Page 155

Dallas looked entirely lost as she glanced about, unbrushed hair hanging in her face. “Why is everyone looking at me?”

Lace rolled her eyes. “Because you train for the Fleet.”

“I know nothing about this!” Dallas said.

Jack snorted. “What’s the point in working for them if they don’t tell you jack-shit about the army?”

“I’m a trainee!” Dallas fumed. “Why would they tell me, a girl who hasn’t even got her wings yet, about their frontline soldiers?”

Max offered, “Her parents are fucking useless. Leave her alone.”

“Besides,” Dallas continued, her sharp voice drowning out whatever Dominic was trying to say, “my dad discusses nothing around me, especially since Kalendae. Honestly, I think, after everything that happened with my mom, he’s scared of the imperator.”

“With good reason,” Tanner murmured, still scrolling with the mouse, his other hand stroking the shadow of stubble on his chin. “The guy’s crazy.”

“Are you all forgetting that I used to fight with the Fleet?” Dominic interjected. “Not to mention all the other Angels in this house.” He gestured to the screen with his cup, coffee sloshing and nearly spilling on the carpet. “They’re called Elementals. They’re a Special Task Force for the Fleet, but they’re only used in rare cases of emergency because their magic is easily exhaustible. There were less than eight of them in the whole of Terra’s Fleets back when I fought for Roark.” He sipped on the coffee. “I’ve never seen this girl before.”

“This would be so much easier if her dad would just talk to us,” Lace grumbled.

Ivy tucked a strand of her hair behind an ear as she stared at the photograph of the woman. “Why do they call them Elementals?”

Dominic shrugged. “That, I don’t know. Elementals were kept out of the public eye as much as possible—again, I don’t know why. We never saw them fight, not even once.”

Tanner clicked onto the next one. A male hellseher with blonde hair, his eyes a royal blue. Missing for one week, it said.

“What does this mean?” Dallas asked, jabbing a fingertip onto the screen, the contact causing the space around it to ripple. “M: Blue.”

Max looked at her, and she looked back. They guessed in unison, their voices melding into one, “Magic?”

Tanner mused, “Blue magic.” He repeated the word, again and again, chair swiveling in a complete rotation, his socked feet nearly kicking people in the shins. He kept spinning, fingers drumming his chin. Finally, he stilled the chair with a planting of his feet against the carpet and snapped his fingers. “Has anyone ever read Blue’s aura?”

Heads turned as everyone glanced at each other. No one spoke up.

Tanner rolled his eyes. “Almost every person in this room is a hellseher, and no one’s checked her aura?”

“Don’t be so critical, you’re a hellseher too,” Max said, but his eyes turned black as he spoke, calling upon his Sight.

Ivy said, “We’ve never had any incentive to check it.” Unless they were tracking targets, or had a reason for wanting to read a person’s aura, they tended to avoid it.

Max said to Dominic, “Take off her talisman, please.”

Dominic did so without delay, the action causing Blue to startle. She stepped behind Dom, hiding herself with his wing. He urged her forward with that wing, murmuring words of comfort in Ilevyn.

Max focused on her aura, and he saw that every part of it was blazing blue, save the outline that displayed the colors of the emotions she was feeling. Right now, it was anxiety and fear, along with a touch of affection he knew was for the Angel at her side.

Max blinked away the black. “Blue. Like, crazy blue. I’ve never seen an aura like this before.” He’d seen some pretty impressive auras in his lifetime, but nothing with one shade so wholly vibrant like this. In fact, the only aura he’d ever seen that rivalled this one was Loren’s, and hers was either solid white or effervescent rainbow, all shades equal.

The other hellsehers in the room were reading it too, the barrage of black eyes that were on Blue causing her to retreat behind Dominic again, hair falling in her face.

Dallas grumbled, “I’ve never felt so useless in all my life.”

Tanner used the mouse to circle the code at the bottom of the screen again. “This—” He clicked the mouse several times for illustration. “I know what this is now. It’s a hexadecimal color code.”

Jack said, “A hexa-hoobida-whatta?”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Jack,” Max said.

“A hexadecimal color code,” Tanner repeated. He peeked over his shoulder at Jack. “I wouldn’t expect your bird brain to understand.”