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Their nets weren’t nearly full enough to call this expedition a success. The green pins would still sit in the bowls, waiting to join the others on his war map. Whatever the case, one thing was for sure. The fighting had stopped. This could be his only opportunity to use the card he’d been holding up his sleeve for the past decade.
“Lower altitude,” he bellowed.
The captain repeated his directive and walked down the deck, ensuring the aviation crew had heard. They scurried about the decks, moving into positions and adjusting the balloon’s engines and hot air. Nero’s gaze landed on his daughter, his only companion from the old world. She was the shark he turned into a pigeon. She appeared older than him now, more aged. Since his last session extracting her mana, wrinkles gathered around her eyes. White, wiry strands streaked her dark hair, knotted at her nape. She looked like a sad old matron.
There was a time he thought he cared enough to keep her pain at a minimum for these extractions and trips in and out of the garden, adjusting her connection to the Well. But then she’d stopped feeling pain like his silver-haired halfling ward. And he’d stopped caring.
For a while, he trained her and taught her how to have a mind as sharp as his. He thought if there were two of him against the world, he could achieve greatness in half the time. But then she’d beat him at a game of chess, and it reminded him so much of his twin. She’d turnedhiminto a pigeon and laughed like his twin sister used to. Like beating him was somehow hilarious.
So Nero took everything from her.
His breathing mask hid the slow smile spreading across his lips as Aurora kneeled to check on the halfling. She was so caught up with this little mutant’s health she didn’t even realize their time was almost up.
The airship lowered, Nero’s ears popped, and the air became warmer and breathable. He pulled his apparatus off and then inhaled the fresh predawn air.Almost time. He checked his wrist, where a new portal device was attached. The engineer who replaced the Tinker had built on her designs, and Nero couldn’t say he was disappointed. He’d even wondered if the Tinker was holding back her best ideas.
No matter what happened next, Nero would escape to safety. A few hand-picked others across their airship fleet had the device, too. But not his daughter and not the halfling.
He looked over the gunwale at the approaching ground.This is it.He never thought he could still feel excitement, but his bones vibrated with anticipation. He’d spent the better part of the past decade teaching the halfling how to use her gift and manipulate the dead. He’d been locked up in that insufferable tower for so long, but soon he would be the leader of everything.
Then, the real fun would start.
The halfling gasped from the deck, breathing in great gulps. The whites of her eyes showed. Her skin blushed as it filled with color again. She looked like a junkie who’d just taken a hit.
He was no fool. He knew she remained loyal to her kind, but there was a reason he’d allowed her talks with her parents to continue, just as he’d allowed her friendships while in Crystal City and given her the luxury of a caretaker in Aurora.
“Ready the pilot ladder,” he barked.
The captain stepped forward, his breathing apparatus gone. “Sir? I thought we weren’t sending them down. It’s too dangerous with that many soldiers still alive.”
Nero counted to three in his mind and willed his patience to return.
“The closer she is to the corpses,” he explained through gritted teeth, “the more power she holds over them.” Nero straightened the young man’s collar and adjusted the gold military epaulets declaring his high rank. “You’ll be going with her. Along with a team of Reapers, of course.”
The captain’s confused gaze darted to his halfling betrothed and then back to Nero. He wasn’t battle-ready, and he knew it. But he couldn’t very well say no to Nero. It made him look unworthy of being her betrothed.
“Don’t worry,” Nero said with a smile. “We’ll leave the ladder down.”
His smile died when he returned to the spyglass. The sun had lightened the sky enough for him to see why the fighting had stopped. He was close enough to see the face of the Unseelie Queen, and when she looked up at the sound of the airship engines, ice trickled into his veins.
The surrogate… but how? And the woman at her feet was the second mother… but with wings and white hair. They were meant to be expendable—faces he dealt with for a decade while pretending to be the father and donor they needed. Of course, they knew nothing about his real life with the Cartel, and he was frequently away on business trips. It had been so long since Nero had seen their faces.
Nero slid the spyglass to others on the ground and choked. The blond Guardian looked like…Jace. And then the woman in his arms was Nova, Nero’s twin. Blue, glowing marks on their arms matched. Seething bitterness punched Nero’s gut. They’d found a way to join forces against him, and their magic source had blessed them.
The horizon shifted, and he had to clutch the gunwale to stop from tumbling over. He stepped away from the view of the ground. He didn’t think they’d seen him, but what kind of madness was this? First, Clarke had awoken in this time, and now them? And… the mothers appeared aged. But they were definitely fae. How?
His mind raced with explanations, trying to defuse his paranoia. Could it be they’d all been alive since the Fallout? It was possible. He and Aurora had manufactured their frozen sleep through the predictions of one of his psychics. That woman was dead now. She made too many demands, so Nero killed her after he’d learned Clarke had arisen. A mistake. How narrow-minded of him to think Clarke had been given to him by fate…
His gaze slid to the halfling, who’d strangely started panting like a wolf. She snarled at something unseen over the bow. It was as though she expected the air to jump up and attack her.
Willow was Clarke’s daughter, so perhaps fate had given Nero a gift after all. Maybe seeing these faces from his past wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe this could still be salvaged.
Willow’s yellow-eyed gaze snapped to Nero. Something dark and twisted lurked behind her eyes as the wind lifted her long, silver hair, revealing her pointed fae ears flattened with aggression. Her lip curled, flashing her dainty wolfish canines.
This feral side of her was such a shame. The girl had grown into a powerful, exotic beauty. He’d even considered taking her as his wife. But then Nero’s physician reported she’d gone into heat, like a bitch.Disgusting. If she refused to do his bidding, he had enough mana trapped in his body to compel her. If that failed, he planned to put her down anyway.
The three Reapers he’d put on standby stood two yards away, their mechanical rifles ready.
“Time to raise our army, my dear,” he said, voice steady. “Kill them all. But bring the woman with glowing blue freckles to me. Alive.”
