“Your family needs to stay out of our way. And out of Legion business,” he declared.
He was certainly saying all the right things, everything the Legion told him he was supposed to say. Jace lived and breathed the Legion of Angels. For a Legion brat, the offspring of an angel, these rules gave meaning and purpose to their lives. They took comfort in knowing these boundaries were there. Rather than a noose to hang themselves on, they saw the Legion rules as a safety net that would catch them if they fell.
I knew I shouldn’t have been mad at Jace for doing his job, but some part of me was upset he was sticking to rules that put the Legion’s wishes over saving innocent lives. I tried to swallow that side of myself, that angry voice screaming to get out and tear down the artificial order, to topple those ivory towers and split the marble-paved roads of this savage civilization.
I shook myself free of those thoughts. What was all that? What was that burning need to destroy and rebuild the world in my own image? It certainly wasn’t me. Or at least it was not who I wanted to be. The stress must have been getting to me. I was just frustrated that I couldn’t do more to save my sisters because there were all these barriers to work around and rules tying me up.
I pushed those destructive thoughts from my head and swallowed my frustration. Working with Jace, using the Legion’s resources, was still my best bet to save my sisters. I tuned back into the conversation.
“There’s a snowstorm raging all across the Field of Tears,” Jace was saying.
That’s what the monsters’ magic had done to the world. It had thrown the weather so completely out of whack that we regularly had impossibilities like snow in summer and hurricanes in the desert.
“As soon as the storm clears, we’ll head out across the Field of Tears to Crow’s Crown,” Jace continued.
He instructed his team to load up the truck so we’d be ready to drive out as soon as the storm on the plains died down, then he dismissed them.
What’s your status? I texted Bella as the four soldiers went off in a very orderly way.
Calli is looking at guns, Bella replied.
That would take awhile. Calli shopped for guns like other women shopped for lingerie.
I’ve restocked on potion ingredients, Bella added. I’ve added more things that blow up. Just for you.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? On the other hand, well, I did like things that went boom.
Get some of those fireworks ones like you bought me for my birthday, I told her.
Magic Cocktails.
Yep, those are the ones. They’re great, I typed back.
How long did it take you to go through them all?
About five minutes.
Silence.
See it this way, Bella. I’ve never taken out that many monsters so quickly. I just tossed the Magic Cocktails and then all the beasties blew up. It was rather epic.
The silence stretched on.
Bella?
I’m buying enough ingredients to make another ten Magic Cocktails, she wrote back. That brings us up to twenty altogether.
Will that be enough?
Of course, she replied. No one could possibly need more than that.
Pause.
Bella?
Stand by, she wrote back.
I tapped my fingers against my phone.
Calli reminded me of who we’re talking about, Bella added. So we got enough supplies for me to make you thirty Magic Cocktails. That’s the most I can carry.
I’ll try not to blow up any of us, I promised.
I’ve got a potion for that.
A cure for being blown up?
Yes, it’s still in the early stages. Right now, it can regrow as much as a hand.
Well, let’s hope we won’t need it, I typed. The team is on standby right now. We have to wait until the snowstorm over the Field of Tears clears. I’ll let you know when we head out.
Tucking my phone into my hoodie’s pocket, I looked at Jace. We were alone in the room.
“I told you your family cannot be a part of this mission,” he said calmly, confident in the cloak of his authority.
“But that doesn’t mean they can’t go to Crow’s Crown and try to free the kidnapped victims themselves.”
“I could declare Crow’s Crown off limits to civilians.”
“But you won’t,” I told him. “Because despite what you tell your father, you actually don’t aspire to be an asshole.”
He watched me in silence, mulling over my words. Finally, he said, “You should be careful, Leda. Mixing your personal and professional lives could get us all killed.”
“My family was tracking criminals across the plains of monsters long before you joined the Legion, Jace. The plains are a rough and dirty place, not orderly, not civilized. My family and I are right at home there. Just as your father proclaims, as your soldiers all believe, I am fundamentally a savage at my core.”
Jace winced at the statement, of the accusatory tone in my voice and the fire burning in my eyes. Even as outrage gripped me, I tried to calm myself, to remember that Jace was my friend and that he was just trying to do his job. He was living in conflict between two sides: personal friendships and professional aspirations. It must have been really hard for him to find a balance.
“My family won’t get in the way,” I said, softening my tone. I set my hand on his shoulder. “We are a powerful force together, united, in sync. We might just make the difference between success and failure in this mission.”
“They are compromising your priorities. If it’s a choice between saving your sisters and catching the deserter, which one would you choose?”
Then, looking like he knew the answer all too well, Jace left the room—and left me with those thoughts.
The thing was, he was completely right. I’d choose saving my sisters over capturing Davenport in a heartbeat. I didn’t even need to think about it. Did that make me a bad soldier? Probably. But I would think of a way to do both, to rescue my sisters and capture the deserter. I would make it work. Somehow.
With those thoughts buzzing around in my head, I headed for the gym. I needed to clear my mind, to take solace in my training, to work so hard that I didn’t have enough energy left to worry.
In the gym, I went to the panel on the wall and skimmed through the training modes until I found the telekinetic challenges. Through it all, through all the conspiracies and my personal soap operas, I had to prepare for the next level, to train my telekinetic resistance so that I might gain the gods’ gift of Psychic’s Spell. Some elusive something was standing in my way, blocking my ability to access this branch of magic. I didn’t know what it was, but I was determined to power through it. As Nero had said earlier, if you hit a wall hard enough for long enough, eventually your persistence would win out and you’d break through. He’d been talking about monsters, but that strategy worked pretty well with most things.
As I selected the obstacle course from the illustrated menu, I wondered if it was just all in my head. Was it only my own mind standing in my way? Or had I reached the end of the line, the end of my magical potential? Had it been arrogant of me to think that I would just simply rise to the top? Most Legion soldiers never became angels. Not by a long shot.
But even if I might be doomed to fail, I had to try. I was not a quitter, especially not after I’d come so far. I hit the button for Telekinetic Course 004, and the machines hummed to life, building up the challenges before my eyes.