I swept my hand toward the road. “After you.”
Damiel led the way into town—no, city. Skyscrapers rose high at the other side of the city, but where we now walked was decidedly more modest. None of the neat brick buildings reached more than a few stories high. They consisted mainly of apartment houses—in addition to a few grocery stores, clothing shops, restaurants, and bars.
“This isn’t what I’d expected to find on the Hive’s world,” I commented.
“No, it is not.” Damiel’s eyes swept the storefronts. “There are no armories. No guns on the building towers. No signs of any weapons at all.”
“And no signs of magic either.” I looked up at the street lamps. “The lights aren’t run by Magitech. I think they’re run by electricity, mundane energy, not magical.”
Damiel scanned the people walking along the street. “The people all appear human as well. No one in this city of millions seems to be using magic. Nor is any magic being sold or advertised.”
After seeing the Hive soldiers in action during the battle on Nightingale last week, I’d expected us to find magic absolutely everywhere here. And powerful magic at that.
But this place was, as far as I could see, completely devoid of magic. Well, except for the fortress outside the city.
“A sky lit up with magic over a city with no magic,” I said as we walked through the magical city of no magic. “The oddity of magic and no magic side-by-side. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Damiel. “But I now know that magic has been shooting out of those fortresses into the sky for a long time.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because no one is even looking at the magic swirling overhead They don’t gawk at it. It’s apparently normal to them. It’s become so commonplace that they don’t spare it a second glance.”
“Or maybe they can’t see it?” I wondered.
“Let’s find out.”
Damiel headed toward a bar across the street. Nothing about the bland brick building front indicated it was a bar—except for the business name over the door. It read: Club Catatonic.
“These people have an odd sense of humor,” I commented to Damiel as we entered the bar.
Inside, the floors were wood, and the bar and tables too. Behind a cluster of round tables, there was a target board, something vaguely resembling a pool table, and a few other games. Nothing was run by magic here, neither lights nor the heavy jukebox in the corner.
There was more than one way to interrogate someone. Damiel had been right to come here for information. Bars were where people drank alcohol and loosened up. When people loosened up, it became easier to get information out of them. And if they were drunk, they noticed it less when you started asking them weird questions.
“Those people.” I glanced at a pair of likely candidates, two women who were drinking colorful liquor shots as they played a game that involved tossing small balls into holes in the wall.
Damiel nodded. “Good choice. They are slowly becoming inebriated, but they can still manage the game’s hand-eye coordination. That means they aren’t too drunk yet. If people are too drunk, they don’t make sense. If they aren’t drunk enough, they’re less likely to answer strangers’ questions.”
“The perfect balance.” I grinned at him. “Just as my father taught me.”
Damiel gave me a curious look. “I told you about my past. You have not reciprocated.”
“You rub my back, and I rub yours?” I said, brows raised.
“I had no idea that back-rubbing would be part of this, but yes, that would be agreeable.”
“How can you make anything sound inappropriate?”
“Rubbing is often inappropriate, except when it’s very, very appropriate.” He winked at me.
“You’re doing it again.”
“It?”
“Making everything sound dirty. How do you do it?”
“Maybe it’s the way I lift my brows like this.”
He arched his bows.
“Or drop my gaze like this.”
His eyes panned down my body like a river of molten honey—hot, smooth, and sinfully delicious.
“Or smile like this.”
His lips curled up into a dark, devious grin.
“Stop it,” I laughed.
“As you wish.” In an instant, like flipping a switch, his face went cool and professional.
“No, wait, don’t stop.”
“Stop, don’t stop—which is it?”
“Don’t stop. You make me laugh.”
“Pleased to oblige, Princess.” He took my hand and kissed the top.
I giggled.
“I’m sure General Silverstar taught you that ‘angels do not make such an unseemly, undignified noise’.” Damiel spoke the last few words in a pretty convincing imitation of my father.
I snorted.
“Or that noise,” he said sternly.
I linked my arm with his. I was laughing so hard that I doubled over and my body shook against his arm.
“Bless you.”
“I didn’t sneeze,” I told him.
“You could have fooled me.”
I laughed some more. “It’s a good thing no one from the Legion is here. Could you imagine Nyx’s face if she saw us carrying on like this, laughing like a pair of fools? She doesn’t understand that sometimes it feels good to just be silly.”
“Even when the fate of our world hangs in the balance?”
“Especially when the fate of our world hangs in the balance,” I told him. “Without laughter, without happiness, it’s harder to stay optimistic. But when you laugh, the worries weighing you down just bounce off your shoulders and you know everything is going to be ok. Try it, Damiel. You’ll feel so much better.”
He drew in a deep breath, then stopped. He looked at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m afraid that if I let my worries bounce off my shoulders, they’ll hit you in the head.”
I chuckled. “I wish you could always be this way, Damiel.”
His smile faded, his face now serious. “I can’t be, you know.”
I sighed. “I suppose laughter clashes with the Interrogator demeanor.”
“Horribly.”
“Unless it’s maniacal laughter.”
A slow, wicked grin curled his lips. “I save the maniacal laughter for only special occasions.”
“Like when you’re wearing your favorite uniform.”
“Exactly,” he said. “But if you behave, I might treat you to some maniacal laughter later.”
“And if I don’t behave?”
His eyes met mine, deep and serious. Neither of us said anything. We just stared at each other, the air crackling with supercharged tension. He closed the distance between us.
“Hi.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Behind us stood a woman with dark eyes and short pigtails dyed a bright shade of blue. She held a tray of full shot glasses in her hands.
“Could I squeeze by you?” she asked us.
Her voice was soft, her demeanor altogether likable. The smile on her face told me that a joke was always ready to bounce off the tip of her tongue.