“The demon who commands the Dark Force?” I asked.
“Yes,” Eva said. “Darkstorm stole the dagger from her. She wanted it back. She tasked me to do it.”
Damiel’s magic crackled in the air, popping against my skin. “How long have you been Sonja’s pet?”
“I never was.” Eva didn’t look at Damiel. She looked at me. “I let her think I was working for her, but I was stealing the dagger for the Legion.”
“You were stealing it for yourself,” Damiel said in a menacing whisper.
“No.” She ground out the word. “To fight for the Legion.” The words spilled out of her mouth now, fast and hurried. “If I’d had an immortal weapon back when the Dark Force took me, when they brought me to Sonja, she wouldn’t have been able to…do what she did.”
“She tortured you.”
“Of course she tortured me!” Eva snapped at me. “The gods don’t arm us with immortal weapons, Cadence. They wouldn’t want to give us anything that could be used against them, oh no. So they leave us defenseless against the demons. If I hadn’t pretended to break, if Sonja hadn’t bought the whole act, I might still be in her dungeon right now. Or dead.” She shuddered.
“There are so few immortal weapons,” I said. “Of course they don’t just hand them out to everyone in the Legion.”
“Your naive desire to always see the best in everyone is going to get you killed. We are not all like you, Cadence. We can’t all just snap our fingers and get everything we ask for. We’re not all so…perfect.”
Damiel had spoken those words to me in admiration. Eva did not. Her words seethed with jealousy.
“How long have you hated me?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
“As long as I’ve loved you. You’re my best friend, Cadence. And my worst enemy.”
And she was like a sister to me. Like family. That made her betrayal sting that much more.
Magic flashed. I lifted my hand to my face, shielding my eyes. When the blinding light faded, Eva was standing across the hangar. She’d used the immortal dagger to break free of Damiel’s spell.
“You don’t understand,” Eva said as Damiel and I closed in on her. She slashed out, blue flames hissing off her blade.
Damiel evaded the stream of angelfire. Moving like a whip—in and out, so quick that the blue flames couldn’t touch him—he struck at her with the knife he’d pulled from a fallen guard. Blood dripped from Eva’s arms, but she didn’t seem to notice her wounds. She thrust up with her dagger, meeting his strike. The blue flames hopped from her blade to his, drowning the knife in angelfire. Damiel’s hand sprang open. A warped piece of metal hit the ground with a hollow clang, all that remained of Damiel’s knife.
The falling walls buzzed against our telekinetic shield, a reminder that our magic was all that held this building together, all that kept it from collapsing on top of us.
Bodies stirred on the ground, the survivors of the Nectar.
“Get to the airship,” Eva called out to them. “And get it ready to go.”
The pirates moved to obey her commands.
“You wanted them to survive,” I realized.
“Darkstorm was not a popular boss,” said Eva. “He did not share power. When his pirates realized things could be different, they helped me make sure Darkstorm always got his love potion.”
Love potions had to be regularly administered as the effects waned, burnt off by the body. An angel, in particular, had a very fast metabolism. Darkstorm probably had to be drugged every few hours to keep him complacent. It was no wonder his men were all so anxious about the ‘package’. If the love potion wore off, Darkstorm would realize what had happened—including their role in drugging him. And then he’d have killed them all.
“You told the guards there would be Nectar,” I said, working it out. “They helped you set it up. They made sure it was in everyone’s cup. You are creating your own Legion from the remnants of Darkstorm’s army.”
Eva shrugged. “You always were so clever, Cadence.”
“Where did you get the Nectar?” I asked her.
Nectar wasn’t just passed around to anyone who wanted it. The gods kept it locked away.
“The time for questions is over,” Eva declared, cutting a line through the air with her dagger.
A wall of blue flames burst to life. Behind the flames, Eva’s new soldiers hurried into the ship. The windows in the ceiling opened to reveal a lovely midnight-blue sky sparkling with stars.
Damiel and I danced around the blue flames, trying to get to Eva. She slashed out with her weapon, shooting cords of angelfire at us. One of those cords kissed Damiel’s arm. His steps slowed, but he didn’t stop moving toward her.
Eva released another volley. I tackled Damiel to the ground, and the deadly blue flames shot over our heads.
I jumped back to my feet. Damiel tried to do the same—and fell back down.
“Go,” he said. “Get her.”
“That was the fire of an immortal weapon, Damiel. I have to heal you.”
“Later. Right now, you have to stop her. You cannot allow her to get away with an immortal weapon.”
“Damiel, I…”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t scream out, but I could see the pain burning in his eyes.
“I thought you didn’t believe in little white lies.”
He snorted. “I’m not lying. I just have a higher pain tolerance than you do.”
“When I get back, I’m going to heal you. Then I’m going to test your ‘higher pain tolerance’ boast by kicking your ass,” I promised him.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I jumped up, running toward the airship, launching myself over the dying bonfires of blue flames to land in front of Eva. The airship was at my back. I’d cut off Eva’s escape path.
A heavy sigh shook her chest. “I don’t want to fight you, Cadence. But I have to go. I’m on a mission, a mission to find something that will change everything.”
“What mission? What is this something?”
She shook her head. “I can’t trust you with it. After I’ve found it…” Her voice trailed off. “Just stand aside. Let me go.”
“I can’t let you go. You know that. You stole Nectar, the deadliest poison on Earth, which you are using to raise an army. And you stole an immortal weapon.”
“I stole that weapon from a rogue dark angel. The Legion never had the Diamond Tear dagger to begin with,” she argued. “You’re my friend, Cadence. Let me go. Let me be free.”
“Free to kill?” I demanded. “Like the way you killed Colonel Starfire?”
“That was an accident!” she protested. “He wasn’t supposed to be in the tower when I fled the castle.”
“You betrayed the Legion. You betrayed everything we swore to uphold. Everything that ever mattered to us.”
“I only fight people who stand in the way of my freedom.”
“Stop and listen to yourself, Eva. That’s the same tired excuse used by basically every criminal mastermind we ever took down.”
“You don’t understand.”