and Hardwicke are part of the same problem, and they’re hiding in the same place. We go in together. You go after Davenport and his mercenaries, I go for Hardwicke and free his prisoners. Everyone gets what they want.”

“The Legion of Angels isn’t a store where you get to pick out the mission you want, Leda,” he said gently. “But I’ll see what I can do about putting you on the mission.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“We’ll have to talk to my father,” he warned me.

“Whatever it takes.”

Jace’s father Colonel Fireswift was an angel, and pretty much my least favorite person on Earth. I wasn’t looking forward to that meeting. Encounters with that angel never ended well. He’d done a lot of abhorrent things, including putting up soldiers for promotion that he knew full well would not survive the ceremony. That was his way of weeding out the weak in the Legion of Angels.

But if talking to Colonel Fireswift was my ticket to saving my sisters, then I’d do it a thousand times over. Sure, I could have gone off on my own, but if I really wanted to rescue all the kidnapped teenagers from a slave lord’s fortress, I needed the Legion’s resources.