by Ella Summers
“The connection will be stronger if you link hands,” Jiro told us.
Damiel and I looked at each other. He held out his hand. I stared at it for a while, trying to decide what to do with it. As I’d told him earlier, this mission was more important than what either of us wanted. And I really didn’t want to hold that jerk’s hand right now. I was still mad at him for trying to leave me behind. He knew how much that grated on an angel’s will—and hurt my feelings too.
Finally, I took his hand. The moment our magic-charged bodies touched, another jolt shot through my body with the force of a high-speed train. I looked at the shimmer of silver magic rippling across the open doorway. The Hive hadn’t even put a door in. And why would they bother? The ward kept out anyone they didn’t want.
I took a deep breath. If this didn’t work, the ward would kill us both.
We jumped through the shining magic curtain.
And didn’t die. As soon as we were clear, I let go of Damiel’s hand.
“There may be other wards,” he said.
But I didn’t take his hand again. “We’ll deal with them when we get to them.”
I started walking down the hall. The ceiling was high, the walls made of raw stone bricks. There were no decorations of any kind. Honestly, I’d expected a great deal more flamboyance from the Hive, given their ostentatious uniforms. Any one of their soldiers wore more decorative pins and insignia than even a Legion archangel.
We’d reached a four-way intersection in the hallway. Synchronized footsteps broke the absolute silence. The welcoming committee had arrived. Eight soldiers waited in front of us, eight behind, and eight each to the left and right. Four Hive squads. We’d sure jumped right into the deep end of the battle.
Damiel drew his Sapphire Tear, the Destroyer dagger. He used it to draw five flaming symbols in the air. The Immortals’ language. I’d learned a bit of it from an old book, but my mastery over it wasn’t nearly so complete. I supposed the Master Interrogator had access to the Legion’s secret stash of magic texts.
Damiel’s symbols flashed once, then exploded. The resulting shockwave knocked the Hive soldiers on their backs—and broke the bonds of magic linking them together.
We made a run for it, charging over them to make our way deeper into the fortress. Hive squads poured down every staircase, ran down every hallway. They were coming at us from all directions.
The battle on Nightingale had been a mere precursory whisper to this. Here, we were on the Hive’s home turf. There were many more of them. Breaking the bonds of their magic with the Sapphire Tear took too long. By the time Damiel broke them all, the first groups had reformed their bonds, and he had to start all over again.
“We need to destroy all their bonds at once,” I told Damiel after we took cover behind a stack of storage crates. “We need to find the source of the spell the Hive is shooting up into the sky. If that spell is what makes their magic so strong, breaking it would greatly weaken them. It would give us time to find the immortal daggers and get out of here.”
“We could hook up the eight Magitech devices to the Destroyer dagger and pulse that magic out to the Swarm soldiers,” he replied. “Do you think you could set up something like that?”
“Yes, but it will take time.”
Damiel handed me the Sapphire Tear and drew his gun. “I will cover you while you make the necessary modifications.” He fired at the approaching Hive squad, and they withdrew back around the corner. “Cadence, we need to talk.”
“About what?” I opened up the first Magitech device.
“You are upset with me.”
“Very observant. I guess that’s why you’re the Master Interrogator.”
“We need to fix this.”
But I didn’t want to talk about it. “Now?” I demanded. “You want to talk about this now?”
He fired a few shots to push the Hive soldiers back again. “Right now, you can’t run off.”
“I’m busy.” I had all eight devices open now.
“You’re a very clever angel. You can multitask.”
“Oh? I thought it was you who’s smarter than everyone else.”
He frowned. “You know what I meant by that.”
That he could outmaneuver everyone. But I didn’t enjoy being outmaneuvered.
“I’m not really interested in hashing out who’s dominant right now, Damiel.”
“There is little point in doing so. I am dominant. I outrank you,” he said in a voice that was more factual than arrogant.
“Maybe I’m not willing for things to be unequal in our relationship.”
“You are taking this entirely too personally.”
“It is personal. Your decision to exclude me from this mission was personal.”
“For your protection. I thought you’d appreciate that I cared.”
“I don’t appreciate being ordered to stand on the sidelines, powerless to help you. You should have treated me like the angel that I am.”
A heavy sigh rocked his chest. “I know. But you aren’t just an angel to me, Cadence. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
“You need to trust that I can take care of myself. Or at least that we can take care of each other. If you can’t do that, then this will never be more than an assigned marriage.” I handed him the Sapphire Tear, which was now magically linked to the eight Magitech devices. “It’s ready.”
His hand closed around the hilt. He drew several lines of Immortal symbols this time. They burned brighter and brighter, until they were a flash of blinding white light. I shielded my eyes.
There was a boom, and then the light went out.
I stepped out from behind the boxes and looked around. Hive soldiers everywhere were rising from the ground, their eyes unsteady, their movements disoriented.
“The spell has been broken,” Damiel said, sheathing his dagger. “Magic is no longer shooting out of this fortress.”
“Stop!”
A young woman with a witch symbol pinned to her red Hive uniform was running at us, her long brown braid swooshing against the floor. I recognized her face. I’d seen it hanging in Grant’s office back at the rebel base.
“What have you done?!” she demanded, her big, blue eyes trembling. “What have you done?!”
The building creaked.
She looked up at the ceiling in alarm. “You broke the bonds of our magic. You severed us from one another.”
“You’ll live,” Damiel replied coolly.
“Don’t you see? We won’t live. We won’t survive this,” the witch said, her voice trembling with the onset of hysteria. “When you broke the magic bonds between everyone in this building, you disrupted the Plume.”
That must have been what they called that magic pillar shooting into the sky.
“That Plume is critical,” she said. “Without us, the other temples cannot handle the load. Without us, we are all doomed.”
“What does the Plume do?” I asked her.
“You destroyed it, and you don’t even know what it does?” She collapsed against the wall, weighed down by despair.
“It is what keeps you in power.”
“No, the Plumes aren’t about power. They are about the survival of this world and everyone on it,” she whimpered. “The Plumes that shoot up from our temples are all that’s keeping everyone on this world alive. And without this temple, without the unified magic of everyone in it, every person on our world will die in a matter of hours.”
21
Children of the Undying
“You are Naida,” I said to the young witch.
Surprise flashed in her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“We’ve met your brother.”
Remorse marred her perfect complexion.
“What exactly do the Plumes do?” I asked her.
“It’s too complicated for most people to understand.”
“I’m actually kind of clever myself. Try me.” I showed her the Magitech devices I’d modified to w
ork together with the Sapphire Tear.
Her eyes swept across the array of interconnected parts. “You did that?”
I nodded.
“You are clever,” she agreed. “All right. Here it is. Many years ago, long before I or anyone else now living was born, something happened to our world. We don’t know how it happened, but we were left with the terrible consequence. Our world’s magnetic field is gone.”
“And your atmosphere?” I asked.
“Swept away.”
“The Plumes…they are counteracting that,” I realized.
“Yes, the Collective’s fire, the magic pooled from every supernatural we have, has burned nonstop for decades. It is that spell that shoots out of every temple. The spell that keeps our world’s atmosphere intact. It keeps us all alive.”
“That’s why only humans live in your cities.”
Naida nodded. “Yes. Anyone who shows any signs of magic is immediately brought to the nearest temple. We are trained as Keepers of the Plumes, put to work keeping the fires alive—and our world inhabitable.”
“So you aren’t using all that magic, those spells, those pillars of light, to launch an attack on Earth?” I asked her. “You aren’t brewing some revenge plot on us?”
“We have more than enough problems keeping our own world in one piece to devote any resources to destroying other worlds.”
We’d been so wrong about the Hive. We’d assumed they were violent, power-hungry aggressors, but it was out of necessity, the need to survive, that they’d come together and figured out how to use their magic collectively. That was how their magic had evolved, how it had been shaped to ensure their survival.
“We have to stop this,” I told Damiel. “We can’t allow this world and all the people in it to die.”
“You trust too easily.” He leveled an assessing stare at Naida. “She might be lying.”
True. I had trusted Colonel Spellstorm, and it had almost cost us the Earth. I couldn’t shake that doubt, the doubt that I could be wrong again.
“Then read her mind,” I told Damiel.
Damiel continued to stare at the young woman, his eyes narrowing. “Her magic lies firmly in the art of witchcraft.”
Naida was completely still. Damiel’s magic had trapped her. He stared into her eyes, eyes that trembled with fear.
“She knows nothing of Earth or us,” he finally declared. “There is no plan to attack our world. She is telling the truth.”
He released his magic hold on Naida. She collapsed against the wall, heaving in deep breaths.
“We must repair the spell keeping this world alive,” I said to Damiel. “We put them in danger, and so we must fix it.”
“Agreed.”
“How can we fix it?” I asked Naida.
“You can’t. It’s too late.” Tears splashed her cheeks. “We don’t have enough magic. By the time our temple’s Collective has regained our connection to the larger Collective, the spell will have degraded beyond repair. The spell requires all of us to maintain it, every temple in the world, all at once. Our world will die. And because we can no longer flee it, we will die right along with it.”
“Surely there’s something we can do,” I said. “Our magic can help until your people rebuild their connections to one another.”
“You two are undeniably very powerful, but you are not equal to hundreds of us. No, it’s too late.” She slouched against the wall, sliding down to the floor in despair. She buried her face in her knees.
“Why did you steal the magic daggers from the Magic Eaters?” Damiel asked her.
“We stole them?” she said, indignant. “No, they are the thieves. They stole the daggers from us. We merely took back what is rightfully ours.”
“It’s irrelevant whether you stole them first or just stole them back,” he told her. “What is relevant is why you did it.”
“The daggers are very powerful. Powerful enough, we hoped, to solve our problem.”
“To keep the spell on your world running?” I asked.
“No, the actual problem. The daggers work collectively, each one building on the others’ powers. We believe that if we collect enough of the daggers, we could completely repair our world’s magnetic field. We could rebuild our natural atmosphere so we didn’t need the magic one anymore. We wouldn’t need to maintain the Plumes at all.”
“Magic users could go home again,” I said. “They would be free of this burden. They wouldn’t need to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.”
Tears streamed down Naida’s cheeks. “Yes. And then we could all go home. We could be with our families again.”
“You could be with your brother again.”
She nodded. “Yes.” She quickly brushed her tears away. “But that will never happen. We weren’t strong enough, quick enough, worthy enough. And so our world will perish—and us along with it.”
“How many of the daggers do you need to repair your world’s magnetic field?” Damiel asked her.
“We witches have studied the problem and believe six daggers should be sufficient to complete the task. But it wouldn’t matter if we had all sixteen daggers, since there is no one here who can wield them. That requires someone with a very special blend of magic…”
Her voice faded out as her eyes grew wide. “You two. You have wielded the daggers before. You have this special blend of magic.” She jumped to her feet and set a hand on each of our shoulders, shaking us desperately. “You must help us. How many daggers do you possess?”
“Two,” I told her.
Hope died in her eyes. “Two. We have three. Together that makes five, which just isn’t enough.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said.
“We need six.”
“That’s only a guess.”
“A very educated guess.”
“But a guess nonetheless,” I pointed out. “Five might do it.”
She shook her head. “It’s not enough.”
“One thing you’ve got to understand about angels is, we are not in thrall to the earthly whims of mathematics.” I looked at Damiel as I said it.
He arched a single brow at me. Obviously, he highly appreciated being treated to an encore of his own words.
“Where are your three daggers?” he asked Naida.
“In the Depository, just down those stairs.” She pointed at a staircase that led down.
“Take us there,” I said to her.
Cautious hope flickered in her eyes. “Ok.”
We followed her down the stairs—to a pair of completely gold doors, etched with magical beasts and forest trees. Naida set her hands on the shiny surface. A white light slid over the doors, encasing her hands. The doors groaned open.
The Hive’s Depository was hardly large enough to fit the three of us inside. Directly opposite the doors, down-lights shone on a wall painted bright teal. There were sixteen dagger-shaped slots in the wall, arranged into two circles of eight slots each. A simple illustration was painted beside every slot. I recognized many of the illustrations as our own symbols for magical abilities.
Three of the dagger slots were occupied.
“The Ruby Tear,” Naida said, indicating one dagger in the active magic circle. The symbol of a blood drop was painted on the wall beside it. “It embodies the power of vampires.”
She pointed at another dagger in the active magic circle. It was beside the eye picture, the symbol for telepathy. “The Amethyst Tear, which has the power of telepathy, of sight.”
The third dagger lay inside the passive magic circle. “And the Emerald Tear, which represents the power of the genie. Wish fulfillment.” The symbol representing this ability was a distinct genie-style lamp, the symbol most commonly associated with the genie.
Damiel and I pulled the three daggers down from the wall. The guardian spirits must have already accepted us. This time they didn’t even put us through the motions of proving ourselves worthy.
I set all five daggers that we had on
a small nearby table, looking them over. “I think they can be combined.” Suddenly, the weapons felt malleable in my hands. I could turn and twist and fold them into shape. By the time I was finished, the five daggers had become one sword.
“Why did you build them up that way?” Damiel asked me.
“I don’t know. I just felt it was right.”
“The daggers could have been combined into many other configurations.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” He pointed at the sword. “You have the Emerald Tear below, using its hilt for the sword’s handle. The Emerald Tear is the dominant power in that configuration. The other daggers are reenforcing that magic, boosting it. Focusing it.”
“The power of the wish,” I said.
And then it dawned on me. My mind had finally caught up to the instinct which had compelled me to build the daggers together in this way.
“The power of the wish is a passive magic ability,” I said. “It draws on people’s hopes and dreams to create the magic to make the wish come true.” I turned to Naida. “All the magic users on this world are putting everything they have—magic and mind—into making your world right again. We’ll just have to hope that all of their wishes together are enough to make this work.”
Damiel and I set our hands over the hilt, wielding the sword more by instinct than experience. I felt like the five immortal daggers were guiding us, telling us just what to do.
Magic flashed out from the sword, like a sun pulsing bright. And then there was total silence, except for the faint ringing in my ears. For a few moments, time seemed to stop.
And then, just like that, everything returned to normal.
“It’s done,” I said, feeling drained but satisfied. It was a nice feeling to fix something for a change, not just cut and slash and destroy anything and everything that stood in my way.
Naida glanced down at the tablet in her hands. Her eyes grew wide when she read the screen.
“You’ve done it. You’ve repaired our world’s magnetic field.” Her eyes trembled. “Our atmosphere is saved. We are saved.” She gaped at the sword I’d made from the five immortal daggers. “They are very powerful artifacts indeed.”