by Ella Summers
“Leda is trying to make the Legion’s initiation ritual safer for initiates,” Alice told Jace. “Dr. Harding is experimenting with Nectar to see if it can be done.”
“That’s ambitious.” Jace looked at me. “Most angels won’t like that any more than they like your Angels’ Court. They want people to believe the Nectar is only for the chosen few. They don’t want too many people to be worthy. It’s about sacrifice.”
“It’s exactly that kind of thinking that leads to the Archangel Trials, where an angel needs to sacrifice the one they love most,” I said. “Sacrifice. This is all about sacrifice. When we join the Legion of Angels, we’re told our lives are over, that we belong to the Legion now. They separate us from our past, from humans and supernaturals. And then the sacrifices continue. To become an archangel, you need to sacrifice even more. You need to kill the person you love most.”
“Have you told Xerxes?” Alice asked me.
“I’ve tried to speak to him, to warn him, but he refuses to hear anything at all I have to say about the Archangel Trials.”
“Xerxes is very proud. He wants to win by playing by the rules.”
“In the Archangel Trials, even if you win, you lose,” I told her. “The gods designed it that way. The Trials aren’t about how strong or how good you are; they’re about if you are willing to sacrifice what you love most in this world.”
Jace looked at his mother. “Her.”
“They won’t do it now, not while she’s pregnant,” I said. “When Cadence was pregnant with Nero, they had Damiel’s best friend go with him to his Archangel Trials. They sent Jiro there to be sacrificed. But now, I don’t even know who else they’d send with your father. Jace, you’re an angel. The Legion is very short on angels right now. The gods won’t sacrifice one angel to promote another to archangel. They will wait until Alice has given birth.”
“And then they will send her off to die,” Jace said darkly.
“Not if we can help it,” I told him. “I’ve asked Ronan to try to change the others’ minds about the sacrifice, but he is only one god. I can’t imagine Zarion or Aleris agreeing to change anything, and the other four gods won’t be easy to convince either.” I offered Alice and Jace a smile. “Still, we have eight months to figure this out. And we will. I promise you we will save your mother, Jace.”
He clasped my hands. “Thank you for helping us, Leda, even though it’s against the rules.”
“I’ll remind you that you thanked me for breaking the rules the next time you lecture me about rules.”
Jace hugged me. So did his mother.
“May the gods bless you and your child, Leda,” she said solemnly.
“Ah, shucks, you’re making me blush.”
“If you’re all quite finished hugging…” Stash smirked. “…I need to clear up some security issues with Leda before today’s Angels’ Court.”
“Of course,” Jace said, then he and Alice left the room.
When we were alone, Stash turned to me. “You are risking a lot to help them, Leda. Disrupting the gods’ order isn’t something one should take lightly. Faris does not wish to kill you, but once your child is born, he might decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth to him.”
“Faris will most likely try to kill me anyway once my daughter is born,” I replied. “And he will try to kill Nero too. Not that we’re going to allow that to happen. As long as we’re in the picture, Faris will never truly control our daughter. So I guess we have eight months to figure out a solution to that problem too.”
“I will help you in any way I can.” Stash set his hand over his heart.
And I set my hand over his. “I know you will.”
We started walking to the Court Chamber.
“How are you handling being caught in the middle of the conflict between Zarion and Faris?” I asked him.
“For now, they’re both happy with where I am, and so neither is asking anything from me. Sooner or later, each will try to force my hand against the other. I’ll deal with that problem when I have to. Naturally, I’ve set up contingency plans for that stormy day. But until then, I’m going to live my life day by day. I have to try to live for myself as much as possible, you know?”
“I can help you deal with Faris and Zarion,” I offered.
“That is nice of you, Leda, but don’t you think you have more than enough on your plate already?”
“Truth be told, my plate is overflowing, but I’m not about to let that stand in my way of helping the people I love.”
Stash stared at me for a bit, then pulled me in for a big hug. “Thanks, sweetness. You really are my favorite cousin.”
“Do you even have any other cousins?” I chuckled.
“We do,” Stash told me. “Zarion and Faris have another brother, named Regin, but they don’t ever talk about him. Apparently, the gods all consider him quite mad.”
“He must really be off his rocker if the other gods think him mad.”
Stash nodded. “He really is. And so are all ten of his children.”
“Ten children? Whoa.”
Gods were even less fertile than angels. And even for a human, ten children would have been pushing the boundaries of fertility.
“Rumor has it Regin’s children were the product of some pretty foul magic,” Stash said. “The gods won’t even speak of it.”
I cringed. “Which means it’s really, really bad, or they don’t even know how it happened.”
“Regin and his children live on eleven distant moons that orbit the same world,” Stash told me. “Those moons are barren, desolate places with no portals to anywhere else. They’re much like prisons actually. And Regin and his ten children are all kept separate because the gods can’t trust them when they are together. They would gather too much power—and likely scheme to overthrow the gods’ council.”
“They sound like a lovely bunch of megalomaniacs.”
“Faris once gave my team the job of checking up on Regin and all of his offspring,” said Stash. “All of them are completely bonkers, through and through.”
I smiled at him. “Well, I’m honored you like me more than our other crazy cousins.”
Stash chuckled. When he stepped back, I spotted a tear in his eye.
“Hey, badass, are you crying?”
“I apologize for my weakness, Leda.”
I wiped his tear away. “Don’t be afraid to let them see us cry, sweat, and bleed. For it is not a sign of weakness. It is a strength they cannot understand and therefore fear.”
Stash nodded. “Very wise words.”
“Yeah, they are. I once read them on a roll of inspiration toilet paper.”
Stash laughed.
We’d reached the entrance to the Court Chamber. Cadence, Andromeda, and Alice were waiting for us there. Jace must have already flown back to his office on the ground.
Punch and Patch stood on either side of the double doors.
“Give ‘em hell, Pandora,” Punch said.
I winked at him. “I always do.”
His grin widened as he and his brother opened the doors for us. I entered the room with Cadence at my side. As always, Andromeda and Alice followed just a few steps behind us.
The Chamber was decked out as grandly as before, though Tessa had added considerably more flowers. The place smelled divine. My sister had also hung three banners behind the dais where our four chairs waited for us.
Cadence’s banner displayed a female angel, in full halo. The angel, which looked a lot like Cadence, held her glowing sword over her hand. Her wings were spread out, wide and majestic, in all their heavenly glory. Her angel name ‘Lightbringer’ was printed in a large, grand font under the picture.
My emblem was a female angel holding a box, opened just a crack, with monsters lurking on either side of me. My wings were folded protectively around my body—no, around the box in my hands. The wings were shielding the box from the monsters that lurked at the banner’s fringes. ‘Pandora’ was writt
en in a more whimsical font than Cadence’s ‘Lightbringer’.
The third banner was Jace’s, a sign of respect for our host angel. Even though he wasn’t here with us, we were in his territory. His emblem was of a male angel who held a flaming sword in each hand. His name ‘Angelblood’ was written, big and bold, below him.
All the banners’ illustrations were colorful and realistic. They looked like playing cards from the game of Legion, which was well-known for its high-quality art.
The four of us took our seats, and then the sergeant with the big, booming voice began our introductions. They lasted longer this time, since he had to pay respect to our host angel. And Jace had two other angels in his family history that required mention.
Finally, I could declare, “The Angels’ Court may now commence.”
19
Miracle
The Angels’ Court took a recess for lunch, and we returned to the garden library. I glanced up as the door to the library opened, but it wasn’t the kitchen staff with the food I’d ordered. It was Leila and Basanti.
I stood, surprised by their appearance, but glad to see them. “What are you doing here?”
Neither Basanti nor Leila answered. Their faces were blank, like they were trying to keep some really bad news from me.
“Are those burn marks on your jacket?” I asked Basanti. “Has there been an attack on Storm Castle?”
“No,” she replied. “For the past few weeks, Leila and I have been running some experiments with magic and the weather at Storm Castle.”
“We’re trying to figure out if we can calm the weather and magic in the Earth’s wild areas,” Leila added. “Just as Cadence and Damiel did on the Interchange. And in doing so, they wiped out all the monsters on that world. It’s simply a matter of balancing the planet’s magic completely.”
Cadence smiled at her former protégé. “To accomplish that, Damiel and I had simply just absorbed the powers of sixteen immortal daggers, realizing our destiny as Keepers, the most powerful of the Immortals. And we had just died and been reborn in a pool of boiling lava. The magic from all of that happening exploded from us and balanced the world’s magic once more.”
“I’m no scientist, but it doesn’t sound like those are conditions we can easily repeat,” I said.
“No,” Leila agreed. “True, we don’t have sixteen immortal daggers at our disposal, but the principle of using magic to balance the Earth’s wild magic remains the same. Without the benefit of all that Immortal Keeper magic, we’re going for precision over power.”
Leila laughed strangely. Uneasily. She sounded weird, kind of mad-scientist-like. She was definitely not her usual straight-talking-soldier self.
“Experiments, you say?” I said. “So what happened? Did you two nearly blow yourselves up or something?”
“No,” Leila said, distracted. “Well, maybe we blew ourselves up just a little.” She gave her hand a casual, dismissive wave. “But our injuries were minor.”
I arched my brows at her. “And now you’re hanging out with us because…”
Basanti said, “After the accident—”
“The nearly-blowing-yourselves-up accident?”
“Yes,” Basanti answered me. “Afterwards, Ivy was looking us over. And she found something else.”
I waved my hands around. “Don’t leave us hanging, girls.”
“We’re pregnant,” Leila declared.
So not bad news, but certainly surprising news.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Which one of you?”
“Both of us,” Leila said.
My eyes grew wide. “Both of you? At the same time?”
“Yes,” Basanti said.
“To the day,” Leila added.
“Not to sound indelicate, but…”
“You are rarely delicate, Leda Pandora,” Leila told me.
I smiled and shrugged.
“The babies have no father,” Leila answered my unasked question.
“Then how did this happen?” I asked.
Basanti shook her head. “We have no idea.”
“Because typically to get a baby, a man and a woman—”
“Thank you, Professor Pandora,” Basanti cut me off. “We all know how babies are made.”
“Well, apparently, you don’t know how these babies were made,” I pointed out.
“According to Ivy’s tests, the babies are the biological product of Basanti and myself,” Leila said.
“And these experiments you were running…”
“Were strictly about the magic of the Earth’s weather and elements,” said Leila. “It did not involve our DNA or test tubes.”
“There’s more,” Basanti said. “According to Ivy, we’re both nearly two months pregnant.”
“The same as all of you,” Leila added.
“This is just getting weirder and weirder,” I said to Cadence.
“Indeed,” she agreed. “First, we all come down with the Fever and all get pregnant in the same cycle.”
“And now Leila and Basanti got each other pregnant,” I said. “Has that ever happened before?”
Cadence shook her head. “No.”
Basanti looked at me, her eyes narrowed. “I blame Leda.”
“Why me?”
“You started this. It must be contagious.”
“I’m pretty sure pregnancy is not contagious,” I laughed.
“When you do it, it is.”
My smile wobbled. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“You’re the Angel of Chaos. The laws of nature get all wonky whenever you’re around.”
“True. Maybe we should quarantine her. Before this spreads further.” Leila winked at me.
“I’m already effectively quarantined,” I sighed. “And so are all of you, here in our gilded airship guarded by gods and elite Vanguard soldiers.”
“This is truly fascinating. So many angel offspring conceived at once. And now the two of you.” There was a spark of academic delight in Cadence’s eyes. She looked liked she wanted to throw on a lab coat and figure this all out.
“Your pregnancies are truly a miracle,” I told Basanti and Leila.
Basanti sat down beside me. “Tell it to my queasy stomach.”
I patted her back. “You know what helps with that? Cake. Lots of cake.”
“You should not give nutritional advice to anyone, Pandora,” Basanti said with wary eyes.
“You’re just grumpy because you’re pregnant, so Nyx exiled you to hide away here just like the rest of us,” I told her, smiling. “But at least you and Leila get to spend time with each other. We haven’t seen our husbands in days. It could be weeks before we do. Or maybe months.”
“The Angel of Chaos has a point,” Leila said to Basanti.
“Sure, there’s the nausea and the peeing every hour, but there are perks to pregnancy too,” I told them.
“Like what?” Basanti asked, looking quite miserable.
I grinned at her. Then I pulled out my phone and added even more food to our lunch order.
Our lunch arrived at the same time as Stash did. The three guys from the kitchen walked in after my demigod cousin, pushing carts very full with food.
“You think you ordered enough to eat, Leda?” Stash commented.
“No, but I can always order more,” I said brightly.
“The kitchen is going to run out of food.”
“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve already approved an increase in our food budget.”
Angels got to do important things like that.
“Our pregnancies are certainly costing the Legion a lot of money,” Cadence commented.
I smirked at her. “I’m not the one craving all that fancy food.”
“Schnitzel is not fancy food, Leda.”
“Sure it is.” I grabbed a fat fry with my fingers. “It’s fancy because you have to eat it with a knife and a fork.”
“I love being pregnant again,” Alice said happily. “The rest of
the time, the Legion has all these rules about what you may and may not eat.”
“Especially in the Central Territory,” said Leila. “When it comes to nutritionally-balanced meals, Fireswift is hardcore, even for an angel.”
“Yes, he is,” Alice said. “I know those nutritionally-balanced meals are key to ensuring soldiers operate at peak performance, but sometimes I just want to eat something fun.”
I looked at her yogurt with berries. It even had granola sprinkled on top.
“Now let’s not get too crazy,” I told her.
“But when I’m pregnant, I can eat whatever and how much ever I want. It’s glorious.” Alice ate a spoonful of her totally healthy yogurt. She closed her eyes, and a decidedly dreamy look fell over her whole face.
“It is awesome,” I agreed. “I can finally order coffee again. And have ice cream with every meal. I can finally do that too.”
“I bet you always did that,” Cadence teased me.
I dropped a scoopful of ice cream into my coffee. “True.” I grinned.
“It’s not just about the food. It’s also the pampering,” Andromeda said. “Bubblebaths, facials, manicures, hair treatments, beauty treatments…we can get whatever we want. And all because we carry the Legion’s future inside of us.”
“So much for the famous self-discipline of the Legion’s soldiers,” Stash chuckled.
“Hey, do you want to be pregnant?” I asked him.
“No. Not really.” He looked horrified by the very idea of it.
I laughed, then continued listening to Cadence’s description of wing massages. They sounded heavenly. I wondered if I could convince Nero to give me one. Of course I didn’t say that in front of Cadence. She was Nero’s mother, after all, so that would have been just too weird.
“You two should join us for our morning pregnancy yoga,” Alice said to Leila and Basanti.
“I’m not flexible,” Basanti stated matter-of-factly.
“That’s ok. Neither is Leda,” Alice pointed out.
“Hey! I’m getting better. I actually managed to touch my toes this morning.”