“He fell in love with her and gave her the potion to make her feel the same way?” I suggested.
“His aims appear more calculated.”
“Well, say he captured Eva to gain control over Storm Castle. But then he fell in love with her. So he gave her the potion to make her love him back. And loving him meant she would help him win Storm Castle. Two birds, one stone. Just like an angel.”
Damiel smiled darkly. “You will be throwing stones yourself before you know it, Cadence.”
He was probably right. After all, I was an angel now too. And the daughter of an archangel. I guess you could say angel logic was in my blood.
“We can sort out Darkstorm’s motivations later,” Damiel decided. “If we can free Major Doren’s mind, that will significantly increase our chances of making it out of here alive.”
“There’s a remedy that can reverse the effects of a love potion.”
“Without our powers, we can’t mix potions; we can’t infuse magic into them,” he reminded me.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I have a stash of prepared potions. Darkstorm’s guards didn’t find them when they took our weapons. One of them is a powerful mind-cleanser. It should reverse the effects of the love potion.”
“Should?” Damiel repeated. “Sound strategies are not built around the word ‘should’, Cadence.”
“Well, right now, ‘should’ is the best that I’ve got.”
He sighed. “It will have to do.” His hand closing around my hip, he leaned in closer. “Major Doren is heading our way.” His nose brushed against mine. “Put the remedy in her glass.”
My gaze flickered to Eva. She was walking toward us, a graceful bounce to her step, not spilling a single drop of the red wine in her glass.
I pressed my forehead against Damiel’s. “The guards are watching closely,” I muttered against his lips. “I’ll need a distraction.”
“You shall have one. Go free your friend,” he said, his teeth nipping gently at my lower lip as he pulled away to visit the buffet table.
The guards on the upper level watched him, their eyes narrowing with suspicion as he set his hand down on the table. Beastman, who’d just emerged from the airship, changed direction, making a beeline straight for him.
“Love is in the air,” Eva said with a dreamy sigh.
“I suppose.”
“Not so long ago, if you’d told me that I would be marrying Hugo Darkstorm, I’d have laughed in your face. But here we are.” She giggled.
“Here we are.” I felt decidedly less giddy about it than she did.
“Love is so unpredictable.”
Her gaze slid from me, over to Damiel. Beastman was interrogating him; he was sure Damiel had hidden something nefarious on the table. All of the guards were focused on Damiel. Even Eva was looking at him. This was the best chance that I’d get.
I reached down to the band around my thigh, hidden away under my shorts, and pulled out the potion vial that contained the antidote to the madness clouding Eva’s mind. I knew it by feel, by the distinctive pattern of bumps on the glass surface. I palmed the vial and tucked my hands behind my back.
Eva returned her attention to me. “When they told me I was supposed to marry Colonel Dragonsire, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to reunite with my true love.”
“So you knew Darkstorm before?”
“Of course. You don’t think I would marry a man I’d just met, did you?” She giggled. “You must think me very silly, Cadence.”
Not silly. Just under the influence of a very powerful love potion.
“When did you meet Darkstorm?”
“Hugo and I met three years ago.”
Around the time she was captured by the Dark Force. Had she been under the influence of the love potion all that time? I looked back, sifting through my memories, trying to find any sign that she’d changed, that she was under the dark angel’s spell.
But there was nothing I could remember. Had I missed the signs? Could I have stopped all of this from happening? Could I have prevented this calamity? Guilt tugged at my heart.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Eva said, smiling.
I sincerely hoped not. I doubted she’d willingly drink the antidote to the madness ailing her. My hands still behind my back, I subtly flipped the vial hidden inside my palm.
“I know I am going against the Legion by leaving to marry Hugo, but if I’d stayed, I would have been going against my heart,” she said. “Hugo is such a misunderstood man. He’s actually very gentle. Thoughtful. Tender.”
I couldn’t slip Eva the antidote soon enough. Listening to her wax poetic about the virtues of her ‘tender’ mass murderer was just too much to take.
“He took you from Storm Castle?” I asked.
“I told him I would come to him. He couldn’t wait, not when he’d heard I was to marry Colonel Dragonsire. I can’t really blame him, you know. If our places had been reversed, I would have done the same.”
“You would have killed your beloved’s commanding officer?”
“What?” For the first time, the everlasting smile faded from her lips as confusion crinkled her brow.
“Colonel Starfire is dead,” I told her.
“No.” She shook her head. “That can’t be right. There must be some mistake.”
“Why don’t you ask your husband?”
She looked across the room, scanning the crowd for Darkstorm. Beastman and the guards were still focused on Damiel. He was doing a damn good job of looking suspicious. While everyone was looking away from me, I popped the top of the vial and emptied the contents into Eva’s wine glass. Then I chucked the empty vial into a nearby vase.
Eva and Darkstorm were blowing kisses at each other from across the room.
“Love is so freeing, Cadence.” She glanced from me, to Damiel, to me again. “Grab it while you can and never let go. Talk to him.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “Tell him how you feel about him.”
“Damiel and I are working together. That’s all.”
“Damiel?” she repeated, her lips curling up. “Interesting.”
“There’s nothing between us.”
“Please, Cadence. You two are completely into each other. Even if I didn’t know you, I’d have to be blind not to see it.”
I didn’t fail to note the irony that I was getting relationship advice from someone under the influence of a love potion.
“Do it now,” Eva said. “Before it’s too late.” Then she went off to join her new husband.
I glanced toward the buffet table. Damiel’s eyes met mine. Staring into those pools of hard sapphire, I realized my attraction to him couldn’t be explained by our shared peculiar magic. Right now, our magic was silenced, but the draw I felt toward him was as strong as ever. There was definitely something more than magic between us.
No, there is nothing between you, declared the cynic inside me. My inner cynic sounded a lot like my father.
Damiel and I would cure Eva and then we’d all go back to the Legion. Eva would marry Damiel, just as the Legion commanded. The hard cold fist of reality clenched around my heart.