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“I think they have a point,” I replied. “I think I’ve already done all I can do for the Legion, and now I’m just cleaning up sewers. I could do so much more with you and your parents and Sierra. We could rebuild the Immortals. Sure, the Guardians are still out there, but there will always be someone out there. And like you said, Sierra deserves to have a happy, normal life.”
“But are you sure you could leave all this?” Nero waved toward the house I’d grown up in. “Could you leave this family behind?”
“They can still visit us,” I said. “Tessa can travel between realms. So can you, Nero, which means we can visit them here too.”
He took my hands. “It’s not the same as being here.”
“I know,” I sighed. “Well, what do you want?”
“I want you to be happy and safe. Since the day I met you, that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“But what do you think we should do?”
“I think we should help your sister,” he replied. “Once that’s sorted, we’ll worry about what comes next.”
I threw myself at Nero.
He caught me, chuckling, “What’s that for?”
“I’m just so glad I met you, Nero.”
“I feel the same way.” He squeezed me tightly against him.
Then we went back into the house.
Harker was waiting for us there. “I’ve found something. Stash sent me the battle reports from the attack on the gods’ hall.” He waved the phone in his hand.
“Something that will help Bella?” I asked.
“Perhaps. Stash believes Zarion wasn’t simply a random battle casualty. He thinks Zarion was Bella’s primary target. After reviewing the video footage of the attack, it became clear Bella took out every soldier between her and Zarion, then went straight for him.”
“Because he has a weapon that can kill a demon,” I said.
Nero shook his head. “I’m not so sure Ava knows about that. If she did, she would have made Bella capture Zarion, not kill him. So she could force him to deactivate the weapon.”
“Unless Ava didn’t know Zarion had already deployed the weapon,” I pointed out.
“She would still want to capture him. Ava is too smart to lash out in anger and kill Zarion because he has a weapon that can kill demons,” said Nero. “She’d want to figure out everything about that weapon, and to do that, she’d need to interrogate him.”
“Ok, so how does knowing any of this help us cure Bella?” I asked.
“If we know what Ava wants, we might be able to trade it for the cure to Bella’s curse.” Harker sounded very eager.
So I had to ask, “You want us to find this demon-killing weapon and hand it over to Ava?”
“I want to do whatever it takes to save Bella,” he said stubbornly.
“And you think I don’t?” I sucked in a frustrated breath. “But we can’t hand something with that kind of power over to Ava. She will use it against everyone on the demons’ council. There’s no way she’s not still mad at them for kicking her out.”
Harker narrowed his eyes at me. “And? What do we care if a demon kills a bunch of other demons?”
“We care because we need those demons to fight the Guardians,” I said patiently.
I understood Harker’s desperation. I shared it. But we couldn’t do what he was suggesting.
“No one has seen the Guardians for three whole years, Leda. And we might not be seeing them for many more years to come,” Harker countered. “The Guardians are a later problem. Curing Bella’s curse, that’s a now problem.”
Harker wasn’t thinking like an angel right now. He wasn’t thinking like a soldier in the gods’ army. He was thinking like a man who couldn’t bear to see the woman he loved suffer.
