“Will others be able to see through the glamour?” I asked.
“It depends on how strong their magic is. Up close, other angels and high-level Legion soldiers will be able to see through it. From afar, it should fool most people, though. If we keep our distance, our disguises will hold. We should be able to get past them.”
“Our disguises?”
He drew his sword, showing me my reflection. An unfamiliar face stared back at me, a woman with hair as black as obsidian and dark skin as smooth as honey. I puckered up my full, red lips and blew myself a kiss.
“Couldn’t you have made me taller? Or given me bigger boobs?” I teased him.
“Changing larger dimensions is tricky.”
I sighed. “Too bad.” I gazed at my new face in the sword. Even though I knew it was fake, I had a hard time seeing through my own glamour.
“Why can’t I see through it, knowing it’s fake? If this is a mental spell, shouldn’t that knowledge be enough? Why do I have to squint my eyes and concentrate really hard to see through it?”
“Because I am an angel with high-level magic.”
“I thought modesty is a virtue,” I teased.
“Not in angels.”
I snickered.
“Your ability to see through glamours will grow with practice and as you level up your magic. For now, you should just know that not everyone is what they appear. So always make sure someone is who they look like before spilling secrets. Even if you see me, it might not be me.”
“Things were so much simpler when people had only one face.”
“We are have many faces, Leda.”
Colonel Fireswift had at least a dozen—all of them cruel.
We snuck through the city ruins, avoiding Legion teams. Avoiding Colonel Fireswift most of all. Nero said his disguise probably wouldn’t work against him, not even from a distance.
“How long have you know him?” I asked.
“We were in the same initiation group two hundred years ago. We entered the Legion together, both of us Legion brats, both shooting high.”
“So he saw you as his greatest competition?”
“He still does.” Nero pulled me into a building as a patrol passed by. “You need to be careful with him. He didn’t get to be an angel bu being just a dumb brute. He knows how to play the game. He will find your weaknesses and exploit them. And you make that easy. Your enemies can see everything because you put it all out there. They will use it against you, including Fireswift’s son, your friend. Everything you share with him he will use against you when push comes to shove, when it’s a choice between you and himself. I’ve seen it before. His father did the same to me.”
“Jace is not his father, nor does he want to be. And that’s what really matters in the end. I have faith that he will find the right path.”
“You can’t save everyone.”
“No, but I think I know who can be saved.” I smiled at him.
We emerged from the building, continuing toward the entrance to the underground levels.”
“You mean me,” Nero said. “You think I can be saved.”
“From the moment you walked into that back room holding my Legion application, I knew that was an angel who was screaming for someone to kill that bug stuck up his ass.”
“And you figured yourself equal to the job?”
“Of course. I excel at lost causes. You’re already much more agreeable than you used to be. If only you would stop giving me pushups.”
“Pushups build muscle and character,” he said seriously.
“I’m pretty strong, and I think we can both agree I have more than enough character to go around.”
We slowed, growing silent as we crouched down and looked at the piles of rocks that littered the street from here to the entrance into the underground city. Every patch of ground that wasn’t occupied by rocks was occupied by Legion soldiers moving rocks, either by hand or magic. There were too many of them. We’d never be able to sneak in unnoticed, not without a pretty sizable distraction.
The Lost City delivered, as though it had heard my prayer. Wolflike monsters streamed across the ruined city, flooding down the streets, pouring down the building. The Legion soldiers stopped moving rocks and turned to fight the monsters. Even Colonel Fireswift moved off his spot beside the growing hole to attack the swarm of monsters.
With the Legion soldier busy, Nero and I slipped around behind them and jumped unseen into the hole. We ran down streets and tunnels not yet completely cleared of debris. The whole place looked about as stable as tissue paper house, and it might come down at each moment.
We came up on the little house. I touched the pulsing angel mark. Just like in my vision, the wall split to reveal the gateway. Warm streams of magic rippled across my skin, drawing me forward.
Magic slammed into me from behind, hurling me through the opening. I landed in a pool of gold coins. Nero shot over my head and hit the back wall. He jumped up, magic exploding out of him. The telekinetic wave shot toward a hooded figure, but it dissipated before it ever made it there, absorbed by the dome of magic that had blossomed out to protect him. Nero stood frozen, as though he couldn’t believe his eyes, as though he’d never seen anything like it before.
That moment of surprise cost him. The hooded angel’s telekinetic blast was bigger than Nero’s. It hammered into Nero, throwing him against a stone column so hard that the column snapped. The ceiling caved in and collapsed on top of him.
I ran toward the rocky waterfall burying Nero. I could feel him in there, being slowly crushed under the weight. Panic surged in me. I had to get him out.
“Leda,” a cold voice bit at my skin, chilling me to the bone. “I’ve been waiting for you for two hundred years.”
That cold phantom hand of magic closed around my throat, squeezing. Something hard slammed into the side of my head, and the world wen black.
16
Rogue Angel
A woke to a slow, steady drip in my head. Water? Blood? Everything was blurry. I blinked trying to clear my eyes. My whole body hurt, especially my head. Someone hit me hard there. My balance was off, distorted. Sickness churned in my stomach, and I felt cold. My skin shivered against the icy breath of the rocks I was lying on. These thin clothes definitely weren’t suited to the cold darkness of these underground ruins.
I looked around, but my could barely focus behind the throbbing swell of my head injury. Everything looked distorted, like the ground was moving, tipping like on a boat caught in a tempest. Sitting up made me feel like I was going to throw up.
I wasn’t alone. The angel was there, speaking to two men. He was wearing a dark brown leather suit. He wore a sword, a bow, and two guns—which was more than a little overkill, especially considering the magic spells he’d throwing around and his enormous size. His hood was down, revealing a face framed by messy dark hair. The shadow of a beard covered his face, just enough to make him look rugged. I recognized the rogue angel from the picture, the recently fallen angel.