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Bryce asked, “No back door?”
“There is, but we’d have to go down again.”
He could feel her questions bubbling up, and before she could ask any of them he said, “Sandriel’s Second, Pollux, is even worse than she is. When he arrives, avoid him at all costs.”
He couldn’t bring himself to dredge up the list of horrors Pollux had inflicted on innocents.
Bryce clicked her tongue. “Like my path will ever cross theirs if I can help it.”
After that show in the lobby, it might. But Hunt didn’t tell her that Sandriel wasn’t above petty revenge for slights and minor offenses. Didn’t tell her that Sandriel would likely never forget Bryce’s face. Might already be asking Micah who she was.
The doors opened onto a quiet upper level. The halls were dim, hushed, and he led her into a labyrinth of gym equipment. A broad path cut through the gear directly to the wall of windows—and the launch balcony beyond. There was no railing, just an open jut of stone. She balked.
“I’ve never dropped anyone,” he promised.
She gingerly followed him outside. The dry wind whipped at them. Far below, the city street was packed with onlookers and news vans. Above them, angels were flying, some fleeing outright, some circling the five spires of the Comitium to get a glimpse of Sandriel from afar.
Hunt bent, sliding a hand under Bryce’s knees, bracing another on her back, and picked her up. Her scent filled his senses, washing away the last of the memory of that reeking dungeon.
“Thank you,” he said, meeting her stare. “For bailing me out back there.”
She shrugged as best she could in his grip, but winced as he stepped closer to the edge.
“That was fast thinking,” he went on. “Ridiculous on so many levels, but I owe you.”
She slid her arms around his neck, her grip near-strangling. “You helped me out last night. We’re even.”
Hunt didn’t give her a chance to change her mind as he beat his wings in a powerful push and leapt off the edge. She clung to him, tight enough to hurt, and he held her firmly, the duffel strapped across his chest awkwardly banging against his thigh.
“Are you even watching?” he asked over the wind as he sent them sailing hard and fast, flying up, up, up the side of the adjacent skyscraper in the Central Business District.
“Absolutely not,” she said in his ear.
He chuckled as they leveled out, cruising above the reaching pinnacles of the CBD, the Istros a winding sparkle to their right, the mist-shrouded isle of the Bone Quarter looming behind it. To the left, he could just make out the walls of the city, and then the wide-open land beyond the Angels’ Gate. No houses or buildings or roads out there. Nothing but the aerialport. But at the Gate to their right—the Merchants’ Gate in the Meat Market—the broad, pale line of the Western Road shot into the rolling, cypress-dotted hills.
A pleasant, beautiful city—in the midst of pleasant, beautiful countryside.
In Pangera, the cities were little more than pens for the Vanir to trap and feed on the humans—and their children. No wonder the humans had risen up. No wonder they were shredding that territory with their chemical bombs and machines.
A shiver of rage ran down his spine at the thought of those children, and he made himself look toward the city again. The Central Business District was separated from the Old Square by the clear dividing line of Ward Avenue. The sunlight glowed off the white stones of Luna’s Temple—and, as if in a mirror reflection directly across from it, seemed to be absorbed by the black-domed Oracle’s Temple. His destination tomorrow morning.
But Hunt looked beyond the Old Square, to where the green of Five Roses sparkled in the muggy haze. Towering cypresses and palms rose up, along with glittering bursts of magic. In Moonwood, more oak trees—less magic frills. Hunt didn’t bother looking anywhere else. Asphodel Meadows wasn’t much to behold. Yet the Meadows was a luxury development compared to the human districts in Pangera.
“Why’d you want to live in the Old Square?” he asked after several minutes of flying in silence, with only the song of the wind to listen to.
She still wasn’t looking, and he began a gentle descent toward her little section of the Old Square, just a block off the river and a few blocks from the Heart Gate. Even from that distance, he could see it, the clear quartz glinting like an icy spear toward the gray sky.
“It’s the heart of the city,” she said, “why not be there?”
“FiRo is cleaner.”
“And full of Fae peacocks who sneer at half-breeds.” She spat out the term.
“Moonwood?”
“Sabine’s territory?” A harsh laugh, and she pulled back to look at him. Her smattering of freckles crinkled as she scrunched her face. “Honestly, the Old Square is about the only safe place for someone like me. Plus, it’s close to work and I’ve got my pick of restaurants, music halls, and museums. I never need to leave.”
“But you do—you go all over the city on your morning runs. Why a different route so often?”
